Project Overview + Scope
My team and I were challenged to design a new mobile app feature, which would enhance remote communication for office workers working from home.
We started by exploring opportunities in this problem space with real workers, and came up with the Slack automatic video reply — a way to record and send personal out-of-office video messages to co-workers.
With a turnaround of 1.5 weeks, we delivered a mid-fidelity prototype following two rounds of user testing.
UX Research + Design Process
We first embarked on a research phase to discover and define the remote communication issues workers face, followed by a design phase to design and deliver an app feature solving some of these issues.
Assumptions + Problem Statement
We hypothesized that the following assumptions might be true of workers’ experiences with remote communication:
- Lacking informal co-worker interactions;
- Distractions at home;
- Too many unnecessary meetings;
- Pressure to be available all the time;
- Switching between multiple communication tools.
With these assumptions in mind, we posed the following Problem Statement:
How might we give remote workers the ability to set firmer boundaries for work meetings and messages, and create space for informal interactions with their co-workers?
RESEARCH PHASE
Research Goal
Our goal was to validate whether the assumptions underlying our Problem Statement were, in fact, true.
Methodology
We carried out user interviews with 5 members of our target audience — remote workers — following a structured script to capture the insights needed to check our assumptions.
Interviews were held over Zoom, and recorded and auto-transcribed in the Otter app.
Synthesis » Affinity Mapping
We analyzed the transcripts, collecting individual insights on sticky notes. We then synthesized these insights through an iterative grouping process based on shared similarities — affinity mapping — to illuminate key themes.
Key Themes
Through this process we uncovered eight themes. We took forward the following four as actionable insights to inform our app feature design.
Remote workers:
- Experience stress from many requests for attention (pressure to respond)
- Want to see and hear who they’re communicating with (primarily video)
- Need a way to create protected time for personal life (scheduling boundaries)
- Need to feel personal connection with co-workers (simulating in-person experience)
Persona
Our research insights allowed us to generate a fictional representative of our target audience. This persona — Amanda — helped us to humanize our target audience and better design for their needs:
Journey Map
Throughout her day, Amanda feels bad about taking breaks or running errands in case she misses a message or has to run back to take a call. After work, she doesn’t sign out of Slack and struggles to switch off.
The day-in-the-life view through Amanda’s eyes helps us better understand how our app feature design might take flight.
Revised Problem Statement
Through our research, we were able to validate our initial assumptions and further focus our Problem Statement:
Remote office workers often receive many seemingly urgent requests for attention across multiple communication tools.
As a result Amanda, our research-backed persona, finds it difficult to:
- Manage information shared with her in conversations across tools;
- Feel any personal connection during conversations themselves;
- Set cut-offs for when to stop responding.
How might we provide remote office workers with a way to set firmer boundaries to contain strictly work-related communications, to allow for good-quality informal interaction with co-workers, and downtime free from work communication outside those bounds?
RESEARCH » DESIGN
At the intersection from research to design, our research insights together pointed to an app feature that needed to address:
- Stress from many requests for attention » Notification-reducing feature
- Protected time for personal life » Out-of-office feature
- Ability to see and hear who they’re communicating with » Video feature
- Need for personal connection » Informal feature
DESIGN PHASE
MVP Reveal
Introducing: the Slack automatic video reply — a way to record and send personal out-of-office video messages to co-workers looking to get in touch on Slack during off-duty times of day (or night).
With the Slack automatic video reply, you can quickly capture a personal “away now, back later” message to auto-send to anyone messaging while you’re unavailable. Co-workers receiving the video reply experience a human rather than cold text; meanwhile, you get to alleviate feelings of having to respond straight away.
This addresses the actionable insights uncovered in our research.
Design Studio: Sketching + Ideation
Early sketches allowed us to test out the concept with users, and see whether they followed the expected flow through the feature’s screens.
Mid-fidelity Screens
The sketches evolved into mid-fidelity wireframes, which improved on the sketches using lessons from our user tests.
Initial User Testing: First Round
The first round of testing set out to check if the content, layout and flow of screens were intuitive for users tasked to record, preview and set a video reply.
Findings
We learned that the text on the first screen could be modified to present the feature more clearly, and the subsequent screens could benefit from slightly more instructional text.
Design Iterations: First Round
User Testing: Second Round
The second round of testing set out to see if the text modifications after the first round made the prototype easier to use.
Findings
The easiness rating of the prototype increased, and time spent completing the video task improved.
Mid-fidelity Screens
Recommendations + Next Steps
With additional time and scope, next steps would be developing a high-fidelity prototype for user testing, and taking forward any learning into the feature roll-out.
