Creating a Better WFH Environment Through Technology
My Role: UX Design Student | Duration: 2 Weeks | Project Status: Ongoing
Project Overview
The narrative surrounding work from home is essentially new, even a year ago it was commonly referred to as being “remote” and much of the population had never considered it. WFH has created a myriad of issues from both a personal and professional standpoint, so how do we navigate this new world we are living in? And how can technology and existing programs adapt for productivity while protecting the user?
My team and I set out to create an integration for the Google Calendar app that would help visualize the daily workflow of users so that their colleagues could be more in tune with their schedule and utilize that information to give their coworkers the space and time necessary to accomplish tasks and also take necessary breaks.
As gatekeepers, it is our duty to ensure users are interacting with technology in a thoughtful way and that means not being on our devices all of the time. After completing this project, I am hopeful that as designers we will collectively move into the direction of creating space between the humans that we are and the technology we’ve grown accustomed to.
Scope of Work
For this project my team and I were tasked with developing an integration for an already existing app in the communication or scheduling space. Our goal was to help the user more effectively navigate the new work from home experience during the age of COVID-19. Simply put, we wanted to design an integration that would bridge the gap from the office to the work from home environment.
Process
To accomplish a result my team and I conducted research, recognized patterns and hopefully resolved issues that are affecting users who are now working from home. For our process my team and I utilized the double diamond approach for our methodology. We discovered information, defined the problems, developed a solution and then delivered our product after a series of interviews, usability tests and redesigns.
Problem Space Statement
Initially, my team and I assumed that as users adjust to work from home they are constantly being held to an unreasonable standard of work attentiveness. We also believed that users are less productive due to too many unnecessary meetings, general distractions and that the state in the world in general is negatively impacting work.
To mitigate this, there should be a systems check to ensure employees haven’t been logged in for too long and are taking necessary breaks to refocus.
How might we provide users a way to distance their work from their home environment?
RESEARCH PHASE (Discover + Define)
Goal of Research
The aim of our research was to learn the who, what, where, when, why and how of the new work from home experience? We wanted to know who is utilizing the WFH technology and how, what the expectations from their organization is as far as productivity goes, where are people using WFH technology, do they have office space or are they jammed in a corner of their bedroom? My team and I also posed questions around users break schedules, are they taking them? More or less than they used to? Overall, we wanted to know what the issues with work from home are and why? How could we help our users?
Methodology
To conduct user interviews my team and I constructed well thought out questions that we felt could best gather the information needed to move forward with our integration. We wanted our questions to be pointed but general enough that users could feed us a narrative. We asked five people who had usually spent their days in what they’d call their “normal” work environment and had since moved to a work from home situation. With their feedback we moved on to the next phase of our design process.
Synthesis » Affinity Mapping
The common threads that my team and I honed in on were the responses that had been repeated by multiple users we interviewed. Each time a user commented with an almost identical response, we made note of this, as it revealed a trend in our data. We broke down our user responses into an affinity map which is a way of visually displaying common information.
In this case specifically, our most common responses from users were that they were one, “forcing themselves to take breaks” and also that they were being “looped into unnecessary meetings”. While they also noted their organization had provided them with all of the resources they required to be successful in the work from home environment.
Persona
As designers we have this idea deep inside of us of who we are building a product for, the issue with this though is that the user we are designing for is buried inside of our gut because it is ourselves. To alleviate this the best course of action is to build a character, or persona. Brooklyn takes her work very seriously, her career is her top priority and while she loves her job, she feels bound by it. She would love more balance in her life but feels an immense pressure to lock in and perform. She is who we keep at the forefront of our minds while moving forward with the design of the integration, she grounds us in creating something that would benefit her, she forces us to create something she would love to use.
Revised Problem Statement
With Brooklyn in mind, consider the transition from the office where we had various visual cues about our coworkers, if somebody wasn’t at their desk around lunchtime we could assume they were eating and respect their space. If somebody had headphones on it was a clear indication that they were working on something and shouldn’t be interrupted. How do we create these visual cues in a WFH environment so that we are respectful of others and their time?
After the initial research it became clear that the focus needed to be on users taking breaks from their screens and work. There also seemed to be a lack of productivity due to constant distractions, whether it be from children at home or phones lighting up every two seconds on the desk right next to them.
How might we provide users with a way to obviously take breaks and schedule “head down” time throughout the day to help with productivity as well as work/life balance?
RESEARCH » DESIGN
After compiling and organizing the user research, it was time to build something brilliant. I stole this insight from a book called “In Praise of Walking” by Shane O’Mara, he uses this acronym as a description for how cities should be designed, I feel like it should be used for all design. O’Mara discusses EASE, in his case, ‘cities should be easy (to walk), accessible (to all), safe (for everyone) and enjoyable (for all)’. The only part of that I’d change is to create design that is easy…‘to use’.
DESIGN PHASE (Design + Deliver)
Users need breaks and time set aside on their calendar for uninterrupted productivity….so we build a simple integration into the Google Calendar application that will easily allow users to schedule this time while also make it radically obvious to their coworkers that this time is being taken.
Design Studio: Sketching + Concepting
My very first thought during this project was to create a mode for the phone itself that would require the user to choose two hours in the waking day in which they would take a break completely from their phone, to the point of it to be disabled except to make phone calls, and until this task was completed the phone wouldn’t even move to the unlock screen. Simple, the user would have to schedule a break from your phone to access it at all. (More on that some other time.)
From there I imagined an integration in Zoom that would kick the user off of Zoom if they had been on it for too long. This ultimately seemed intrusive and like it would eventually lead to less productivity. Furthermore, I can’t imagine a company that maintains profitably through user interaction allowing an integration that would lessen user engagement time.
This all lead to the birth of the Google Calendar integration that easily allows user to schedule a predetermined break patterns as well as blocked off periods of time for productivity which we refer to as “head down” time.
Mid-Fidelity Screens & Screen Flow
Here it is, simple and effective, built right into the Google Calendar menu screen. An icon labeled “breaks”, it walks the user through different predetermined options of a break schedule and set times for “head down” productivity the computer then embeds this into their existing calendar.
Initial User Testing
My team and I ran five interviews for our initial round of testing, our users were asked to move through each screen of the integration and give their feedback on the design from both a usability and visual standpoint. We found that users moved quickly through each screen/prompt, they wondered what a “week view” would entail and questioned the “split it” option. Users also wondered how their employer would feel about them using an app like this. Each of the five participants had positive comments on the sleek and modern interface, they enjoyed that it wasn’t “cluttered”.
It was imperative to keep the design simple and clean while making the integration more straightforward for the user.
Design Iterations: First Round
During the first round of iterations, I changed almost nothing, I really felt that the design had reached maximum potential in its usability and simplicity. It was a linear design concept, the user moved from screen to screen, making a selection, hitting an arrow and moving to the next prompt/screen. It being my first project I was limited by my thinking and process and even ego. I made something that users said, “they’d love to use” and when classmates had reached out and said “I would use this” it solidified further that the design was developed to completion and that I could close the door on it. Luckily, eventually my own thoughts brought me to see that there was further potential.
The design wasn’t finished yet; it had another step to take. While the linear pathway was easy to build and use, it wasn’t clean enough, in reality, nobody would move through numerous screens to accomplish a single task. I had to make the options scroll.
Final User Testing
There isn’t any final user testing, yet…between the time this project was due for submission and me sitting here writing this case study now, I haven’t done user testing on the final prototype, I actually don’t even know if this will be the final prototype.
The design process is never truly ever over.
Final Prototype
Recommendations + Implementation + Next Steps
I’ve completed this assignment, I’ve turned it in to my instructors, as far as the grade it receives goes, what’s done is done. For me though, it isn’t over because design doesn’t work that way. It is a constant series of designs, tests, designs and tests, it is a never-ending cycle aiming to always accomplish the best design possible. The night I turned this assignment in, I laid in bed thinking about how I could have done better and realized that this design process had barely even started, great design isn’t made in two weeks with ten user tests, it is constantly evolving.
Looking Back & Forward
I do really believe that there needs to be a better or more open dialogue about how human beings are treated throughout the work day (and for that matter, on weekends as well); we aren’t machines, we aren’t parts of a larger component on an assembly line, but it feels that way. We need breaks throughout the day, my mental clarity is at its best when I am able to step away, take a breath and regroup. During the workday we also need time to be fully locked into what we are doing without being interrupted almost continually. We spend more time throughout our lives trying to refocus after a disturbance than actually doing anything of value. My hope is that this app integration can mitigate even a little bit of this ongoing and ever-expanding issue.
