Info

Team

Harshi Rhambia
Nino Sithivaraporn
Tzuyi Lee

Duration

Sep 2022 - Dec 2022 (14 weeks)

Scope

End-to-end process

Roles

UX Research
Wireframe
Prototype
UI Design
Usability Testing
Motion Design

Sponsor

Michael Dila - CEO of Braid

Tools

Figma
After Effects

About the project

My team worked with our sponsor, Michael Dila, the CEO of Brait, to tackle the issue of low efficiency of remote working and online meetings with AI technology in 14 weeks.


Achievement
2nd Place in Strategic Innovation in Product & Service Design Case (Fall 2022) with a 0.1 score behind the champion.

My Contribution

  • Conducted 2 rounds of user interviews, 13 interviews in total, and desk research to identify user pain points and market opportunities

  • Synthesized user insights and brainstormed solutions

  • Conducted 3 user testing sessions with 8 people and made design iterations for making sure the product design direction is on the right track

  • Designed the product storyboard and motion graphic to showcase the product in an engaging and user-friendly way.

Solution Preview

Summaries

Float is an AI-based company-driven platform for employees to discover, connect, bond, and address pandemic challenges, promoting better mental and physical health outcomes and work productivity.

Process Overview

We developed our product by following the double-diamond method through those 4 phases.

As the design process is not linear, we moved back and forth between the four phases. We redefine our challenge multiple times through many time of interviews, quick user testing, and prototyping. We see all those back-and-forths as the process of learning.

01

Desk Research

Discover Needs

User Research

HMW

Define Users

02

Define Goals

Hi-Fi Designs

Motion Graphic

04

Deliver Impact

Solution Ideation

Ideas Evaluation

03

Develop Solution

Define Scope

Features Ideation

User Testing

Wireframe

Business Plan

Initial challenge prompt from our sponsor

How might we improve employees’ performance in online or hybrid meetings with new AI/ NLP/ machine learning technologies and software systems?

Discover

Desk Research

Our desk research starts from the four aspects - Technology, Sociology, Economics, and Science, to make sure the initial research covers the wide but important areas.

Understand AI/NLP technology

Though we are not engineers, but it’s crucial to understand what AI?NLP can do to amplify the design.

User Research

We conducted 13 interviews in 2 rounds to figure out the user insights.

Research Goals

  • How to facilitate online meetings - 1st-round interview

  • How social connection impacts their productivity in work, and the factors behind - 2nd-round interview.

Research methods

Semi-structured interview
Use main questions to initiate the conversation, but let the user’s words lead the direction for gathering more insights that are out of our predictions.

Color code
Use color coding to categorize and highlight the emotional ups and downs of the conversation to help us catch the insights and common themes easier.

Affinity Mapping
We used affinity mapping to group up insights from desk research and user interview to find potential opportunities.

Key Insights

Prioritizing employee well-being is crucial for attracting top talent as organizations strategize new post-pandemic work cultures.

47% of leaders claim relationship-building is the greatest challenge in remote and hybrid work.

The cost of employee turnover is very high. Taking care of employees’ well-being is an important investment.

Productivity reduces when people work remotely without connection with people, clear work-life separation, easiness of getting help.

Desk Research

User Research

Casual interaction and connection are lacking but crucial for employees to have a fulfilling working experience.

Many AI tools and plugins have been created to facilitate online meetings, yet employees can’t use because of privacy issue.

Remote working makes asking questions very hard.

Loneliness and isolation are the largest reported concern among remote workers.

Employees

Employers

Define

How Might We Brainstorming

We listed out problems that were worth solving based on the insights to make sure we are solving the right problems.

Then we voted with red dots to get the final results.

Problem We Are Solving

The lack of casual interaction, chances to grow, and the sense of belongings in remote working reduce employees’ productivity in work. These also lead to mental issues and high turnover costs.

Persona Spectrum

Junior

  • Wants to build connections with the team and built a network for career

  • Needs help from other coworkers

  • Wants to learn from other coworkers

  • Want to know what happens in the company

Senior

  • Already has a close bond with their teammates

  • Would like to have casual interactions with them

  • It’s good to know what is happening in the company and what are people talking about

High Level

  • The network has expanded outside of the company

  • Has family to take care of and doesn’t have time to socialize with employees on a daily bases.

Refined Design Prompt

How might we improve employees’ productivity and well-being by helping them easier to interact in a remote working environment with AI/NLP?

Solution Brainstorming

My teammates and I brainstormed for the solutions and ranked based on metrics that were based on the user needs and the potentiality.

Metrics we use
Casual interactions
Help/support each other
Feelings of community & belonging
Foster collaboration, and trust in teams
Opportunity for growth (learning & mentorship)

Solution

Create a desktop-based platform that acts as a casual environment in a digital workspace where employees can discover co-workers, connect and bond with each other with the power of AI

Feature Brainstorming

We timed ourselves and generated as many ideas as we could in wireframes and grouped them up, voting, to find out the most potential features.

Final Features

Town Hall
A place to explore, meet, and chat

Events
An events page where people can participate in planned events

Quick Asking
Quick ask questions and people might know the answer can be suggested to answer

Temporary Chat Room
People will come into a temporary chat room if they walk by others

Interactive Profile
A profile page where people can showcase themselves and have interactions

User Testing

We tested with 9 users from very row wireframes to details prototypes in the whole process of development.

We learned and changed the experience and design agilely and rapidly to make sure the user experience was good enough in the end.

Five-E User Journey

Site Map

Deliver

Work doesn’t need to be a cold-dead place. Now, you can float.

Float is an AI-based company-driven platform for employees to discover, connect, bond, and address pandemic challenges, promoting better mental and physical health outcomes and work productivity.

01

Onboarding

Driven by the company, employees can onboard simply by following the guide of Floats, and most of the information has been filled up by the company.

02

Easily explore, interact, and connect with coworkers suggested by AI through profiles

With AI suggestions and Map, employees can explore, meet, and interact with people from other teams.

04

Super simple question-asking function

With AI, people can simply ask questions, and the person who might know the answer will receive a suggestion to answer the questions. At the same time, the AI model also keeps being trained to make the suggestion more accurate.

05

Explore and join events for learning or have fun with peers

With events, people can easier spend time together to learn, have fun, and create belongings.

06

Focus & Break notification

With the focus-and-break notification that is driven by the company, employees can have a better work-life balance.

03

Chatting or meeting is just that easy.

By moving by people’s avatars, people can have water coolers, discussions, or quick meetings just like in the office. People can also make each chat private to have more privacy.

Successful Criteria

is the expected amount of money for the video conferencing market by “2026”

Global Market Insights Inc. 2020

will spend the budget on video conferencing

Pepperland Marketing 2021

Market Size

Market Niche

Storyboard

Takeaways

Going back and redefining the direction we’ve made helped us figure out the real problem.

There is nothing a waste of time. Even if we went back multiple times to the beginning, it was also part of the process. Finding what didn’t work helped us see a more fundamental problem and realize that doing research isn’t a linear process. It’s full of back and forth but always can inspire us.

User testing helped designers conquer the bias.

With the real behaviors from users, we found many insights that we didn’t realize even though we thought we’ve considered enough. Rapid prototype and user testing helped us adjust the design trajectory in the correct direction.