Workwise
Workwise helps users balance their work and personal lives, stay organized, and manage their time effectively
CLIENT
Politecnico di Milano
February - June 2020
MY ROLE
UX designer designing the platform from conception to delivery.
RESPONSABILITIES
research, prototyping, interaction, illustration, visual, design system
TOOLS
Figma
Illustrator
The project
Workwise promotes work-life balance and reduces stress, helping professionals to maintain their productivity and overall wellbeing while working remotely. It’s easy, flexible, and tailored to the user needs.
Problem statement
Many professionals are struggling to balance their work responsibilities with their family duties, particularly when working remotely. They need a solution that can help them adopt smart working practices while also collaborating effectively with colleagues and managing family duties.
Responsabilities
My responibilities were conducting foundational and design research, user research, information architecture, wireframing & prototyping, usability testing, visual Design, interaction Design, and illustrations.
How to help professionals adopt “smart working” solutions, collaborating with colleagues while managing family duties?
Design constraints
The project required organisational and financial constraints to be met, resulting in the adaptation of workflows to maximise project output.
Process overview
The design process was divided into 5 macro-phases, from the research phase based on the identified problematization, to the development and testing phase of the platform, in its different formats.
Empathize
Identifying smart workers criticalities and needs during the pandemic.
Define
create service to correctly balance work and private life
Ideate
brainstorm
worst possible idea
crazy eight’s
Prototype
creation of scaled down versions of the product to investigate solutions
Test
iterations, alterations, and refinements to rule out alternative solutions
Solution
The research work led to the creation of an application that can help smartworking workers better manage their work-life balance.
Online survey
Addressed to
Italian smart workers of all ages even if not included in the target.
What for
to collect quantitative data from a large pool of participants about the situation.
Find it difficult to manage relationships with colleagues through smartworking.
Find it difficult to handle the entire communication flows between colleagues.
Has significant problem managing work and household chores together.
Feel they don't have enough time for themselves outside the working day.
Qualitative interview
To explore these data, I conducted moderated interviews with professionals with different smart working regimes.
Giovanni
Freelancer
Dalia
Part-time worker
Nicola
Office worker
Riccardo
Part-time worker
Davide
Full-time worker
Lorenzo
Business owner
Martina
Full-time worker
Paolo
External collaborator
Chiara
Freelancer
Arianna
Office worker
Value map
I then identified users' values and needs to understand whether there were divergent or overlapping interests.
User Personas
Three types of user persona were identified, which enabled the identification of the primary goals and needs of different user groups.
User journey
I identified the set of touchpoints accomplished by users during a typical smart working day in order to understand the most important needs or critical issues detected by users.
User pain points
Research insights
“I feel lonely and isolated working from home, I would like an app that helps me connect with other remote workers and find collaboration opportunities.”
- Dalia
"My time is precious and I have to do everything possible to make the most of it. I would like an app that helps me manage my work, but also my free time and family.”
- Paolo
“Delegating tasks to my employees is important, as is monitoring my team's work and being able to preserve my mental health and well-being.”
- Arianna
Project opportunities
Human connection
Reestablishing that interpersonal connection partially lost with the distance imposed by smart working.
Time management
Optimizing time management can help workers reduce stress and achieve greater productivity.
Balance restoring
Rebalancing the attention given to work life versus caring for non-work aspects (family, health, passions).
Scamper technique
Concept
Application to help smart workers balance work and private activities.
Substitute
Integration of self-assessment of work-life balance with automated one.
Combine
Combining both work and personal life management main app features.
Adapt
Customized scheduling according to the user's needs, schedule, priorities.
Modify
Customized notification system that alerts users when it is time to unplug.
Put to another use
Use the application for leisure management as well as work planning activity.
Eliminate
Simplify interaction through highly visible buttons and immediate call-to-actions.
Rearrange
Change order of navigation (from the most relevant to the least relevant).
Context analysis
App features
Unique proposition
Holistic approach
the app focuses on the overall well-being of the user and not only on managing work activities.
Apps integration
integrates with other apps and productivity tools to provide a more comprehensive user experience.
High customization
it offers more configuration options than other existing apps, in order to adapt to the user's specific needs.
Sitemap
The sitemap illustrates the list of actions that can be executed through the service, making explicit the processes, devices and actors involved.
Log files monitoring
The system is designed to work by monitoring log files, items that help to understand how intensely an app or service is being used.
A log file is
a sequential & chronological recording of transactions made by a computer system.
Its purpose is
record and store events on an operating system or application for later reuse.
The app will use
systems log
The main goal is
monitor all the applications used to understand their intensity of use.
Information architecure
I subsequently designed the information architecture of the application, including the launch and onboarding phase.
Wireframe
Low-Fi Mockups
Activity tracking
Status generation
Relationships care
Activity report
Balancing tips
Screens overview
