Fostering Remote Workplace Gratitude with IoT Technology
CONTEXT
2 month project
4 people team
CHI Design Competition
ROLE
Interaction design
User Research
Project management
OVERVIEW
Workplace gratitude, which mostly stems from appreciations from among co-workers, greatly influences group well-being. To foster gratitude especially during remote work, we designed Co-Orb, an IoT desktop orb that is connected to people's work communication app and lights up with a customized emoji when a thank-you message is received from co-workers.
Our design submission has been accepted by the CHI 2022 Conferenceand won the 1st Prize for the student design competition.
PROBLEM
Exchanging gratitude becomes difficulte in remote work settings
When people work in the office, they can easily express their gratitude to their co-workers by handing them a cup of coffee or inviting them for lunch. These are personalized, timely and specific enough to deliver their emotions Unfortunately, when it comes to remote work, those simple but effective interactions are no longer an option.
RESEARCH
How do people express or perceive gratitude in remote work settings?
Why are these ways of exchanging gratitude not working well for people?
With these findings, we were able to identify the major user need: People want an easier way to express and a better way to perceive gratitude, which guided us to define our design opportunity.
How might we make it convenient and enjoyable to express and perceive gratitude in remote settings?
IDEATION
We generated multiple ideas and tested them over speed dating sessions:
The Co-Orb concept received the most positive feedbacks in terms of conveniency and joyfulness.
INITIAL DESIGN
The initial design was divided into 2 parts: a plugin application to encourage the expression of appreciation, and an IoT orb to receive appreciation.
Send appreciation:
When a user sends a message that contains “thank”, “appreciate” or other keywords that are related to gratitude, a prompt would show up in Slack and ask if the user would like to light up the receiver's Co-Orb.
Receive appreciation:
When a user receives an appreciation message from a co-worker, the orb will gradually glow up for several seconds. Users can then tap their hands on the orb to play a synthesized voice reading out the message.
We ran Wizard of Oz testing sessions with target users using think-aloud protocol to learn feedbacks:
Users have concerns over distraction, personalization and have a strong desire to make these experiences collectible.
ITERATIONS
Iterations are made to address concerns and further improve the micro-interactions
FEASIBILITY
Technology feasibility and cost estimation for production
During the Wizard of Oz testing, we utilized projection mapping onto a normal lamp to showcase the experience to our users. To make sure our solution has valid technology feasibility, we researched on following potential technologies for implementation:
Spherical LED panels
estimated cost: $200-300
Spherically arranged LED strips
estimated cost: $50-100
Circle-shaped PCB with LED pixels
estimated cost: $25-50
Business model and value added to organizations
Based on the production plan above, we estimate that the cost of Co-Orb can be maintained at a reasonable level and can be outweighed by the numerous benefits that Co-Orb can bring to an organization. To promote an organization-wide usage of Co-Orb, we imagine that it will be purchased and distributed by companies to their employees as part of a home-office kit.
FINAL DESIGN
Powered by IoT technologies, Co-Orb is designed to foster gratitude among co-workers in remote work settings. During user testing, using Co-Orb to send, perceive, and collect gratitude has shown to be an enjoyable and touching experience for our target users. Participants mentioned that this product brought them unexpected heartwarming feelings and would motivate them to express more gratitude at work by bringing it beyond screens.
