The Future Home
Welcome to the Future Home OFFICE
0.0 | OVERVIEW
Our design space focuses on the home office of the future. The important context behind this problem lies within many of the global COVID pandemic in 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the home was more seen as a spot of leisure rather than work. Only 3.4% of the US population was working remotely from home prior to the start of COVID. However, after the start of the pandemic, many companies forced their working population to work remotely. This ultimately led to many families & roommates struggling with their work-life balance between their now aggregated work and home areas.
The new Home Office is designed for young adult professionals working from home as a mobile, compact, and effective work desk that increases productivity amongst workers.
DURATION: 11 Weeks
TEAM
Timothy Joo
Austin Ulfers
John Wang
TOOLS
Figma
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere Pro
1.0 | DESIGN SPACE
1.1 | Stakeholders
Family Members / Housemates
They share the same room with employees for work or entertainment purposes
The line between work and life is blurred in the remote home office.
Non-work-related interactions add distractions that make employees less productive
Managers / Executives
They are concerned about the productivity and the well being of their team members
Coach employees to adjust to the new work environment and cultivate a new work culture
Employees
Want to work productively and collaborate with other colleagues to deliver output as working in the office
Adjust to the new work environment and manage the relationship with other family members living in the same home
Colleague
Work and communicate closely with employees on a regular basis
They care about communication efficiency and personal bonding with other co-workers
1.2 | Research Findings
The line between living space and working space is fuzzy at home.
Keeping self-discipline is harder working from home.
People are more likely to unconsciously work too hard and work overtime while staying at home.
Family life can easily cross over professional life.
Effective communication is difficult working from home.
1.3 | User Persona
2.0 | CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY
Participant 2 | Scenario Observation
Observations
He finds himself moving to a larger tabletop surface when he needs more space.
He knew that he would most likely be changing his future room setup.
He has access to temporary storage so when he has something that he does not immediately need or have space for, he has a place that he can put it.
His room is set up in a way that allows him to be versatile in how his layout is set up.
He is not set in one specific way and is willing to try alternative layouts.
Participant 1 | College Student Dedicated to Home Office
Observations
He keeps most of his required tools on him so in he is capable of working in any space.
He is flexible in terms of where he works.
He only goes to the off-site work environment when he needs to be productive or needs some solitude that he cannot get where he is living.
All he needs is a flat surface and for his computer and an internet connection.
He uses a whiteboard when one is available for him.
He likes the change of pace and does not like to be stuck to one location.
Participant 4 | College Roommate
Observations
Shares an office space with his roommate in his bedroom
Roommate plays video games loudly, so it can be difficult to work in his room at times because of this
Living with 3 other roommates, finding privacy and space is difficult to do in an apartment setting in Seattle
Participant 3 | Amazon Intern
Observations
Her partner was sitting beside her.
Her partner jumped into the conversation and explained her responses more in detail.
She has two cats at home. Cat jumped on her desk. She would pet her cats while talking.
She used an L shape desk for her work and she fitted two monitors, two laptops, and one PC on her desk.
3.0 | DESIGN OBJECTIVES
Mobility
Compactness
Material
Desk Surface
Accessories
4.0 | PROOF OF CONCEPT PROTOTYPE
4.1 | Current Prototypes
We reflected on the shortcomings of the initial prototype when we were iterating our ideas. The overall design is on the right track but moving and folding a desk with legs is complicated and not mobile enough. Users are less likely to bring the desk with them to a different place if they need to drag the entire desk across their home. Therefore, in this iteration, we aim to design a desk without legs and increase the prototypes’ fidelity. We challenge the current form of desks and re-image the work desk usages in the future.
4.2 | Work Surface
Firm and lightweight surface
Users can work from any place they want without much trouble bringing the work surface with them.
The portable design will also be handy if they need to move to a quiet work environment.
4.3 | Integrated Display
The integrated display could look like a tablet, which is a primary input and output device for our users.
Can serve as the secondary screen
A standalone device that you can use for video conferencing while working on a couch.
Can be used as a traditional keyboard if the user places the work surface on his legs.
A great tool for brainstorming ideas.
Useful for creatives to use on the desk.
Encourage our users to be more expressive with their initial thoughts.
4.4 | Projector
The projector can project high-quality images
Intended to replace a traditional monitor.
Users can easily adjust the projected size for different tasks they work on.
Can also be moved to any place users choose to work from.
5.0 | USER EVALUATION
Method 1 | Survey
What are we Evaluating?
Usefulness and effectiveness.
To study the people who are working on their day-to-day job or school projects.
Key Findings
According to the responses of highly productive participants, they are more productive because they are more flexible at their workflow, more self-disciplined, and save time on the commute.
72% of participants prefer to work on-site when it is possible.
Distraction at home and lack of human connection are the top 2 reasons preventing higher productivity at home.
32% of participants indicate they are working from different places at home.
37% of participants who are working at a single place are willing to experiment with switching workplaces.
Immobility is the top concern that prevents people from working in a secondary place.
More than half of participants use more than one screen for work, meaning one screen is probably not enough to be productive at work.
72% of participants are using pen and paper and 37% of participants are using an iPad for work. Digitalizing those input behaviors with our prototype could have a large potential user base.
Method 2 | Behavioral Analysis
Tasks to be Completed During the Test
Turn on the device to get the display to activate
Begin to browse the web for around 5 minutes. (Examples include shopping, reading emails, and even reading articles)
Begin to watch a YouTube video of choice (Do not need to watch the full video. Just examine the experience.)
Begin to work on a productivity task of choice. (Examples include taking notes for class, working on a presentation, coding work, or doing work based research of some sorts. This is up to the user’s discretion, but give the user examples and options.)
Questions to Ask After the Test
How useful was the projector in terms of usefulness, flexibility, and productivity of your work? Could it replace having a dedicated monitor?
How useful were the projector, whiteboard, and extra work surface? Go in detail if possible! Is there one you could do without? If so, which one?
Did you feel as though your productivity had increased or had a feeling that you would be more productive through our design?
Key Findings
User 1
When User 1 wrote stuff down, he only used the right-hand side of the whiteboard because he was right hand dominant.
User 1 was on his tippy toes the entire time in order to support the prototype.
Roughly 80% of the time User 1 used the screen on his laptop to get the job done instead of the projector.
User 2
One of the biggest oversights that we missed while creating this prototype was the fact that you need a large enough wall space in order for the projector to work and a place to sit that is facing the empty wall.
This prototype appears to be better suited for people who don’t already have an existing workspace.
User 3
Sitting in any kind of office chair makes the entire experience a lot more difficult and less enjoyable for the user.
The projector tends to work better on a white wall however, there are wall designs that make a projector undesirable.
User 4
The laptop changes in a slightly different location on the whiteboard.
Weight distribution caused location of desk to vary.
User 5
Used one side of the whiteboard.
Enjoyed the prototype with their legs as it was easy to set it down there.
Given that we only tested it with each participant for 20 minutes each, I wonder at what point people would have to take a break to give their legs a rest.
6.0 | FUTHER ITERATION
Size and Weight Distribution
Multiple participants gave us critical feedback on our physical prototype’s usability.
The whiteboard was too large to be placed on top of their legs.
The whiteboard is wider than the chair arms when the users are sitting on a chair with arms.
The weight will lean toward one side when writing on the whiteboard.
The size of the current physical prototype is too large for an average user.
Interaction Idea
To address this problem, we are planning to provide different size options so that users can self-select the most appropriate size for their needs.
7.0 | FINAL THOUGHTS
Going through the 8 steps design process was a very unique and interesting experience. It forced us to think outside the box and combine aspects of technology that we would not have otherwise considered.
One of the biggest things we learned throughout this process was the overall shape and form factor of the product we were designing. Since we were working with just materials we had on hand, the form factor of the product was overall unsatisfactory for most people who got to interact with it. In addition, we also saw a commonality in that there wasn’t always empty wall space people could use or their home layout wasn’t set up in a way that allowed them to utilize the projector efficiently.
From this entire prototyping experience, we got the chance to see how our product’s layout was usable by some and unusable by others. Overall, this feedback gave us a lot of insight into how we might be able to better design the next iteration to be more accessible for all individuals in a variety of different home environments in the future.
All in all, we believe that our prototype was successful in trying to help solve the problems that we found during our research phase. Although the accessibility of the prototype still has to be improved, many users who often found themselves distracted by their roommates liked the idea of being able to move their work environment to different locations in their house depending on when they needed it. The added touch screen monitor and projector allowed users to feel as though it would improve their productivity while still allowing them to be mobile while they do it.
To conclude, we believe with some future iterations that will increase accessibility, this product could be viable for supplementing employees and young professionals who desire a more productive and mobile work environment in their home and living space.