What are questions and issues that we see about the mobile office?
Today we had our workshop on the mobile office. We asked the participants to write their thoughts about this topic on sticky notes. We then grouped them into four categories:
1. What is important?
2. What are non-driving tasks?
3. What should be evaluated?
4. What are other relevant themes?
In general many of the things that were important also came back into the other sections.
1. What is important?
Our participants thought that it was important to think about:
* Safety: how can we ensure that the mobile office remains safe?
* Productivity (including performance): what makes us productive in the car? How can this be improved?
* Satisfaction: What makes us satisfied with a mobile office, such that we actually want to use it?
* Work-life-balance: Should the car even be a mobile office? Or should it be a place to unwind before or after a long working day? And how do we support this?
* Implementation: how can this be achieved in a car?
* Motion sickness: for some of us (including me) how can we work without feeling nautious?
2. Non-drivings tasks
Our participants thought that it was important to think about:
* Modalities: how do we interact with our car and with in-car office tasks?
* Tasks: what are the tasks? Is this just reading and writing, or communications with others, or creative tasks?
* Making it adaptive: we go somewhere with our car. How can it help me prepare for where I am going? Should I for example get notes to help me prepare for a meeting?
* Challenges: There are many challenges in the car, including how to collaborate, how to accommodate things that are needed for work.
3. Evaluation
Our participants thought that it was important to think about:
* Design: (how to) evaluate the design interface, what are the requirements of a good design?
* Community: how doe the mobile influence the interaction with others. And can a mobile office also be a family car?
* Awareness: what is the required attention span en depth of involvement?
* Quality of life: how to measure a good working environment?
* Psychological: what are possible emotional reactions to the work at hand (e.g. an upsetting e-mail)?
* Performance: How to measure performance (of both car and work)
* (Dis)comfort: what determines comfort or discomfort.
4. Other
Our participants thought that it was important to think about:
* Ergonomics: how should the physical space look like
* Tasks: are there tasks that can be done while manually driving
* Productivity: what factors would prevent effective working, is there a limit to the frequency of take-overs?
We also discussed many ideas in more detail, and our participants wrote their own blog posts on it, that you can find on the The Mobile Office page.
This post was by Stella Donker and Chris Janssen.
(by mistake published first on a personal page, instead of here right away…)
