With a Range of Options available we chose the topic: User Specific Mapping
Group Organisation & Planning
We turned to several internet technologies to assist in group planning & organisation
Dropbox
We created a group Dropbox folder to easily share all the work documents so that everyone could see and modify them.
Facebook Group
We used a Facebook Group to keep in constant contact with each otehr and easily share information & progress.
Google Docs
We used Google Docs to manage job lists and project costs as well as being a good timetabling tool.
MindMeister
Mindmeister allowed us to engage in mindmapping as a group online, even when not together in class.
What is User Specific Mapping?
Our first task as a group was to figure out exactly what User Specific Mapping could mean
Collaborative Brainstorming
We engaged in some large collaborative brainstorming to explore all the possible definitions of User Specific Mapping
Possible Topics
From these brainstorms we devised a range of options for topics, from which we selected 4:
Mapping Stress
The Idea of mapping something that people usually were unaware of was really appealing to us as a group.
Mapping Body Movement
By mapping body movement we theorised we could read into a persons body language to aid in communication.
Mapping Inspiration
As creative people, the idea that we could map inspiration sources to help enhance our productivity was particularly interesting.
Time-Based Mapping
We through of maps as being quite fixed and permanent. What if we could make maps that change and adapt according to the time?
Topic Brainstorming Conclusions:
We chose the topic of Mapping Stress because:
- Mental Health is an invisible force—this is a really interesting prospect for us as designers, making the invisible visible
- Stress is a term that is often used but with lots of different interpretations
- Psychology is a really interesting area, no two people are identical in terms of psyche
- Stress & Mental Health provides an opportunity to improve people's quality of life
Visual Methodology
Now that we had the topic and a clear focus for our work we devised a methodology to keep us on track
We researched this by looking at various existing methodologies from:
- IDEO via a WIRED magazine article
- Visual Research by Ian Noble and Russell Bestley
What is Stress?
To find out more about what stress is we engaged in some primary research
Bill Merrington BU Chaplain & Counsellor
Key Findings
- Stress gradually creeps up on people
- Stress is psychologically always bad for you
- Stress is pressure not counterbalanced by support
Stress manifests itself
- Psychologically
- Behaviourally
- Physiologically
Biodot
A method of physically measuring how tense stressed someone is feeling.
Andy Froggett AUCB Counsellor
Key Findings
- If you could visualise your stress what would it look like?
- When we don't feel in control we feel stressed
- Stress ripples from it's sources and affects things around it
Physical representations and action are ways of dealing with stress
- Going for a cigarette
- Stress balls
- Going for a walk
What is stress? Conclusions:
- Stress and pressure are totally different
- A bit of pressure is good for us, any stress is bad.
- Stress is pressure (such as work deadlines) that is not counterbalanced by support (such as family)
Who is our Target Audience?
Our next task was to identify a target audience for our solution
Target Audience Conclusions:
- The way people experience stress can be categorised into two major groups:event based and consistent
- Consistent stress may be easier to predict and therefore manage
- There are many professions that experience high levels of constant stress
Initial Primary Research
In isolating our target audience for our design solution we enagaged with a number of individuals from various backgrounds and professions to ensure our understanding was as broad as it could be.
We engaged with:
- The Bournemouth Deaf Society
- Hampshire County Police Constabulary
- Bournemouth and Poole Paramedics
- Hampshire Youth Offending Team
- Southampton Borough Council I.T. Department
Initial Primary Research Conclusions:
- There are a multitude of ways of dealing with stress
- These should be tailored to the environment in which the stresses occur
- Jobs perceived to be highly pressurised have systems in place to deal with stress
Therefore:
Therefore we wanted to explore an area which had the same problem but wasn’t as widely recognised
Secondary Research
We engaged in secondary research to help inform our project:
The Sources Included:
- Books
- Journals
- Magazine Articles
- Studies
- Stress Audits
- Videos
- Interviews
Key Sources
Some of the most useful sources we discovered during our secondary research:
- Text
Bandura, A. (1997).
Self-efficacy: the exercise of control.
- TED Video
Brooks, D. (2011).
The Social Animal.
- TED Video
Goetz, T. (2010).
It's time to redesign medical data.
- Text
Hara, K. (2008).
Designing Design.
- TED Video
Kamen, D. (2009).
The emotion behind inventing.
- TED Video
Martin, S. (2009).
The quirky world of "manspaces".
- TED Video
Wolf, G. (2010).
The quantified self.
- WIRED Magazine
Hammersley, B. (2009).
Reinventing British Manners the Post-it way.
For a full list see our bibiography
There were some sources which we found particularly helpful:
It's time to redesign medical data Thomas Goetz
Key findings
- "So you start with personalized information, that comes from an individual, and then you need to connect it to their lives"
The Social Animal David Brooks
Key findings
- "We're really good at talking about material things, but we're really bad at talking about emotions."
- "Reading and educating your emotions is one of the central activities of wisdom"
- Reason is not seperated from emotions
Designing DesignKenya Hara
Haptic Exhibition
Hara held an exhibition called Haptic that invited contemporary designers to reimagine common objects to add functionality, imrpove productivity or add value.
Self Efficacy: The Exercise of Control Bandura, A.
Key findings
- "According to the Health & Safety Executive, stress is now the biggest cause of working days lost through injury or ill-health"
- "I spend most of my day fielding calls from people who don't even have a basic knowledge of computers and printers"
Secondary Research Conclusions:
Through our secondary research we gained some great insights for ways to handle our problem
- Making things personal and not a one-size fitss all solution
- Not taking opportunities for improvement in current designs for granted
The SkillSoft survey research in particular was vital:
- Real evidence of how big an issue Stress is
- Surprising us with the fact that I.T. is the most stressful profession.
I.T. Professionals
The fact that Information Technology ranked as the number 1 stressful profession in SkillSoft's report we were inspired to investigate this further.
It's is neccesarily a profession you’d immeadietly association with stress. Therefore we thought that there might be an opportunity for us to develop a unique solution to this problem.
To learn first hand about why working in I.T. is so highly pressured we arranged an interview with Southampton Borough Council I.T. Department.
Top Problems
- Time taken away from tasks by service requests
- Too many service requests
- Takes too long to get to departments
- Pressurised targets
Primary Research I.T. Professionals
We identified that stress in I.T. was usually a consequence of service (help) requests:
- Too many of them
- Distracting from major projects and their targets
- Takes too long to travel to them
- Taking time away from more important projects
We then wanted to start brain-storming ideas on how we could solve some of these problems
Idea Generation
The ideas we generated fell into three broad categories:
- Systems/Products
- Environmental
- Schemes
Environmental Ideas
Personalisation of work spaces
A customizable workspace for each employee to make them feel more at home.
Analysis
- To an extent has already been done before (by Pixar, Google etc.)
- Wouldn't be cost effective.
- Would be hard to persaude IT office it'd pay back.
Angling of office furniture
Putting everything in the office back at an angle so I.T. workers are constantly reclined
Analysis
- Replacing all the furniture in an office seems an extreme way of solving the problem.
- Would be incredibly bad for posture
- Doesn't actually tackle the problem's specific to I.T.
- People naturally lean forward when they're working anyway
Aquarium Office
Building aquarium tanks into IT Office Walls
- Freeform~liquid motion is a good relaxing visual
Analysis
- Isn't a tailored solution to our target audience's problems.
- Would be very expensive
- Hard to prove it would work
Glass walled office
Instead of being relegated to the basement where it's dimly lit, a glass walled office on the top floor with lots of natural light
Analysis
- I.T. Offices are usually best close to where all the cables/servers are. Moving them up to the roof would present logistical difficulties.
- Large amount of light would cause glare on Computer screens, causing issues for productivity
Collaborative enhancing office arrangement
Arranging I.T. Office desks in such a way to encourage collaboration and socialising
- Sharing stress is helpful
- Collaboration can reduce project workloads
Analysis
- I.T. workers generally prefer to work alone
- Doesn't really tackle issues that are specific to I.T.
Scheme Ideas
Making a game of it
Making a game out of those annoying helpdesk requests
- Each requests answered scores the It worker some points
- Points can be used to claim rewards
Analysis
A fun idea, but doesn't tackle the issue the issue that help desk requests cause, as in the knock-on effects
Reward distance travelled
Reward IT workers for the distance they travel.
- Change the psychology of having to travel to help requests
Analysis
- Could be open to abuse? Jogging on the spot etc.
- The distance isn't really the issue, it's the knock-on effect it has on time thats the problem.
Make fun of helpdesk calls
A website to share stories of ridiculous helpdesk calls. Allows IT workers to make light of it and relax.
- This could also reward the best stories
Analysis
Another fun idea, but we're adding something extra on in terms of time when they're already under pressure in terms of time.
Badges to identify emotions
Use Badges to identify people's emotions
- Recognising your emotions means you're more likely to take note of your state and take action.
Analysis
- Isn't an I.T. specific solution
- Hard to prove that it would actually have an effect on people's psychology
4 Day Weeks
Making Wednesdays a holiday as well as Saturdays and Sundays to split the week up into more manageable slices
Analysis
- What about work that has to be done on Wednesdays?
- Companies wouldn't like reducing their work time by 20%
- Similar ideas already exist, like 20% time at Google, but they're more productive
I.T. Express Lane
An IT Express lane in corridors to allow IT workers to get around buildings quicker to get to Help requests.
Analysis
- Would be costly to implement
- What's to stop anyone from using it?
- Doesn't really tackle with the core issue.
System/Product Ideas
IT & Collaboration
A system to increase collaboration in IT and encourage sharing of workload
Analysis
- I.T. Professionals are generally independent workers.
- Does the sharing need to be something they do themselves.
Automation System
A system that would automate repetitive tasks so that the I.T. worker only does new & interesting things.
Analysis
- An automation system would be very hard to implement.
- Is it really possible to replace that human contact when helping someone fix a computer?
Stress Clock
A clock that changes colour depending on the collaborative stress levels in an office.
Analysis
- Doesn't really change anything, just highlights it
- Isn't really an I.T. specific solution
Mapping Productivity
Map office & worker productivity over times of the day to help increase the productivity over the full day.
Analysis
- How would this help them tackle stress?
- Finding out when people are productive is easy, doing something with the information is the hard part.
Timed call outs
A USB device that keeps track of the time that you have spent on call outs and adds it back onto deadlines.
Analysis
- Major projects would never get done, they'd just get delayed constantly
- Removes the pressure from help requests to get them done in a timely manner
Squeezable Mouse
A computer mouse come stressball
- Mouldable
- Tactile
- Personal
Analysis
- Isn't really an I.T. specific product, aside from the delivery mechanism
- Doesn't tackle the problem, just aids the symptoms.
Stress Reading Mouse
A mouse that reads a variety of stimuli:
- Temperature
- Franticness of movement
- Pressure of hold
- Heart Beat/Rate
- O2 stats
These stimuli are then displayed on screen so they're aware of their stress levels
Analysis
- Reading is useful, but could we do something more productive with it?
- Is knowing that your stress is being read result in you feeling more pressured?
Analysis Idea Generation
Taking some of the more successful concepts from our idea generation and merging them together we decided upon a mouse:
- Capable of reading stress levels by certain stimulii
- Then with the stress levels somehow help collaborative working to help even stress loads
We then started to develop our solution further.
Solution Development
We wanted to develop a solution that would fit into the existing environment. As I.T. workers are in constant contact with their mouse we decided that this was an ideal format in which to present our solution, as it doesn't add anything extra to their work lives.
We decided that idea showed the most potential for development so started asking some key questions to help develop the idea
Analysis Solution Development
- We felt we had now progressed our idea as far as possible, without finding any massive flaws.
We now felt it important to take our solution to it's target audience to get feedback as to how appropriate it is.
Analysis Feasability Testing
- These interviews helped us test whether this idea would actually work within an I.T. environment.
- Feedback was positive and help us consider how the product could be extended in the future
- This also helped us start thinking about how we would get this product to market.
We now wanted to start developing the mouse and the final materials to demonstrate the concept.
Our Final Solution
Further Development
In terms of further development, we would like to expand to other peripheral devices such as:
The Clever Little™ Keyboard
The Clever Little keyboard would suit professionals that use their keyboard rather than their mouse, such as coders.
The Clever Little™ Webcam
The Clever Little webcam would allow us to suit the needs of other professions, that aren't so in contact with the computer all day
Bibliography
Our full bibliography:
- Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. New York: W.H.Freeman.
- Behance LLC. (2011). Power Tools: Collaborative Apps for Organizing Your Team. [Internet] Available at: http://the99percent.com/articles/6353/Power-Tools-Collaborative-Apps-for-Organizing-Your-Team. [Accessed 12 March 2011].
- Bestley, R and Noble, I. (2007). Visual Research: An Introduction to research methodologies in Graphic Design. Lausanne: AVA Publishing SA.
- Brooks, D. (2011). The Social Animal. [Internet] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_the_social_animal.html [Accessed: 03 April 2011]
- Goetz, T. (2010). It's time to redesign medical data. [Internet] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/thomas_goetz_it_s_time_to_redesign_medical_data.html. [Accessed: 03 April 2011]
- Hara, K. (2008). Designing Design. Baden: Lars Muller Publishers.
- Hammersley, B. (2009). 'Reinventing British Manners the Post-it way. Wired Magazine UK. December 2009. London: Condé Nast Publications.
- Kamen, D. (2009). The emotion behind inventing. [Internet] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_the_emotion_behind_invention.html. [Accessed: 03 April 2011]
- Martin, S. (2009) The quirky world of “manspaces.” [ Internet]. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_martin_builds_a_room_of_his_own.html. [Accessed 04 April 2011]
- Wolf, G. (2010). The quantified self. [Internet] TED Conferences, LLC. [Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_wolf_the_quantified_self.html]