Week 6 🗓: 18 May - 22 May
Brief 🔍
Design a way to counter some of the alienating effects of remote working online.
Teammates: 🤝 Pat, Lee and Ann
This week we aimed to confirm our physical plugin toolkit so we work very hard on developing our prototype in "drawing", "moving", "making" and "socializing". We divide our work. I was responsible for the drawing idea. Pat was working on the moving and making idea. Ann was doing the moving idea. Lee was responsible for the socializing idea.
Drawing
Based on last week idea is the "Team Journal and Pen" for enhancing people creativity and connection. I suddenly got an idea about "Your Missing Page at your home office". "The Missing Page" means your missing connection with your teammates so is trying to help them connect more through a new page. The idea comes from the browser page. When we are working, we always access multi-pages. The design is a browser tag that we recognize. The new browser page means your new team journal. I created a "browser page masking tape" to let people stick it on their real physical life. And also a physical click pointer as a pen to let them draw on any physical items that have the tape.
Below is the examples that sticking the browser page masking tape on different physical object at your home. Those objects become your new page to draw as a team journal to share with your workmates.
After I designed this idea, I think of an activity to demo it. The activity is called "Secret Workmate", which just like the game "Secret Santa".
1. A need to draw a name card for B
2. The name card is about your impression of B
3. Draw it with the browser page masking tape and click pointer
4. B will automatically receive the name card, but she won't know who draw for her
This activity is random matching for the whole team. Everyone will receive a drawing challenge alert. Each one has a chance to draw for their teammates. People will be curious about how people think they are. Below is the storyboard to demo how it works.
Workers can discuss to find out the secret workmates on the digital plugin.
Below is the name card creation examples:
Moving + Making
This idea aims to encourage people to move more at their home office. The slap band can be a tracker to detect people movement. The benefit is that it is a wearable object, and also can easily be attached to other round objects. People can customize its color and pattern. We think of some ice-breaking competition which can also relieve office syndrome pain. Below are some activities suggestions.
Socializing
This idea aims to provide opportunities for colleagues to socialize, to understand each other, from funny thoughts to value sharing. We think of an activity called "Either One". Firstly, there will be 1 to 2 hypothetical "This or that" questions in every session in a fun and relaxing setting. Secondly, the microphone will turn into the color of your choice to make individuals noticeable. Thirdly, each person is going to say there own choice and explanation with the microphone. Lastly, then each side is encouraged to persuade the other side to agree. We believe interesting topics will spark a conversation which leads to people sharing their experience, the value from the other part of their lives. Ultimately, people can develop a banding with each other.
Project feedback & Reflection 🙌
After we shared our ideas, our professors gave us some useful feedback, which help us narrow down a bit for our idea. Overall, they think the drawing and socializing idea is good. However, they said that people may not willing to play the moving game with their colleagues. They suggest us to rethink what is to key motivation to let people move and even move with their colleagues. We think this comment is really true, we should critically consider this problem. On the other ideas, drawing on the physical world will be fun but they suggest us to think more about why using a browser page as the main concept. After the tutorial, we have an internal team meeting to clarify the problems and think to how to move to the next step. Please have a look at the next blog for further progress.
References 📖
Ingold, T., 2013. Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.
Rudani, R., 2013. Principles Of Management. New Delhi: McGraw Hill Education (India), p.761.
Fapohunda, T.M., 2013. Towards effective team building in the workplace. International Journal of Education and Research, 1(4), pp.1-12.
Fried, J. and Hansson, D.H., 2013. Remote: office not required. Random House.