TeamGather
An application for team building events that accommodates varying comfort levels.
Overview
Type of project
This past summer, I have been diligently working through BrainStation's UX Diploma Program. I was fortunate to be able to work with my team, Amy Wu, Hetal Gandhi, and Joseph Merced, in a 24-hour UX Design Challenge Hackathon in partnership with Microsoft. I truly cant Describe how much I love this project. it is one of my favorite projects of all time :) and I am thankful to my amazing team and all the hard work that we have done. I was extremely impressed with the talent present in our cohort and I want to give additional congratulations to everyone's projects. It was an intensive 24 hours, but our team was able to design and present Gather, a digital solution for teams transitioning back in-person to form meaningful connections. Huge thank you to our educators: Brad MacDonald, Lily Da Huang, Josie Roden, and Tiffany Wong. And a special thanks to Kash Daud, a Senior Product Designer at Microsoft for facilitating this hackathon. Excited to see what we all accomplish in the future!
Goal
Creating a fun and engaging back to office experience
Role
Lead Product Designer
Problem Space
Let’s be honest, it’s been hard!
In the past 18 months, a large number of people have been feeling both physically and socially isolated due to the pandemic and the restrictions it has brought upon us. As we are moving forward and hoping for things to get back to normal, employers and employees are apprehensive about getting back to work in person and are concerned about safety, connection, and social anxiety
Narrowing the Problem Space
In order to tackle this problem space, we wanted to break it down into different issues and we formed some assumptions about what employees experience in the transition going back into the office. After brainstorming, we came up with Themes that fit the problem space
Some common themes:
Physical safety & awareness
Communication issues & logistics Lack of flexibility
Detachment from coworkers & anxiety over meeting face to face.
Secondary Research
As businesses start to transition into a semblance of what used to be the “normal”, we know that there are just some things that will never be the same after what we have all been through.
The Future of work
A hybrid model of work: WFH & In-Person
Fully remote opportunities.
everyone back to the office
Secondary Research
Many companies have already started making safety plans to bring their employees back into the office. But what we haven’t heard much about is the continue to make the office a friendly and inviting place. with masks, and social distancing in place, it can often make the environment cold and detached. how do we keep the office in good spirits?
Some common themes:
Teams with connected employees see 20-25% increases in productivity
Feelings of employee isolation reduce productivity by up to 21%
Primary Research
As a team we were able to interview 5 individuals to understand what ‘back to work’ in person would look like and also hear about their concerns around this. Some
companies
Returning to the office challenges
Managing access to the space and limiting exposure Maintaining employee Confidentiality
Implementing flexible work arrangements
Maintaining clear and consistent communication
Keeping and vibrant workplace culture
People
Returning to the office feelings
Anxiety
Depression,
worries over vaccine status,
fear,
confusion,
Intimidating situation,
Loneliness
Proto-Persona
Andre has been working remotely for a year at his new software development company and is getting ready for employees to return to work in person, twice a week, gradually and in a staggered manner.
He has a great team and employee retention is one of his main goals. he is aware that his team is going to need support and direction during this transition and is very keen on providing them with the right tools.
Goals & HMW
After setting our goals, we came up with our HMW
How might we facilitate meaningful connections between teams that accommodate varying comfort levels in order to build teams that support each other?
Solution Sketches
Due to the time constraint of the hackathon, we generated ideas quickly through Crazy 8’s sketching, as well as simply jotting down ideas. Bringing all these thoughts to the table and discussing them, it was soon that we realized we all held the same goals and intentions for our digital product, and this helped us refine our final product.
Prototype
Secondary Research
Many companies have already started making safety plans to bring their employees back into the office. But what we haven’t heard much about is the continue to make the office a friendly and inviting place. with masks, and social distancing in place, it can often make the environment cold and detached. how do we keep the office in good spirits.