A more meaningful way to communicate
There are three phases to a Late Checkout project. In the first phase, Richardson will work on an initial concept and pitch it to the client. In the second phase, the team will start on wireframes and product design. By the third phase, they’ll have a working prototype for the client to review—and hopefully develop into a fully-fledged product.
At each stage of the process, clear communication between colleagues is key. Richardson is based in Toronto, while the designers on his team live in Nigeria and Indonesia. Coordinating schedules can be tricky. When meeting live for a video call isn’t possible, tools like Dropbox Capture have been a huge help, making it easy for the team to send short video messages and screen recordings of their work. A designer might use Capture to send an update at the end of their day, just as Richardson is starting his. Or Richardson might send the latest client feedback to his designers while they sleep, so it’s waiting for them when they wake up.
They could just as easily send these updates as Slack messages or emails—but Richardson prefers the visual and emotional texture that only video can convey. He loves that he can use his hands to express himself, and the intimacy of being able to show someone what he’s talking about on screen while he’s also on screen. He can use more words and convey how he’s feeling with his tone of voice. “Those textural elements really come through and they really help,” he says.
For example, when his team gets great feedback on a project, Richardson wants them to actually feel it in the way he passes the news along.
“If you type out, ‘the client was stoked,’ versus [saying] ‘Whoa! Guys, the client was stoked’—and you're using your hands and using your tone of voice—the message gets conveyed in a very different way,” Richardson says. “I think it's a more meaningful way with a video on Capture.”
He also sees Capture as a valuable tool in his remote work culture-building toolbox. Richardson frequently uses async videos to motivate, inspire, and energize colleagues for whom opportunities for live syncs might be slim, and appreciates that he can see the energy around a project evolve over time. “If they can both get my point more clearly, and feel more inspired and excited, that's awesome,” Richardson says. “I would say the inverse is true, too, for me.”