Outline
This project was focused on creating a solution to make the new normal remote working more friendly and approachable to teams
roles and responsibilities
Industrial Design
User Experience Design
context
Ugh! The lockdown struggles
As you all know, because of covid 19 outbreak many had to start working remotely.
I could see the struggle all around me so I took up the change making remote work accessible and cohesive with the current time.
discovery
Its so lonely working alone :(
The first step to learn the problems is to observation. I quietly took a note of people around me and kept a careful watch on how they work and express their frustrations while working. Sometime nudging them a little to get more insights.
Next I started asking questions to get to know their experience of working remotely and understanding their situation and needs.
The best way of understanding the problem is actually experiencing it. So I did some first hand research by using productivity tools and other digital solutions, analysis it carefully.
design sprints
Putting pen to paper!
Following the popular Design Sprint technique I modified it according to my projects and got some solid insights.
And the creativity begins. I took the four and a guideline to build the concepts. Timetracking, Collaboration, task management and the last one connecting the team which I later took forward as this direction presented the most opportunity.
CREATIVITY
How can remote working feel less lonely
Going more in depth about how can I make the users feel less lonely and more in sync with their team. I sketch and made tiny mockups to play with the form.
Before finalising the concept, I got a chance to consult with my users. While some question how the pod is going to be different from a phonecall, others worried about getting distracted by using the phone on the dock. Both had their good and bad points, but I decided to go ahead with the pod keeping in mind the time and opportunity that it presented.
Solution
A smart speaker to connect remote team
We all have experience the loneliness, locking behind 4 walls trying to finish a stessful project. Didn’t you wish you had your team members to calm you down? Reco specially designed for this situation.To help make remote working teams feel more connected and less lonely, while they are stuck alone in their own houses.
The stakeholder, i.e the Employeer will purchase this pods for the employees. As this mini speakers are connected to the other pods of that particular team. Imagine we all working in separate rooms, the small sounds like clicking of a mouse to typing keys will be recorded and sent to other.
The are three distinct audio modes for this device. Mute, where no sound will pass. Distort mode, where the audio inputs will be slightly modified to make I am hungry sound like this “ whukry ami sha ”. Though it is not understandable, it sound like someone taking far away and adds to the ambient sound.
You can change the audio modes and the volume setting using the interactive display. You can swipe between the main office team to smaller internal teams
The circle around the pod will show the online presence of the whole team. So you get a visual reminder that someone is the working with you. He is the first person to log in from a team of 4. The pods are set up so that the light is programmed to divide into 4 parts.
When another member logs in the circle gets little more filled and eventually when every one is online it glows in a fun circle.
The pods come in 4 variations from a black and white to a nice mango yellow and a blueberry blue
But it doesn’t end here,
For the pod I have to work on the interactivity side of the product. And following that making mockups and prototypes and taking user feedback to improve the concept.
The next thing I want to accomplish to make the phone docking concept more viable to the users by removing the loopholes that were presented before. And eventually these products will fall under a family and the pod and the dock can be compatible with each other.
some happy rendering accidents 😉
