Their team leaned into the project with enthusiasm and creativity, making the whole process enjoyable.
Building Element Human's AI-Powered Emotion Detection MVP
The Vodworks team helped Element Human to build an AI-powered MVP that captures real-time emotional responses, laying the groundwork for their Engage Platform.
- Delivered MVP in 12 weeks, enabling rapid testing and iteration
About The Client
Element Human is a pioneering company specializing in Facial Expression Recognition (FER) technology. They are dedicated to advancing the understanding and interpretation of human emotions through innovative digital solutions. Their mission involves leveraging FER to enhance user engagement and improve decision-making through data-driven insights.
- Industry: Technology, Facial Expression Recognition
- Location: United Kingdom
- Services Provided: MVP development, real-time data processing, and FER model integration
The scope
Vodworks was engaged to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) application that would serve as the foundation for Element Human's broader Engage Platform. The project objectives were as follows:
- Real-Time Emotion Capture: Develop a high-performance platform to detect facial expressions and accurately map them to emotional states, including happiness, sadness, frustration, and anger.
- Immediate Data Insights: Implement real-time data processing capabilities to generate actionable insights for machine learning model training and refinement.
- Model Training and Improvement: Utilise BBC-provided ground data to enhance the accuracy of FER models and prepare the application for diverse, scaled data sets.
- Speed and Scalability: Ensure rapid MVP deployment to facilitate immediate testing and feedback, while building a scalable infrastructure to support future platform growth and additional capabilities.
How Vodworks Helped
To meet Element Human’s tight timelines and high standards, Vodworks assembled a dedicated team of developers and AI specialists with expertise in FER technology. Key achievements of the collaboration included:
- Optimising Accuracy and Performance: Vodworks ensured high accuracy in emotion detection while optimising the application for efficient performance on mobile devices.
- Data Quality and Diversity: By integrating diverse training data, the application could capture a wide range of facial expressions across different demographics, making the technology inclusive and effective across user groups.
- Real-Time Processing Capabilities: Real-time video processing can be challenging on mobile devices due to constraints in processing power. Vodworks addressed these limitations by optimising data handling and ensuring that results were generated with minimal latency.
- Model Robustness: Vodworks improved the model’s resilience to varying lighting conditions, facial poses, and camera qualities, making it adaptable to different user environments.
Tech stack
Team
Frontend engineers
Backend Engineers
ML Engineers
Data Scientist
Data Engineers
Project Manager
QA Engineers
Why the MVP Was Important
This MVP was far more than a preliminary project—it was the foundation of Element Human’s Engage Platform, an advanced tool designed to connect emotion and survey data, track attention through eye-tracking technology, and provide nuanced insights into audience reactions. The MVP’s success was crucial in validating FER’s real-time capabilities, demonstrating its potential to clients, and enabling Element Human to continue developing their platform without extensive internal hiring or delays.
The Result
Through Vodworks' support, Element Human successfully delivered a powerful MVP application within just 12 weeks. This rapid delivery not only enabled Element Human to gather actionable insights quickly but also provided the essential foundation for their Engage Platform, which now powers emotion-driven insights for businesses across multiple industries.
The MVP’s business value was evident in two core aspects:
- Speed to Market: Vodworks enabled Element Human to accelerate their timeline, allowing the Engage Platform to reach a market-ready stage without the resource-heavy process of expanding the in-house team. The partnership allowed Element Human to avoid the typical delays of hiring and onboarding while maintaining high standards of functionality and performance.
- Enhanced Client Capabilities: By using the MVP as a foundation, Element Human could demonstrate the Engage Platform’s potential to clients across industries. The app’s FER technology enables real-time understanding of audience emotions, driving value in sectors like media, advertising, gaming, and UI/UX testing. Key applications of the Engage Platform include:
- Media Testing: Identifying audience emotions in movie scenes, trailers, and TV shows to gauge which content resonates most with viewers.
- Advertising: Integrating FER into digital ads to analyse real-time reactions, providing advertisers with insights into ad effectiveness.
- Product Marketing: Analysing user emotions to gauge customer reactions, allowing brands to tailor digital experiences more effectively.
- UI/UX Testing: Measuring the impact of user emotions on usability and overall UX, which helps businesses refine their interfaces for optimal engagement.
By delivering a high-quality application on a tight timeline, Vodworks enabled Element Human to move forward confidently with the Engage Platform, transforming the way brands and businesses interpret human emotions in digital experiences.
Watch Matt Celuszak, CEO of Element Human (previously known as Crowd Emotion), discuss the founding vision of the product and the challenges they aimed to address:
Frequently Asked Questions
Are we able to vet the developers before we take them on-board?
When augmenting your team with our developers, you have the ability to meticulously vet candidates before onboarding. \n\n We ask clients to provide us with a required developer’s profile with needed skills and tech knowledge to guarantee our staff possess the expertise needed to contribute effectively to your software development projects. You have the flexibility to conduct interviews, and assess both developers’ soft skills and hard skills, ensuring a seamless alignment with your project requirements.
Do you provide Proof of Concepts (PoCs) during software development?
Yes, we offer Proof of Concepts (PoCs) as part of our software development services. With a proven track record of assisting over 70 companies, our team has successfully built PoCs that have secured initial funding of $10Mn+. Our team helps business owners and units validate their idea, rapidly building a solution you can show in hand. From visual to functional prototypes, we help explore new opportunities with confidence.
What is the estimated timeline for creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
The timeline for creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) can vary significantly depending on the complexity of the product and the specific requirements of the project. In total, the timeline for creating an MVP can range from around 3 to 9 months, including such stages as Planning, Market Research, Design, Development, Testing, Feedback and Launch.
How do you manage and accommodate change requests in software development?
We seamlessly handle and accommodate change requests in our software development process through our adoption of the Agile methodology. We use flexible approaches that best align with each unique project and the client's working style. With a commitment to adaptability, our dedicated team is structured to be highly flexible, ensuring that change requests are efficiently managed, integrated, and implemented without compromising the quality of deliverables.
What levels of support do you offer?
We provide comprehensive technical assistance for applications, providing Level 2 and Level 3 support. Within our services, we continuously oversee your applications 24/7, establishing alerts and triggers at vulnerable points to promptly resolve emerging issues. Our team of experts assumes responsibility for alarm management, overseas fundamental technical tasks such as server management, and takes an active role in application development to address security fixes within specified SLAs to ensure support for your operations. In addition, we provide flexible warranty periods on the completion of your project, ensuring ongoing support and satisfaction with our delivered solutions.
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Our Next Steps
- Our team reaches out to you within one business day
- We begin with an initial conversation to understand your needs
- Our analysts and developers evaluate the scope and propose a path forward
- We initiate the project, working towards successful software delivery