Problem
The world witnessed a historic shift in the 2020 job market due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, 4.7 million people in the US were working remotely.
This caused significant lifestyle changes and impacted people professionally, socially, and personally. Employees working in a fully remote setup were facing various challenges impacting their mental health and work-life balance.
Research
The key pain points that emerged from the research were:
social isolation, extended working hours, procrastination, and stress.
The synthesis and sensemaking revealed the following insights:
1. A balance of freedom and discipline is desirable for productivity
2. Stress is a by-product of procrastination
3. Uncertainty & hesitation hinders communication & growth
The high-frequency data points revealed the most valuable insight: 4. Casual conversations are the most prized possession for employee wellbeing.
They were missing the "casual corridor conversations".
Research
Ethnography
1:1 Interviews
Survey
Cultural probe
Synthesis
Empathy Maps
Affinity maps
Journey Maps
Insight sketching
Design
Rapid Prototyping
Storyboarding
Storytelling
Visual Design
Solution
"O Mate" is a smart desk assistant that is designed to boost employee well-being and team productivity.
Its features include promoting healthy work habits, keeping you on track, real-time team schedule sharing, as well as facilitating spontaneous interactions between colleagues. It sits on the work desk as a visual tangible reminder and an interactive work buddy. It is easily accessible as a laptop plug-in.
With the unique push-to-talk feature, it mimics the old "corridor conversations". Bumping into your work buddies is now possible with O Mate!
It makes your work day productive, fun, and lively.
Story time: A day in the life of Joe
Process Overview
We planned our research and design activities around the double diamond design process model; originally proposed by Bela H. Banathy.
Let's dig into the scrappy process!
Hunt Statement ~
To understand user stories and challenges associated with remote work lifestyle and re-imagine an ideal working environment that benefits both, the employees as well as the companies.
Hypothesis ~
Remote work culture is a global trend that is causing major lifestyle changes that demand design intervention. (The year 2021) People all over the world are facing challenges adapting to the new normal.
Method Map ~
Following the design methods by Vijay Kumar, from his book "101 Design Methods", we mapped out various methods that were most valuable for this project. (The "why's" behind every method is discussed later.)
View the Research Matrix here.
PHASE 1, Secondary research ~
Publication Research
What? This method was a deep dive into various articles, journals, and media publications available online that documented a statistical study of the then-current global trend- remote work.
Why? This method helped us to better understand the context, and identify the challenges of the larger population. This also helped us in validating the effectiveness of the research, understand the scope, and form a hypothesis. Peek into snapshots here.
Eras Map
What? This method involved taking a journey back in time and tracing the evolution of this trend, highlighting its origin and all important milestones.
It allowed for a visual, comprehensive look at the entire timeline.
Why? An understanding of the changes over time allows for forming a more comprehensive perspective. Taking into account the historical patterns and trends in the context enables us to better anticipate and respond to current and potential challenges. Peek into snapshots here.
PHASE 2, Primary Research ~
Survey
How? This survey was designed on google forms, to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. The stakeholder group for this study was: Employees working remotely in large tech organizations.
Why? The survey helped us collect primary data points that acted as anchors for our qualitative study ahead. The survey also acted as a screener, to further recruit participants for 1:1 interviews.
50 +
Participants
100+
Data Points
Anchors from the survey: User challenges
Extended working hours
Procrastination
Lack of motivation
Social Isolation
Physical Strain
Distraction
Stress
Anonymous user Stories from survey:
“There is not much discipline working from home
and I miss my team”
I often take every opportunity I can to avoid work, but this obviously leads to longer work hours.”
“The feeling of isolation that comes with working from home”
“It's harder to learn a new skill without help/motivation from teammates.”
“there is lack of a feeling of connection with Individuals.”
“Onboarding new people remotely is very tough”
“Line between work and life is not clear anymore.”
“lack of end time & weekend leads to burnout faster.”
1:1 User Interviews
How? There were in-depth 1-hour long user interviews, conducted remotely via zoom. Participants were recruited through surveys, word of mouth, and social media. View the discussion guide.
Why? Contextual 1:1 user interviews helped us get closer to user stories in detail and understand their everyday challenges. It revealed valuable insights about their behavior, motivation, and pain points. Remote studies particularly helped us observe the user in their regular environment when working remotely.
Interviews
10
Data Points
800 +
Anonymous user Stories from Interviews:
“when these conversations became virtual some of it kind of got lost in translation”
“Because you have flexibility, you tend to get more distracted, which leads to procrastination."
“I always think that my peers are busy and I should not message, in office space you could easily just talk”
“You can hardly build connection with your colleagues and learn from their current work”
"I miss small talk & human gestures like passing a smile or saying goodmorning."
"Once I take a break, it’s very tough to get back at work.”
“I procrastinate a lot when am at home, to a point that it’s annoying”
“I miss that in office, however your bad your week is you just come together as a team, talk and de-stress.”
"Some conversations are easier to have in the corridors rather than a 1:1 meeting.”
“I always feel the need to be organized self disciplined and focused”
“It’s been hard trying to match the same energy with my teammates”
"I see myself attending meetings at 8pm”
Cultural Probe
How? In this interactive research method, we tried two approaches. The first approach was field research, which turned out to be a failure. Pandemic regulations were still in place then, and public activity saw little to no participation. Besides, our target users wouldn't be on the field, they were online! So we pivoted to a remote study, conducted via Miro. Peek into the activity.
Why? This method helped us get closer to our participants' daily lives and routines, feelings, and preferences, without directly observing or interacting with them. A set of 5 activities allowed them to play with stickies, pictures, and cards to express their desires and challenges.
Participants
8
Data Points
200+
PHASE 3, Synthesis ~
Empathy Map
Why? After collecting data points from surveys, interviews, and cultural probes we were able to connect the dots. This tool helped us step into their shoes and lay down the specifics of their environment and feelings before we jump into ideation. This was done parallel to the data synthesis. It helped us in sense-making. Working in a team, also helps us align on the same page.
Journey Map
Why? This tool also helped us to visualize our user's everyday experience in a holistic way. It helped us represent their time stamps of frustration and motivation. It included all the necessary touchpoints and activities involved in the daily life of a remote working employee, the interactions that occur over time, and their reaction to the situation. It was a synthesized journey of many users.
Personas
Why? This helped us bring all the user stories into a comprehensive narrative, with context. It also helped us in identifying patterns in our users and create user groups based on needs.
This also helped the team to align on the same page and see our data stories as real people with unique needs, preferences, and behaviors. This was a great resource for us to re-group and study before ideation.
Affinity Map
How? The user stories were broken down into individual data points (yellow stickies). We then started identifying patterns and clustering the stickies. A unique approach adopted here was that the synthesis was paused at the blue stage. The blue stickers were used as anchors to begin the ideation in parallel to synthesis.
68
Participants
1100
Data Points
Insight Sketching
How? Ideate as we go! We created quick ideation sketches for each blue data point. The strategy is: No idea is a bad idea. Go as crazy as you wish. Read the user story, and bring your fuzzy ideas on paper, it doesn't even have to be a solution!
Why? This was a unique, exciting method to start ideating while conducting synthesis. The idea behind this is to not lose the interesting details that are often lost in translation when assimilating data to the last steps.
Insight Clustering
How? While the data points were synthesized further separately, the idea sketches were synthesized too, to form meaningful clusters! These clusters were given a theme title.
Why? The best part about working in a team is having multiple creative minds! This process was so helpful in coming up with unique innovative ideas. Clustering those was helpful in creating idea clusters in parallel to our insight clusters. And finally, we did see it all coming together.
PHASE 4, Ideation ~
Concept A, B,C
How? We compared our idea clusters to the data clusters, to identify the idea clusters that aligned the most with our data clusters. (Insights) We voted internally to choose three clusters that had a higher affinity with our high-frequency insights and named them concepts A, B, and C.
Merging concepts
How? We also evaluated our concepts with users with basic prototypes. The user testing was done with 8 participants, and we asked them to rate the prototypes on the following: Usability, Affordability, Accessibility, and Desirability.
Based on the user testing feedback we decided to combine concepts A and C to develop a tangible product that would help remote working employees experience a more connected as well as productive working environment.
PHASE 5, Execution ~
Prototyping
How? Prototyping was done in 3 stages: Sketch Prototype, Rapid paper prototyping, 3D modeling, and wireframing. Paper prototyping helped us in creating an understanding of the form, shape, and size in terms of usability. We tested the paper prototype with a few users to nail down the form. Wireframing and 3-D modeling helped us highlight our product features.
Product features ~
What? "O Mate" is a smart desk assistant that is designed to boost employee well-being and team productivity.
It sits on the work desk as a visual tangible reminder for tasks and schedules. It helps you experience a more connected working environment along with your colleagues and teammates!
How? Key Product features:
1. Real-time schedule sharing. "Set busy, free for chat, in a meeting" etc.
2. Sets visual reminders and use the light-time box to boost productivity.
3. Builds healthier working habits with reminders from the smart assistant.
4. Hero Feature: Facilitates impromptu casual corridor conversations!
5. Easy access to any system as a plug-in
Every project is an opportunity to grow ~
Challenges
Roadmap challenges: Research and Synthesis took longer then the plan.
Process Challenges: A lot of confusion on how to navigate with the ideation sketch approach.
Team Challenges: Midway, project was hitting a wall due to team conflicts.
Learnings
Plan with risk analysis and buffer time. Plan backups and pivot fast.
At times just: Trust the process. Trust your instincts. Trust your data. Repeat.
Built leadership, team management skills. Built resilience and emotional intelligence.
Re-Look
Would recruit participants much early on & have backups ready for a probable failure of field research.
Would embrace ambiguity. Would lead with confidence and let the white spaces bring out creativity.
Would pivot fast as per the need of the project and strengths of the team mates.
Ready to See My Skills in Action?