Velamentis

Workplace Harassment Educational Platform

Velamentis wanted a platform to support people dealing with toxic workplaces, but started with only a high level idea and no product built. Ollon led UX design through multiple iterations, first prototyping a data reporting tool, then pivoting to build an educational platform instead. Ollon helped Velamentis define its target audience and delivered the product through design and prototyping.

Situation

Velamentis is an organization passionate about raising awareness and supporting employees dealing with toxic workplaces. They are committed to building resources and tools to create a community for those in challenging situations to survive and thrive despite them.

Solution

Ollon was brought on early in Velamentis' ideation phase, while the organization was establishing itself and its purpose. After multiple iterations of UX design, an initial prototype application was designed to capture data for reporting purposes, however it proved challenging for the end user to use successfully.

Results

Throughout the project, Ollon helped Velamentis determine who their target is and what the product needed to be in order to realize their vision. By working together from an early stage in the organization's inception, we were able to build and adapt, working collaboratively to bring their vision to life.

Technologies

NextJS, NodeJS, Contentful

Our Expertise in Action

UI/UX design and prototyping

Velamentis came to Ollon with a high level idea, not yet a defined product, so the first real work was figuring out what that idea should actually look like on screen. Ollon ran multiple rounds of UX design before landing on an initial prototype built to capture data for reporting, testing it directly with the people meant to use it. When that version proved difficult for end users to work with, design started over around a new direction, an educational platform, carrying through the same cycle of visual design, prototypes, and feedback until the experience held up with real users.

MVP development and product-market fit

The first version Ollon built for Velamentis was a data capture tool meant to support reporting, but testing with real users revealed it was too difficult to use in practice. Velamentis and Ollon used that finding directly, pivoting the entire system into an educational platform instead, rebuilding UX design, visual design, and prototypes around the new direction until it held up with real users. That platform launched in July 2023, and Ollon kept building on it afterward, adding a tutorial and quiz based learning system, a paid monetization flow through Square, and a user dashboard for tracking progress. What started as an early data capture prototype became a live, monetized product built around what users actually needed.

Rapid prototyping

Velamentis started with only a high level idea, so committing straight to a full build risked spending months on a direction that might not work. Ollon got a testable prototype of the reporting focused concept in front of real users quickly, rather than only refining it on paper first. That early test caught the usability problem before any further engineering went into the product, letting the team change direction while the cost of doing so was still low. The same fast test and adjust approach carried into the educational platform pivot, keeping each new idea cheap to validate before more was built on top of it.

Contentful

Tutorial and learning content for Velamentis needed a structure flexible enough to support modules, lessons, and quizzes without a developer rebuilding pages every time new material was added. Ollon built the content model in Contentful specifically around that tutorial structure, covering how modules, series, and individual lessons related to each other. Content updates for the tutorial system moved through that model directly, letting new learning material go live without changes to the underlying application code.

Team mentoring and coaching

Velamentis became more than a client project for Ollon, it also served as a training ground for newer developers on Ollon's own team. Senior developers on the account regularly reviewed pull requests, ran code reviews, and worked directly alongside newer team members and an intern brought onto the project, walking through real production issues as they came up. That mentoring ran continuously alongside client work for well over a year, giving newer developers hands on experience on a live product instead of isolated training exercises.