As the amount of workers being moved towards remote workdays has sharply increased due to recent COVID-19 pandemic, it has become much easier for workers to fall into isolation as more difficulties arise regarding how workers interact during the workday.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of knowledge workers across North America have struggled to move their work lives online. Although teleconferencing, email, and other internet tools have allowed teams to stay connected, we discovered that employees are feeling more disconnected than ever. We sought to design for emotional connection by creating a way for workers to create something that sparks joy (shoutout to Marie Kondo).
Many companies have had to find new ways for workers to communicate with one another. For many, using platforms they had used prior to the pandemic has been the quickest solution, as it spares the time required to find and introduce new platforms to a company's workflow.
However, as usage of these platforms increase, the amount of users that say video calls help them feel truly connected has plummeted. In addition, it was noted by 95.1% of survey respondents that it was difficult getting to know their coworkers in a remote setting, with awkwardness, inconvenience, and confusion about availability being listed as the main reasons.
We needed to explore the nuances of our data to create rich and inclusive personas. Do they have a separate and private working space? Do they live alone? Do they have access to reliable technology to accomplish their tasks? It’s important to consider these perspectives and challenges to understand how inequality presents itself in remote work.
As our key measure for this project was to bring joy and support remote workers, we constructed our persona around a recent hire during COVID-19 with no prior experience in the workplace. Despite scheduling frequent 1:1s with her lead and coworkers, she finds it difficult to establish strong emotional connections with her coworkers. Being her first remote role, her fears are misinterpretations, unrealistic expectations, and working within a competitive junior culture.
Keeping in mind the different levels of authority within the workplace, our secondary persona of a newly appointed manager finding it difficult to emotionally understand their team was kept in mind
Wörkestra is a desktop and mobile app that allows remote coworkers to see and hear each other’s keyboard and mouse clicks. With teams distanced by a technological barrier, we want to discover how teams can be more present with each other over that distance. In addition, Wörkestra aims to help reduce workplace isolation by creating a more informal and joyful way for teams to connect throughout the workday.
Check out our video of Wörkestra in use during a workday.
Something about informal conversation
Wörkestra can be used in its minimized form on the current or separate monitor for workers to see what their coworkers are up to. The goal is for this application to display within the worker's peripherals to support meaningful interaction while not distracting them from their work.
With limited customization options available within existing communication platforms, such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack, we wanted to emphasize the importance of self expression, especially within the remote workplace. These instruments act as an extension of one's personality, which is especially beneficial when one has yet to meet their coworkers in person.
In the words of our Dean and project director, Carman Neustaedter, "sometimes I want to be a guitar, sometimes I want to be a drum, and sometimes I might want to sound like a horrifying combination of every possible instrument"
With a list of expandable keywords specified by your team lead, Wörkestra will push the associated emoji to the timeline and give an example to your coworkers of what you may be doing, such as pushing changes to Github, eating corn for lunch, or just about anything else.
This presents a unique opportunity for coworkers to better know when you may be available, allowing for better scheduling of work or non-work related events/tasks, such as taking a lunch together through Google Meet.
A surprising amount of respondents were unaware of available resources. This led to the common perception in interviews that if assistance for the problem isn't well advertised, it's not a problem worth worrying about.
Mimicking the experience of being at the physical workplace, we created a way for coworkers to build social support, create opportunities for collaboration, and create a sense of community at a distance. These moments foster familiarity and mutual respect within teams and across departments which allow for colleagues to better seek information, opinions, and guidance in a way that is both spontaneous and personable throughout the workday.
With these conversations comes better feedback across the team and company, a healthier and more productive work environment, and more successful collaboration over time.
Team leads can take charge of day-to-day work pacing by adjusting the tempo throughout the day to fit the type of work being done. Doing a team sprint over the next few hours? Crank up the tempo! When workers play back the sounds at the end of the workday, they can hear how changes in their daily workflow are translated into music.
This feature is as an opportunity for managers to orchestrate a work session in a fun and exciting manner, where workers can look forward to what they've done/made throughout the day.
As our project shifted to heavily focusing on the emotional aspects of human connection, we derived two primary guiding principles through our research as way to stay grounded as a product which emphasizes curating a fun work environment. Taking advantage of all human senses, we aimed to prioritize the often overlooked properties of sound, as an equal to all visuals that are shown. With the right balance of both sound and visuals design, we were better positioned to create an application which does not disrupt a worker's daily workflow, but enhances it.
