Project Brief
The pandemic has forced many people and many companies to re-evaluate what "work" looks like. In the time when most knowledge-based work is done from home the productivity has grown and meetings became more inclusive. At the same time the number of those meetings has increased and all the workers, on all levels of the hierarchy, complain about the "Zoom fatigue."
When the workspaces (and study spaces) re-open a lot of people will be able to compare this "remote" and "on site" experiences and draw from them to imagine a better way to work. This will require rethinking many of the tools we have been using: meeting and conference room set-ups, communication platforms (both software and hardware), spaces for collaboration and co-creating. For this design challenge I would ask you to re-imagine what a collaborative process could look like - what tools we would need, what processes could we implement, what methods could we employ to create a better setup for co-creation.
Exploration
During class we explored problems faced by knowledge-based work as well as new and exciting developments in the world of technology, media & design, and society.
New & Exciting Developments
Problems Facing Knowledge-based Work
We were asked to choose one problem and one new & exciting development from each category:
Problem: burnout
New & Exciting Developments:
Technology: Thought based UI
Media & Design: Sensory design
Society: Mental health no longer being taboo
The project brief asked to re-imagine the collaborative process. A person needs to be stable and present to collaborate productively. It's impossible to be present when you're in a stage of burnout. Therefore, by solving the problem of burnout, we are, in turn, re-imagining the collaborative process as one that involves healthy relationships, enthusiasm, resilience, and fully present team members.
Initial Research & Journal
After some initial research, we started exploring ideas through storytelling and storyboards.
Burnout journal: random musings, a few images and links, and one voice memo pertaining to the topic of burnout.
Storyboards
The prompt: For each of the items picked from the selection of positive developments please create a quick scenario that outlines how each positive development could be used to create a disruption in their chosen area of concern. The storyboard should be centered around a narrowly defined point of intervention and outline an envisioned solution and its impact on a typical target person. The stories should be grounded in physical and technological reality but they don’t need to provide practical or feasible solutions. They can be comical, speculative or critical.
Burnout & Mental Health No Longer Being Taboo
Burnout & Sensory Design
Burnout & Thought-based UI
