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What is it?
A digital product that enables users to telegraph whether they are engaged in focused work or available for spontaneous conversation.
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The Ask
Design a product to increase employees’ willingness to engage in face to face interactions in the office without compromising their ability to accomplish focused productivity.
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The Build
After researching the use cases of similar products, I synthesized a list of user experience requirements to drive the design of a new product that facilitates low effort transitions between focused work and conversation.
Why Help People Interact?
“When you remove physical barriers people replace them with their own social barriers.”
~Seth Harrison Corporate Consultant~
“Offices, on average, suffer a 70% loss of face to face interactions after switching to an open floorplan.”
~Harvard School of Business~
Fortune 500 companies lose $31.5 billion annually by failing to share knowledge.
~International Data Corp~
Loss of interaction causes redundant work and wasted time.
Existing Solutions to Similar Problems
I conducted interviews with users whose workplaces implemented these products to identify useful features and areas of opportunity.
What?
Bad
The Pomodoro Timer is a method for alternating between focused work and breaks to prevent burnout and increase the yield focused productivity.
“I find it helpful to break up my work. Using this system I can bang out 16 hours of writing at a time.”
“It’s very easy to accidentally stop following the cycle or to be interrupted by coworkers.”
Embrava is a family of products designed to prevent interruptions to focused work. By displaying whether the user is busy.
“It’s very useful for when I have scheduled calls and need to be left alone. Especially since there isn’t much privacy in my office.”
This product can only be controlled through other collaboration platforms like Outlook and Slack.
Good
The Humanyze Badge is a sensors bank that provides administrative feedback on how the wearers use the space.
“The badges helped us better understand how our space was used and what we could do to make the space more useful to our employees.”
The badge advises on uses of space to administrators but does nothing to help the wearer during use. It is also perceived as a violation of privacy.
I built and tested several rounds of prototypes to better understand the functional requirements of the product. In the end, the system comprised three parts.
Interface:
A docking station for the users phone with a dedicated mobile app
Analog interface makes sure user can always change states without having to navigate menus
Justifies its presence on the desk by charging the users phone
Beacon:
A way to telegraph the users state to others in the space.
Quickly and easily legible (Color blind accessible)
Not visually distracting for the user or coworkers.
Analytics Hub:
A way to find and know the state of users without line of sight
Provides administrators with feedback about how the space is used
The interface allows the user to set a timer for focused activity. This timer can be seen by other workers to inform them that the user is busy.
As the timer runs down, Agora displays the remaining time in the current state to both the user and others in the office.
The user can also put themselves in “Diffuse Mode” to signal that they are open to collaboration or productive interruptions.
Use Case
An employee (A) chooses a desk and sets a 40 minute focus timer.
Another employee (B) sets a diffuse timer and goes for a walk.
Employee A is visibly focused so employee B does not disturb them.
He instead finds an employee who has set their beacon to “diffuse” to have a conversation
The digital product affords integration with calendar apps. This allows the user to view appointments as they draw near and to block out times for focused work or conversation without having to worry about missing scheduled meetings.
Skills used:
Wireframing, User Research (User Observation, Interviews, Contextual Inquiry), 3D Printing, UI Prototyping, Sketching, DFMA, Rapid Prototyping
