User experience on working from home

By Amanda Djäknegren, Frida Grothérus, Isabelle Kjellström, Lina Ring, Sanna Göransson

During 2020, the number of people studying or working from home rapidly increased due to the pandemic. As a part of the course “PPU181 Design for Experience” at Chalmers, the goal of this project was to gain an understanding of people’s experiences of working from home, to then design a product that targets one of the negative aspects with the aim to improve the experience. Using a theoretical approach based on Norman’s three levels of design and user research in the form of qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey, we found that the most common issue was that of discomfort due to non-ergonomic working positions and a decrease of physical activity. The digital app Stretchify and physical figurine “Norman” was developed to encourage users to take breaks, change positions and provides instructions on how to perform different stretch exercises.

By letting the figurine light up and stretch, the user is reminded to make ergonomic decisions during their work day by suggesting they stretch or change position. The user will also get a notification on their computer that describes what they should do, including exercises or suggestions on for example how to stretch if they choose to click on the notification. While the app can be used standalone from the physical product, the figurine serves as a reminder throughout the day to take breaks and can be placed either on top of a screen or on a table. The figurine was given a cheerful and lively personality the user can connect with, and this expressiveness of makes the user more prone to emotional attachment since it to a certain degree is something that the user gets to interact with.

Process

The interviews and surveys revealed that peoples’ experience in working from home is not entirely good nor entirely bad. Movement during the workday had gone from naturally being included in people’s everyday into becoming something that individuals have to make conscious decisions to include in their day. We also found that people had been very creative in creating new and improved working environments from home, but it still seemed as it was not enough ergonomically. 

Using this data, an initial brainstorming session was held where the products should solve this ergonomic issue. Design strategies such as sensory design (designing touch, taste, sound, smell, look), design for meaning (creating a narrative, giving the product a personality), and design for meaningfulness (helping the user fulfilling their goals, enables the user to make changes, creating an emotional bond with the product) were used. The concepts which were created were then combined to create three product categories to brainstorm further from. The pros and cons of the ideas were then put against each other before a final concept was chosen.