What makes a company tick is the people. Happy and engaged employees means more productivity and profitability.

Work hard, play harder... Am I right?

Playgrid

Playgrid is a collaborative space to inspire ideas and action across the digital environment. Let Playgrid help optimize your company’s workflow and culture. Because when work is fun and productive, employees won’t dread it, they’ll love it.

PROJECT TYPE

Academic, Capstone Project

ROLE

UX Researcher, Design Strategy, UX/UI Designer

TIMELINE

8 weeks

TOOLS

Pen & paper, Marvel, Sketch, Figma, Invision

DISCOVER

Discovery of Problem Space

In October 2020, a panel of global technology leaders from Microsoft, League, Future of Work, and Fiverr discussed the future of work trends and how 2020 was the most digitally transformative year yet.

The panelists stressed how difficult it was to create the same social bonds organically, and how to have the same collaboration and culture in a virtual setting.

How do we make a virtual world that is conducive to the social creatures that humans are?

Exploring the current landscape

Many individuals are working longer, dedicating more time to meetings, and are looking at digital screens for prolonged periods of time.  These working conditions can result in workers feeling isolated, less engaged, and digitally fatigued from work in a virtual setting.

Although the number of remote workers has been increasing slowly over the years, COVID-19 has forced the world to change and adapt quickly. With the rapid increase in remote workers, there needs to be a way to help individuals manage their mental health and feel connected to work.

40%

or a total of 6.8 million Canadian workers worked from home when pandemic lockdowns began

- Statistics Canada

1 in 3

     employees across all ages (18-55) feel disconnected from  company culture & colleagues

- Achievers Workforce
Institute 2020

+26 hrs

  on average, remote workers work an additional 26 hours each month

- OWL Labs State of Remote
Work 2020

Top Struggles that Remote Workers Experience

A survey conducted with over 3500 remote workers worldwide found that 40% of workers struggle with loneliness and collaboration & communication. This is closely followed by not being able to unplug at 18%.

The most effective way is to create a workplace app

Employee disengagement is directly correlated with low work performance, which in turn impacts the company.

Forbes reports that disengaged employees have 15% less profitability and 18% less productivity than those who are satisfied with their jobs.

Companies with higher Glassdoor employee satisfaction ratings perform better financially than companies with lower ratings.

By taking the initiative to create a work environment that empowers employee engagement and satisfaction, this will push employees to perform their best work, avoid expensive employee turnover, and grow the talent within the organization.

There must be something out there already

To better understand the current landscape, I looked at 5 different companies and analyzed the benefits they offer to their users. Current company initiatives primarily focus on scheduling or social interaction apps.

Opportunity

I focused on creating a solution that would combine engagement and social interaction, with event scheduling and break reminders.

Taking a deeper dive

I wanted confirm if others felt the same frustrations, and to pinpoint exactly what pain points could be alleviated. I interviewed 7 participants (ages 24-38) to learn about the experiences of workers that have transitioned to remote working, and how it has affected them.

Notable Interview Quotes

"You can get really disconnected from what other people are doing. You feel out of the loop"
"Before when you had a question, you could ask right then and there.  And it would take less than a minute. Now you have to message them on Slack, then set up a zoom call, screen sharing and all that"
"I am working longer hours. When you are working at home, you are always working"

Key Interview Insights

Disconnected & Siloed

Reduced interactions contributes to degradation of company culture

This leads to employees feeling isolated and unsupported

Planning

It's difficult organizing events, having to juggle everyones different schedules to and commitments

Work Life Balance

It's easy to forget to take breaks as there is no one to take a break with

It's harder to separate work from personal life, leading to overworking & digital fatigue

Communication

Lack of quick, impromptu interactions

Communication takes longer, more overhead, and is harder to understand

DEFINE

Meet Jennifer

I developed personas to help solidify the target users needs, behaviours, and challenges. -- referencing them throughout the project to ensure that my design decisions and priorities were aligned with the user.

What is Jennifer experiencing?

I created an experience map to visualize my persona's journey and identified specific areas of opportunity based on their pain points.

how might we...

increase the communication between individuals working
remotely in a virtual environment in order to feel more socially connected and less mentally exhausted at work?

DEVELOP

What will this app do?

Keeping Jennifer’s pain points and motivations in mind, I drafted 43 users stories under 5 core epics to define potential tasks that users could perform to solve their problem.  I selected the following 2 core epics and user stories that would best demonstrate the value proposition.

Core Epics

  • Better company culture and community
  • Managing fatigue and work life balance

Task Flows

From my chosen epics, I developed two task flows thinking about how a user would interact with the product.

User Story I

As a remote worker, I want to attend company events that aligns with my interests and fits into my free time

Task

Manage schedule and easily search & add a company event

User Story II

As a remote worker, I want to better remember to take breaks away from the screen, so that I have a better work life balance and reduced digital fatigue

Task

To remind the user to take breaks after a period of time, and to track these insights

Exploring Different Solutions

Once I was clear on the main task flow, I began to ideate visual elements that would enhance the user experience. Drawing inspiration from other applications and sites, I sketched out various ideas, and then consolidated the most viable sketches into a paper prototype.

DELIVER

Discovering the best user experience through iterations

I translated the sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes, incorporating insights from the paper prototype testing.

Then I conducted a total of 2 usability tests with 11 users over the span of 3 days, where testers were given a series of tasks to complete. I analyzed and sorted the feedback into action priority matrices, and made revisions to each iteration in between.

Notable Changes

“I want to be able to be able to visualize the gaps in my schedule more easily -- so that I can see free time at a glance.”

5 out of 5 testers had difficulty identifying free time in their schedule due to the layout.

“How does the Productivity Chart track the break time? Does the break time tracker increase regardless if a break is taken or not?””

It was apparent that this break reminder task flow in the app was lacking clarity.

Mid-Fidelity Task Flow Diagram

Here is the final mid-fidelity wireflow after two rounds of usability testing, which was then injected with color.

Notable Touchpoints & Interactions

  • Designed a filter feature for user efficiency and ease of use. Added information modals to help guide user decisions, while being unintrusive to the user experience
  • Added participant bubbles to event cards, and top of event details so users can see easily friends attending and are motivated to join
  • A concern identified from user interviews was the lack of visual presence in virtual meetings. To balance the limited space on mobile devices with the want for visual presence, I designed a participant view with horizontal scroll that could be swiped to be hidden

Testing and iterating throughout the design process


The motivational aspect of my design was lacking
“How can we create more delightful moments for the user?”

It was important for the app to motivate users to hit their daily social interaction and break time goals. I improved the design by adding a confetti style congratulations animation and a tracker loading to completion.

What experience and tone do I want the product to convey?

Once I had the core functionality of the product established, I started thinking about the visual identitiy and brand tone I wanted this digital solution to have. I collected a variety of images and inspirations from which I extracted colors that best embodied the adjectives

Brand Adjectives
Extracted Colors
Moodboard
  • Connected
  • Social
  • Happy
  • Energetic
  • Engaged
  • Bright
  • Fun
  • Community
  • Culture
  • Impromptu

Brand Colors

I selected a bright, energetic, and social color palette in which I injected into the design in flat, pops of color to reflect the playful vibe. Opting for slightly muted shades of primary colors, the ability to create any color combination reflects diversity and endless possibilities. I ensured the solution met AA accessibility standards.

Typography

I chose for a sans-serif typeface with simple and clean lines. I wanted to keep the experience professional, and did not want the copy to compete with the vibrant colors of the app.

Brand Name Exploration

After experimenting with names and receiving peer feedback, I settled on Playgrid -- where play emphasized the more fun nature of the app and “Play hard, work hard”, while grid could be referenced to “staying of the grid” and being connected.

Workmark Development

The selected color palette is bright, energetic, and powerful. The ability to create any color combination reflects diversity and possibilities, and I opted for slightly muted shades for a more fun vibe.

Application Icon

Keeping in line with the brand name, I created a semi-structured logo containing a grid. I then manipulated the shape to achieve a more playful, rounded style.

Meet Playgrid:

A better way to build company culture while working virtually

NEXT STEPS

With more time, there are opportunities to further improve

More Testing and Feedback

Especially regarding the productivity tracker and insights. It would be interesting to see what features remote workers and companies find most useful, and what kind of tracker insights they would like to have

Suggested Events

Create a feature where users are automatically suggested events that fit within their time gaps without having to  search anything

Greater Personalization

Enable users set pins to specific event categories or follow other users so that they can be updated about activities most applicable to them

NOTABLE KEY LEARNINGS

Working on this project helped solidify my application of the design thinking principles & how to approach problems

Importance of Human Centered Design

All design decisions should always be made with the user in mind. If not, You are designing for your users, not yourself. The design must improve the user's experience, otherwise it is just decorative and ineffective.

Staying Agile and to keep Testing

Testing and refining doesn’t ever stop. It is important to keep iterating, and there is always room for improvement. Throughout the design process, feedback from users and my peers provided different and valuable perspectives on things I wouldn't have caught on my own. I had to add and redesign multiple element to ensure they were intuitive and aligned with user goals