During 6 months I worked in a group of 6 students on a capstone project as part of the Masters in Human-Computer Interaction and Design (MHCID) program at University of California, Irvine. We conducted research and designed a solution for our client.
While all students contribute in different capacities during all phases of the project, my main contribution was being research lead.
Our client, let’s call it ACME, is a technology consulting company headquartered in the Bay Area. They deliver strategy, design, and engineering to contruction projects all over the world.
ACME has a culture of respect, collaboration, open communication. One of their core values is “Demonstrate you care”. They are proud to be repeatedly named one of the Best Places to Work by their staff.
Prior to the pandemic ACME had most of its workforce workng at a physical location.
They had offices from San Francisco, Portland, Texas, and all the way to the United Kingdom.
ACME switched to remote work as the COVID shutdown began.
Now ACME has permanently changed its model to be a virtual-first company without physical office spaces.
They found tools that help their staff operate with equal effectiveness as before, which they found beneficial to their employess and to the environment.
During this time ACME has been growing steadly. Pre-pandemic it had around 100 employees, and in a period of 2 years its workforce was approaaching 160.
Daily scenes at ACME pre-pandemic…
You arrive at work, park you car and walk to the buildng. At the same time a co-worker who is a new employee is arriving too, and you have the chance to have a casual talk as you walk and take the elevator together.
Mid-morning you go to the break room for a mental break and coffee. You see another co-worker and you tease each other about the rivalry between your favorite baseball teams.
You arrive 5 minutes early for an afternoon meeting. You sit next to a colleague from another team. As you talk to each other you discover you are working in similar projects and share some of the similar problems and solutions you both have found.
When ACME switched completely to remote work it gave employees great flexibility, and it can now attract talent from everywhere. But the simple unplanned spontaneous conversations, which gave a lot of flavor to the daily employee experience, are hard to replicate in remote work environment. With a fast growing workforce it is hard to find opportunities to engate with new employees and those from other areas of the company.
ACME wants to
While there are plenty of existing platforms that support communication and collaboration among employees, they are not designed to facilitate this type of spontaneus experiences so common in a physical office environment.
This is what ACME was looking for: ACME wants to know how we can bring watercooler conversations into the remote work environment.
We followed the Design Thinking Process, represented by the double diamond. Our first step was the discovery phase.
There exist so many platforms that help employees communicate with each other. So the question is: why don’t they work to create watercooler conversations?
We realized that to create something that will address the problem we really need to understand the problem.
If we don’t have a deep understanding of the problem we risk creating just another app to connect employees, but we won’t be addressing the problem that ACME brought to us.
To deep dive and help us to understand the problem we started with:
We used the learnings of the initial deep dive as the foundation to create interview questions for remote workers.
We conducted 33 interviews:
We analyzed 32 papers from a wide variety of sources such as CSCW, CHI, Harvard Business School, and MIT School of Management, dating from 1980s to 2021.
We classified our finding into 4 main themes:
Shared and Individual Identities affect Presentation
Shared Experiences: Ambient and Environmental Factors in an Online Environment
Feelings of Isolation: Anonymity and Weak Ties
Teamwork and Proximity
Diagram below illustrates how each theme affects each other
| Context-Based Workplace Awareness: Concepts and Technologies for Supporting Distributed Awareness in a Hospital Environment, Jakob E.Bardam, Thomas Riisgaard Hansen, 2010, CSCW |
| Design of a Multi-Media Vehicle for Social Browsing |
| Learning How to Feel Again: Towards Affective Workplace Presence and Communication Technologies |
| Enhancing Innovation through Virtual Proximity |
| Using Ambient Displays and Smart Artefacts to Support Community Interaction in Distributed Teams |
| A critical evaluation of the contribution of trust to effective Technology Enhanced Learning in the workplace: A literature review |
| Changing identities in a changing workplace: Identification, identity enactment, self-verification, and telecommuting |
| The Influence of Informal Communication on Organizational Identification and Commitment in the Context of High-Intensity Telecommuting |
| Focusing on Shared Experiences: Moving beyond the camera in video communication |
| A different take on Zoom fatigue involving self-complexity and context |
| Reducing Implicit Gender Bias Using a Virtual Workplace Environment |
| Towards Accessible Remote Work: Understanding Work-from-Home Practices of Neurodivergent Professionals |
| Picking the Right Approach to Digital Collaboration |
| Figuring Out Social Capital Is critical for the Future of hybrid work |
| Teleworking in post-pandemic times: may local coworking spaces be the future trend? |
| Understanding the Interpersonal Space of Online Meetings: An Exploratory Study of “We-ness” |
| Social Interactions in Virtual Reality: What Cues Do People Use Most and How |
| The Sounds of Togetherness |
| Understanding and Reducing Perception Gaps with Mediated Social Cues when Building Workplace Relationships through CMC |
| Why do People (not) Want to Work from Home? An Individual-focused Literature Review on Telework. |
| “The effects of COVID-19 on coworking spaces: Patterns and future trends.” New Workplaces—Location Patterns, Urban Effects and Development Trajectories. |
| Community, Context, and the Presentation of Self in Distributed Workplace Interaction |
| Using Digital Socialization to Support Geographically Dispersed AEC Project Teams |
| Virtual Watercoolers: A Field Experiment on Virtual Synchronous Interactions and Performance of Organizational Newcomers |
| Social Translucence: an approach to designing systems that support social processes |
| Social Translucence: Using Minimalist Visualisations of Social Activity to Support Collective Interaction |
| Understanding the implications of social translucence for systems supporting communication at work |
| (paper about AROMA system) |
| (paper about Out to Lunch system) |
| (paper about Chat Circles and Loom system) |
| (Paper relate to Quub) Status on Display: a Field Trial of Nomatic*Viz |
| Informing and performing: investigating how mediated sociality becomes visible |
At the stage of the competitive analysis we did not have an idea of what our final product would look like, what type of features would be available. This made it challenging to focus on one type of product. For this reason we looked at products of a variety of categories:
We chose to look at community and collaboration platforms because our products needs to not only be collaborative but also help promoto employee engagement and bonding
Video conferencing platforms are meant for meetings; since we estimated that our product would have video/audio calls we looked into video conferencing.
Virtual “in-person” spaces are products that allow for more interaction in an online room. You can move your avatar around to talk to people.
Game-like virtual spaces are similar to virtual “in-person” spaces, but instead, the room is like a map of a building. The user has a character – an actual avatar in lieu of a profile picture – to move around and interact with others. This simulation is similar to 2D pixel video-games.
The “other” category has products that were worth lookinginto but did not thematically match with out categorization names. Both Donut and Sidekick help promote employee bonding and/or collaboration.
Our main goal of the competitive analysis was to understand better what kind of products were already available on the current market.
Our secondary goal was understand which features other products have, how they are designed, and most importantly, how customers thought of those products. This will make us better acquainted with the market space.
For each competitor we looked at a variety of factors, and synthesize them into a table that emphased our learning into each exceptional strenghts and striking weaknesses. We looked into controls, intuititivty, restrictions, privacy, integration with other existing platforms, customization, costs, novelty, and more. Understanding these helped us later in the design phase of our project.
ACME had a few initialtives in place to improve employee engagement, and they provided some internal survey data showing that employees overwhelmingly gave positive responses about satisfaction and work experience. ACME’s leadership and HR, however, felt that engagement was lacking.
Why this disconnect?
Our first step is understand the problem. What is ACME trying to achieve? Is there anything that employees think is missing? Does engagement means the same thing from ACME’s and employees point of view? What factors contribute or not to employee engagement?
We create a set of questions that roughly fit 3 main categories
Questions to understand the big picture: what is missing in the remote work environment?
Questions to understand employee’s engagement.
Questions about opportunities employees have to socialize in the workplace.
Questions for insights about our users.
Questions to understand how employees communicate and interact with each other. What are the communication flows? What tools to they use to communicate and collaborate?
We did 33 interviewes ranging from 30 minutes to 1 hour. We interviewed 15 ACME employees and 18 remote workers from different companies.
To analyze the data we used the collaborative software DoveTail.
We transcribed all interviews, then we coded each one with tags and notes. Each interviewed was reviewed and coded by at least 2 people.
We started color-code and group tags by similarity.
We divided all groups into 3 major swimlanes.
In pairs we analyzed each swimlane to generate insights. Each pair analyzed all 3 swimlanes.
Lastly, we reviewed and discussed all insights, further refining them. We summarized the interview with several insights and problem points.
We also identified some constraints and considerations that will need to take into account in the design phase.
Employee engagement
When we ask employees “what does employee engagement mean to you?” we expect to hear about how employees are connect and have friendships with other employees, and about participation in company activities.
Instead, most of the answers said that engagement refers to how connected they feel to their work with their team, and the company. It relates to doing their job well.
For them, employee engagement is about productivity, not social connection.
They don’t need deep personal friendships to feel engaged with their team. They need work friendships. These friendships are about :
We also learned that these work friendships are build mostly though casual conversations, either by spending a lot of time together working on a project, or through everyday unplanned spontaneous encounters with coworkers.
Socialization at work
We also asked about their opportunities to socialize at work. For example: what are the current ways to socialize? do they participate in these activities? Do they like them? Why or why not? What do they expect to gain from these activities?
We heard again tha employees’ goal is to create connections that help them trust each other and work well together, but that does not mean they are looking for strong personal friendships at the workplace.
Overall people were satisfied with what is currently offered, because it matches their expectations about the levels of connection they want to have with other employees.
What is missing?
One of our questions was “what is missing in the remote work environment? People did not mention big social events or initiatives. The majority said what is missing from remote work are spontaneous casual encounters.
We learned that spontaneuous casual conversations are important because they help creating and maintaining work friendships, which are an important component for employeeds feeling connected to their works, their teams, and their company.
There are a varietey of scenarios for when they can occur: during work activities, such as walking together to a meeting room, having side conversations during a presentation, talking to someone in the break room or siting together at lunch.
But what makes spontaneous conversations different from other conversations at the workplace?
One of our core interview topics was about communicati on flow. By looking into how employees communicate with each other, we learned that different employees have different styles and preferences to communicate with each other, what works and does not work, and what could be barriers fro some of them.
The implications of these learnings are that we need to be respectuful of all of thenees of this wide user base to create a successful application where people can connect each other.
The strongest theme throughout all the answers was RESPECT. People do not want to disrupt otehrs when reaching out to connect. They want to respect the time and availability of others.
We identified 7 main profiles. Each employee is a combination of these.
Rather than having the need or desire to be close friends with their co-workers, they believe that building rapport is important and having professional relationships is enough. Most of our interviewees fit into this category.
Pain Point
Their pain point is that the remote work environment makes it harder to create new and mantain existing professional friendships.
Interviewee Quote
“I think it is important to build your professional relationships, but not too much on a personal level. To me, working professionally is like building trust. I trust you, and you trust me in our responsibilities at work.”
These employees that have a large workload so their time is fully devoted to fulfill their deliverables and meet deadlines. They would like to connect with others but are overloaded with work that they cannot afford to do so – largely due to time as opposed to energy. Busy Bees may constantly be stressed.
Pain Point
Their pain point is that they don’t have time available for social events on their calendar.
Interviewee Quote
“I used to attend some online gatherings hosted by our company, but I pretty much stopped because I was too busy. The events got too much for my calendar, but it’d be nice if I could afford to attend them some time.”
Introverts would like to connect with others, but largely feel uncomfortable in a bigger setting; they prefer to be in a smaller group with people they are familiar with. They value autonomy and time so that they can have the proper space to recharge after interacting with others.
Pain Point
They struggle with mixed feelings about remote work. Being remote makes it easier to avoid unnecessary interactions, but staying in their comfort zone can lead to feelings of isolation.
Interviewee Quote
“I think it’s nice to connect with people, but I’m more comfortable in private meetings because of my personality. Being in a smaller group where everyone is unmuted and talking makes me more comfortable than being in a group that has more people.”
New Hires represent employees that were hired within the past year, starting in the company after it went completely remote. Several needs demand their time and attention:
These demands can make them feel overwhelmened.
Like the Busy Bee they don’t have time available. They prioritize focusing on learning the new job to prove themselves in their new position.
They want to project a good professional identity bu their lack of knowledge abotu company culture, or the unfamiliarity with thei new roles makes them insecure, so sometimes they don’t feel comfortable asking questions.
On the other hand, in an in-person work environment there are many opportunities for spontaneous encounters with help them meet new people, build relationships, and ask questions.
Pain Point
Their pain point is the lack of opportnities for spantaneous connections in the remote environment because it affects the time it takes for them to fully integrate in the company.
Interviewee Quote
“I left my previous company because there was no culture to socialize there. It’s definitely better here… but I’m still having a difficult time connecting with others because there aren’t many opportunities.”
These employees have more than 15 years of experience. They have climbed the career ladder and are project managers or higher. Veteran Experts are confident in their ability to deliver and see workers as who they are. They make an effort to know their co-workers better, even though socializing isn’t a necessity. Veteran Experts spend most of their time in meetings, phone calls, and Zoom conferences. They prefer voice and/or face-to-face communication because it feels more authentic.
Pain Point
Connections increase productivity, but lack of in-person activities makes socializing difficult.
Interviewee Quote
“Everybody is a human being. I like working with my team a lot, so I schedule meetings with them because I want to know how they’re doing and who they really are – because some of us are a completely different person outside of work.”
These employees want to be as productive as possible during work hours so that they can separate work from their home like; they have a very strong sense of work-life balance, so that they can spend quality time with their family and attend to their at-home responsibilities.
Pain Point
With remote work is harder to divide work-life balance due to the absence of environmental differences (eg. in-office vs at home).
Interviewee Quote
“I like working remotely because I can be with my family. Time is precious because it’s limited, so I like being flexible because I can pick my daughter and son up from school. However, I do think it’s important to have proper connections with my co-workers at work, so I’ll make an effort to do that.”
These employees desire opportunities to engage with other co-workers. They believe that socialization can help build good relationships, making them feel more comfortable about asking questions and collaborating with team members in the future.
Pain Point
Unfortunately the aspect of remote work makes it difficult to authentically connect with others.
Interviewee Quote
“I’m definitely an extrovert. I really miss the kinds of interactions that would happen in the office, like somebody popping into my office or door just to say “hi” or have a chat, or even just being able to grab coffee with somebody during lunch. It’s really been challenging working from home.”
Three major research findings translated into major design principles.
Insight:
People define engagement as doing meaningful work and building professional trust.
Design Principle:
Support low-pressure, work-adjacent conversations that help build trust, not forced social events.
Insight:
Spontaneous encounters are short, unplanned, and under the user’s control.
Design Principle:
Make interactions brief, optional, and integrated into existing workflow.
Insight:
Different profiles have conflicting needs but all care about respecting others’ time.
Design Principle:
Offer flexible ways to participate (observe vs join, small groups vs larger), and make availability visible.
Spark Lobby: a pre-meeting lobby for virtual meetings that encourages spontaneous conversations.
Spark likes in the existing flow to join a Zoom meeting. Users can just join a few minutes early.
Users have the option to join Spark Lobby or go directly to Zoom meeting.
At the time set for meeting start all users will be automatically transferred from Lobby to meeting.
On Quite Mode users can see list of users currently in Social Mode, but other users cannot see them in Quiet Mode.
They decide whether they want to join other participants on Social Mode, or can remain in Quiet Mode until Zoom meeting starts.
Similar to in-person interactions, users can approach other users to form a bubble and talk to other people, and stop the conversation when they walk away. They can talk to another participant or join an existing bubble of conversation.
Outcomes:
From user testing we receive very positive feedback.
Users were pleased by the aesthetic and simplicity of the design.
“The UX is intuitive and interesting.”
“It’s logical. There is nothing out of place. It has a natural flow to it.”
Users felt that Spark is a place to gather for unplanned informal spontaneous conversations, just like it used to happen in-person.
“… this is like the old watercooler chats. So we are getting together, we are getting ready to go into a meeting, and we have a chance to just chat it up a little bit before we start our meeting. So I like the social component, I like the communication, and I like the connectedness that it implies.”
“I don’t join meetings earlier because I don’t expect anyone to be there. But knowing that people would be there early and there would be a watercooler or you can try to go to the room to just chit chat, I think that would be cool!”
The feedback confirmed that Spark fits well into the employee’s busy workday.
“I don’t join meetings early but this might make me, if I had 2 minutes to spare I would be like “Yeah, cool, let’s do it”.
Users think Spark is a place where they can socialize on their own comfort level, without being forced to do so.
“…if introverts join in quiet mode and they don’t see anyone in the lobby they will just stay in quiet mode. I think my default would be just always be in quiet mode unless there was someone I recognized.”