BoSA Winner Talk: Of virtual worlds and tangible energy

At the Winner Talk of the "Best of Swiss Apps" awards, two winning teams gave insights into their work. The creators of the "Bitumen VR" app talked about learning virtual welding, while Helion and Dept reported on the development of the master app.

Miika Puputti, Executive Creative Director at Dentsu Creative; Valentin Holzwarth Co-Founder of AtlasVR; Daniel Stamm, Head of Education at Suissetec; Ramon Müller, Product Owner at Helion and Milo Peter, Experience Director at Dept (from left to right). (Image: Dentsu)

On Wednesday, the Winner Talk took place in Zurich following the Award Night of the "Best of Swiss Apps" Awards 2024. Giancarlo Palmisani, Head of Association Services at the Swico trade association, welcomed the guests to the premises of Dentsu Switzerland.

From the virtual to the real world

Valentin Holzwarth, one of the three founders of AtlasVR, presented the "Bitumen VR" app, the world's first VR training app for flat roof welding. He spoke about the development path of the virtual training technology. This led the creators of the app through many rounds of brainstorming, the consultation of technical experts and the final development and programming. AtlasVR and the client Suissetec took a critical look at the added value of the app to be developed, the opportunities and risks and the gos and no-gos. Before the idea of "Bitumen VR" was born, they had already considered a number of other options, such as welding simulators or press loops, to teach trainees how to weld. However, none of these ideas came to fruition due to the high material and disposal costs. "Then - rather unexpectedly - we ended up with Bitumen VR," says Holzwarth. And so began the development of "Bitumen VR" and with it virtual welding.

The client Suissetec also waved the proposed app concept through. This also solved the cost problem. According to Holzwarth, 27 tons of material costs can be saved annually with Bitumen VR, and disposal costs are also eliminated.

Valentin Holzwarth from AtlasVR (left) and Daniel Stamm from Suissetec provided insights into the development of "Bitumen VR". (Image: Dentsu)

23 weeks - according to the AtlasVR co-founder, that's how long it took to develop the app that brings welding from the real to the virtual world. After a few sleepless nights during the development phase, the app was finally rolled out. But that wasn't the end of the story: A Switzerland-wide app launch, instructor training, tech support - all of this is also part of the process, says Holzwarth. Daniel Stamm, Head of Training at Suisstec, emphasized that convincing instructors and apprentices to recognize the added value of the virtual welder application should not be underestimated. "All levels have to be brought on board, which is a challenge," he said.

However, Suissetec and AtlasVR are confident that "Bitumen VR" will soon be used in many inter-company welding courses. The fact that the app won gold in the Extended Reality category at the Best of Swiss Apps 2024 Award Night is certainly a good starting point for development. AtlasVR is aiming to develop further applications with similar added value. One thing is particularly important to the young company: focusing on added value right from the start.

Making the sun tangible

The development team of the "Helion One App" and Winner of the Master of Swiss Apps also offered guests at the Winner Talk a "deep dive" into his experiences during the project. The new development, which also won gold in the Customer Experience, Design and Functionality categories at the Award Night in addition to the Master title, replaces the old app with the Helion 2.0 version. Milo Peter, Experience Director at Dept, explained that the reason for this upgrade was that the first app version came from the category "By engineers - for engineers". The aim was therefore to work with Helion to build a new app that all customers would find easy to use. The development team immersed themselves in the topic by investing a lot of time in research and gathering customer feedback. Peter showed the guests at the Winner Talk some of the different approaches they were considering, particularly for the new design of the app. With many discussions, the team was "going in many directions". However, they often heard feedback along the lines of "the design is too abstract, too technical, not emotional enough".

Milo Peter, Experience Director at Dept (left) and Ramon Müller from Helion on the new version of the "Helion One App". (Image: Netzmedien)

"Based on this feedback that we should make the whole thing more emotional and make the energy transition tangible, we moved away from the abstract elements and tried to visualize the sun," said Peter. In the app, the sun is representative of solar production. The aim of visualizing the course of the day in the app is to show users how much energy they consume. At its core, however, is the optimization of the solar energy consumed. This was the starting signal for the app's creators to launch the main project. After setting up the design system and making many changes and simplifications, the app was ready to be used by all target groups. "We want to pick up the retired grandpa just as much as the IT geek," says Ramon Müller from Helion. In summary, Müller said that the app is now "more colorful, emotional and modern than the previous version". The focus is on Helion's differentiation strategy: standing out from the competition and offering real added value with the new app. In conclusion, he added: "Ultimately, we want to get closer to our goal and create a 100% renewable Switzerland". (Dylan Windhaber/rja)


This article first appeared in Netzwoche.

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