Turning Static PDFs into Interactive Walkthroughs
Real estate agents, loan officers, and document-heavy professionals were spending countless hours in repetitive explanation cycles. Each client required the same document walkthrough, the same answers to common questions, the same clarifications about form fields. BaseStation's founder wanted to turn static PDFs into interactive, annotated experiences, so professionals could record an explanation once and share it forever.
Two Very Different Users
The founder was already talking to real estate agents and loan officers who wanted to "record once, share forever." But any solution had to work for two very different kinds of users on opposite ends of the same document.
Document Creators
Needed powerful annotation tools without technical complexity: add video explanations, group related fields, build reusable templates, customize for specific clients.
Document Receivers
Needed clear guidance without feeling overwhelmed: understand what each field means, get help when needed, watch or listen or read, and complete forms with confidence.
Two Document Types
Early on, we identified that users needed two distinct workflows. Some documents required clients to fill in data. Others just needed explanatory annotations. Treating them as the same thing would have compromised both.
Forms
Interactive PDFs with fillable fields. Users complete information directly in the browser, with guidance attached to each field.
Documents
Read-only PDFs with annotations. Good for contracts, guides, anything that needs explaining but not filling out.
The Annotation System
Not everyone wants to read a paragraph of instructions. Supporting text, audio, and video meant professionals could explain however felt natural to them, and clients could take it in however worked for them.
Text Annotations
Quick explanations, definitions, clarifications: the fastest option when a field just needs one line of context.
Audio Recordings
Voice guidance for a more personal touch. Users could record explanations on the fly.
Video Walkthroughs
Screen recordings or face-to-camera explanations for complex topics requiring visual demonstration.
Organizing Complex Documents
Real estate contracts and loan documents often have dozens of related fields scattered across multiple pages. We designed a field grouping system that let creators organize logically related fields together, making the experience more coherent for document receivers.
What Creators Could Do
Drag and drop to reorder fields, group related fields like "Buyer Information" or "Property Details," add section-level annotations, and preview how receivers would navigate the grouped fields.
The Pivot
Rethinking where annotations live
We had placed annotations inline with document fields, thinking proximity would help users understand each field better. Instead, users reported that forms felt "long."
I explored a few directions: comment-style annotations like Google Docs, floating tooltips, and ultimately a side-panel approach inspired by YouTube's related videos. The side panel won because it let users see all annotations at once, jump between them freely, preserved the document's visual structure, and worked better on mobile.
Before: Inline Annotations
Forms felt endless as annotations extended the page length. Users couldn't see the full document structure.
After: Side Panel
All annotations visible at once. Users could jump between guidance, see document structure, and work on mobile.
Process & Collaboration
I worked directly with the founder in a tight feedback loop. He was actively engaging with prospective users testing the concept. We used whiteboarding sessions to explore information architecture and sketch interaction patterns, then I built Figma designs and prototypes he could put in front of real users, incorporating feedback in rapid cycles.
In a startup, every feature had to earn its place against development complexity. Timeline and technical feasibility shaped the MVP scope, but we prioritized getting real user feedback over polish, which is exactly what caught the inline annotation problem early enough to fix before it shipped.
The founder's direct access to users was invaluable, though I would have benefited from observing actual document receivers completing forms myself. That direct observation would have surfaced friction points even earlier and validated solutions faster.