Ideaclouds

Client: Ideaclouds
Industry: Enterprise SaaS · Workshop platform
Scope: Web app · UI/UX · Product strategy · Design system
Year: 2024–2025
Lumixel role: Product strategy + UI/UX + Design system

The problem — Workshops stretched across weeks. One voice dominated the room. Good ideas died to hierarchy bias. By the time a decision emerged, momentum was gone.

The outcome — Enterprise onboarding dropped from six weeks to four days. Setup takes ninety seconds. Workshops finish in one sitting. Fifteen workshop methods run from one design system. Nokia, Bosch, and MAHLE run it without custom code.

Context

A team of twelve inside Nokia, Bosch, MAHLE, TÜV Nord, and Schneider Electric had watched the same pattern play out for years. Workshops stretched across weeks. One voice dominated the room. Good ideas died to hierarchy bias. By the time a decision emerged, momentum was gone.

They built Ideaclouds, Input, Evaluate, Decide, to close that gap: parallel contribution, anonymous scoring, structured consensus. The product worked. The design did not yet match its ambition. Enterprise buyers expected polish and white-labeling out of the box, and the platform could not deliver either fast enough.

Two constraints worth naming. The platform had to support fifteen distinct workshop methods, each with its own card types, scoring logic, and layout, from one component system. Enterprise clients needed white-labeling tight enough to feel like an internal tool, fast enough not to bottleneck sales.

The approach — Decisions first. Execution scoped from those decisions.

Phase 01

Architecture

Five weeks. We did not draw screens.

01
Information maps across three roles.
Facilitators, participants, and administrators each touch the workshop at different depths. We mapped what each role needed at each phase, and where each surface should stop showing more.
02
User flows for the full workshop lifecycle.
From workshop creation through Input, Evaluate, Decide, and out to results and export. Every transition documented before any pixel was drawn.
03
Low-fidelity wireframes for every state.
Empty, mid-flow, full, edge, error. Reviewed end to end before colour, type, or component decisions entered the conversation.
04
One review session. One pushback.
Phase controls felt too survey-like. We adjusted. They signed off. Phase 2 started Monday. Nothing was revisited.

Phase 02

Execution

Four parallel tracks. Each one designed against a specific moment in the facilitator's day.

Selected work — Visual proof across the platform.

Workshop creation that respects your time.

Facilitators are senior managers scheduling between meetings. A hybrid creation flow surfaces the six most-used methods first with visual previews and one-line descriptions; a Show-All toggle reveals the full library for power users. Settings group by phase, Input, Evaluate, Decide, matching how facilitators think. Ninety seconds from login to live session.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, create workshop modal form with title, technique selection, and anonymous contributions toggle — Workshop creation flow, pick a method, set the phases, name the room. Ninety seconds from login to live session.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, workshop details modal with created-on, type, facilitator, and access controls — Workshop creation flow, pick a method, set the phases, name the room. Ninety seconds from login to live session.

A canvas with a pulse.

A phase-aware canvas with distinct visual states. Input creates a live mosaic of incoming cards. Evaluate locks into a structured scoring grid. Decide collapses to a ranked list with clear consensus indicators. The facilitator controls rhythm with a single toggle. Participants always know where they are and what to do.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, Visual Spectacle collaborative canvas with floating contributor cards — One canvas, many methods, Visual Spectacle on one side, 4Ls retrospective on the other. Same shell, method-specific composition.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, 4Ls retrospective workshop board with Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for columns — One canvas, many methods, Visual Spectacle on one side, 4Ls retrospective on the other. Same shell, method-specific composition.

Results that speak for themselves.

A tiered results architecture: a ranked list with Drop, Add, Keep, Improve filters; one-click expansion for full scoring breakdowns; one-click export to Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF. An evaluation chart, horizontal bars across multi-criteria scoring, sits adjacent. Decisions visible in three seconds, defensible in thirty during stakeholder reviews.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, workshop results page with evaluation chart and ranked card list — Results, ranked chart with Drop · Add · Keep · Improve filters, and the photo-attached card view for richer artifacts.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, workshop results with photo-attached cards alongside the evaluation chart — Results, ranked chart with Drop · Add · Keep · Improve filters, and the photo-attached card view for richer artifacts.

One system, any method, any brand.

A token-based system: universal foundations for colour, typography, spacing, and interaction patterns; method-specific grids, cards, and controls composed from the same component set. White-labeling is a token swap, upload brand colours and fonts, the platform adapts without custom code.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, teamwork techniques library with standard, retrospective, and advanced method categories — Teamwork techniques library, fifteen workshop methods grouped by Standard, Retrospective, Advance, and My techniques.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, facilitator instructions sidebar with method instruction, how-to, and facilitator notes — Facilitator support, instructions live in a dedicated sidebar, with a focused modal for adding new ones.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, add facilitator instruction modal with save and send-to-participants actions — Facilitator support, instructions live in a dedicated sidebar, with a focused modal for adding new ones.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, empty project state inviting facilitators to create their first workshop — Workshop list, two states, the empty new-project view and the drag-and-drop reorder of an active list.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, drag-and-drop reorder of workshops in the Own Workshops list — Workshop list, two states, the empty new-project view and the drag-and-drop reorder of an active list.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, blank collaborative workshop canvas with toolbar and participant avatars — The blank canvas at workshop start, facilitator controls top, participant avatars bottom, infinite space between.

Ideaclouds workshop SaaS, decision-voting evaluation card with low-to-high rating scale — The Evaluate phase, anonymous, multi-level voting on every card, with workshop-phase progress visible top right.

Key decisions — The trade-offs that shaped the work.

We considered

Surfacing the full library of fifteen methods up front, every option visible, no hidden depth.

We chose

A hybrid flow: six most-used methods first with visual previews; a Show-All toggle for power users. Settings grouped by phase, with pre-filled defaults reducing configuration to three clicks.

Because

Facilitators are senior managers scheduling between meetings. They needed a workshop live in under two minutes, not fifteen. The full library still mattered, but only after the common case was effortless. Defaults carry the cognitive load that menus otherwise would.

We considered

Surfacing the full library of fifteen methods up front, every option visible, no hidden depth.

We chose

A hybrid flow: six most-used methods first with visual previews; a Show-All toggle for power users. Settings grouped by phase, with pre-filled defaults reducing configuration to three clicks.

Because

We considered

One canvas, one visual treatment, with mode switches handled by labels and toolbar state.

We chose

A phase-aware canvas with distinct visual states for Input, Evaluate, and Decide, different grids, different controls, different rhythm.

Because

Participants joining mid-session shouldn't have to read a header to know what they're meant to do. The shape of the screen had to answer that question on its own. Facilitators got rhythm control from a single toggle; participants got orientation for free.

We considered

One canvas, one visual treatment, with mode switches handled by labels and toolbar state.

We chose

A phase-aware canvas with distinct visual states for Input, Evaluate, and Decide, different grids, different controls, different rhythm.

Because

We considered

Building each enterprise rollout as a custom branded fork, flexible, but expensive to maintain across fifteen workshop methods.

We chose

A token-based design system: universal foundations, method-specific composition, white-labeling as a token swap rather than a code change.

Because

Onboarding economics decide whether an enterprise SaaS scales. Custom forks per client would have capped Ideaclouds at the number of designers it could hire. Tokens turn brand setup into a config step, and pushed enterprise onboarding from six weeks to four days.

We considered

Building each enterprise rollout as a custom branded fork, flexible, but expensive to maintain across fifteen workshop methods.

We chose

A token-based design system: universal foundations, method-specific composition, white-labeling as a token swap rather than a code change.

Because

Outcome — What shipped.

90s

From login to live workshop session

4 days

Enterprise onboarding, down from six weeks

Workshop methods from one design system

Ideaclouds now looks like what it is: a serious enterprise tool that replaces weeks of meetings with a single, structured, decisive session. Workshops finish in one sitting. Participants contribute three times more ideas in parallel input phases than in comparable unstructured meetings. Results export directly into project-management tools.

Enterprise onboarding dropped from six weeks to four days. White-labeling is a token swap, not a code change.