Introducing Coworkr: An app for coworking remotely
By: Hannah Groudas
Tags: UX Design, UX Research, Ux Design Process, App Design, Illustration

TLDR: The pandemic has been lonely…How can people stay productive while working from home?

PROBLEM STATEMENT: Young professionals working from home due to the pandemic need to stay connected with people outside of their inner social circle because random and casual conversations can provide a sense of accountability and therefore stimulate productivity and motivation to work.

TOOLS: Figma, Figma Mirror, Illustrator, Zoom, Procreate

Illustrations of your new coworkers that I made for the app

An Anecdote

My first experience with coworking was in 2018 when I was struggling to write a thesis paper for my Masters program. I reached out to a friend who shared that she, too, was struggling to work on some final papers for her undergrad classes and we decided to be coworkers (we met up in various places like the computer lab at her school or at my apartment to complete our work simultaneously). Between work sessions we discussed what we were working on, offered each other advice, and ate yummy snacks. While this experience turned us into best friends to this day (hi Cassidy!) while allowing us to complete our impossible workloads, I believe that the principles behind coworking can offer a lot to people who are forced to work from home due to the pandemic.

Background

Job loss/unemployment due to pandemic:

Unemployment rate has been a steady 4% for 2+ years → March 2020 15%→ September 2020 8%

8% is 12.6 million people (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf)

Benefits of coworking:

Networking with people in your field

Reduce loneliness

Help people with difficulty focusing (and those with learning disabilities)

Focus on wellness and keep a balanced home / work life

Adds structure to days / weeks

Competitors

To begin the “empathize” stage of the design thinking process, I conducted some market research to identify potential competitors and then to parse out most common or unique features.

MyWorkHive (slack community, blog, and zoom meetings)

Coordinate Zoom meetings via slack, many slack channels for support with remote working

Free

Averages 3–10 people in Zoom room at any time

Sococo (desktop app)

Paid model (subscription)

Avatars, knocking, update status, integration with Zoom

Offices and classrooms available

Caveday (website for scheduling and Zoom meetings)

Uses Zoom, science-informed landing page, moderator

Paid model (drop-ins or subscription)

Tandem, Around, Remotion (desktop apps)

Can update status, work with teams, video chat, screen sharing, integration with slack, google docs, etc.

Quilt (app)

Conversation-based (audio-only), can add photo and profile information

Notifications when conversation started

Psychology Today articles:

Neighbors and acquaintances are important for avoiding loneliness and fostering happiness

Gillian M. Sandstrom and Elizabeth W. Dunn of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver found that people with a greater number of casual acquaintances tended to be happier, and that the more interactions they had with those acquaintances, the happier they were

In another study, people who were instructed to increase the number of interactions they had with acquaintances over the course of a week reported a decrease in feelings of loneliness

Interviews

Next, I recruited people for user interviews who had experience with either working from home since the pandemic started and/or people who had experience with coworking (either virtually or in-person).

Takeaways:

Current remote social solutions don’t fill the need for casual relationships Virtual coworking has been helpful for some people but they have experienced issues with scheduling People with small living spaces struggle with maintaining boundaries between work and home life People have stayed close with their strong relationships, but what’s lacking are the casual interactions People working from home have expressed a difficulty with maintaining accountability and specifically miss the buzz of people working around them

Empathy map

Defining the User

I made an empathy map to imagine what the user(s) may be experiencing. These are based on the user interviews I conducted.

Next I developed a persona to highlight goals and frustrations the user might have. I purposefully avoided using a photo and common stereotypes / generalizations so the persona could be as inclusive as possible.

Persona

A key part of this “define” stage was to identify the features I needed to build. The feature roadmap below shows what would be needed for the minimum viable product (MVP), what would be nice to have, features that would be fun or surprising, and then what could come later.

The main problem that I identified in my research was that people who are forced to work from home miss the social aspect of going to an office. They miss the accountability of working alongside other people working and they also miss casual conversations, whether with friends or acquaintances.

The main problem that I identified in my research was that people who are forced to work from home miss the social aspect of going to an office. They miss the accountability of working alongside other people working and they also miss casual conversations, whether with friends or acquaintances.

Defining the Product

My initial solution to this problem was an app where you could coordinate schedules and virtually cowork with people via video chat. Based on the user interviews that I conducted, however, there seemed to be a much bigger need for connection. For this reason, I decided to pivot the focus of the app from a time-tracking and scheduling app to a gamified app for users to cowork, chat, play games, and interact with an office environment.

Necessary to have for MVP:

Coworking: Drop-in sessions where you can cowork with people quietly

Goal-meter: You can set a daily goal of focused hours and the app tracks your progress

Decorate your office: You can decorate a virtual office space with art, plants, furniture, etc.

Map: You can navigate to any room

Tutorial: Tool tips walk you through functions your first time through the app

Other:

Buddy list: Save specific people to a list where you can see their status, chat with them, etc.

Game room: You can play games between work sessions

Sharing data: Share your goal status and productivity data with someone for another level of accountability

Task 1: Joining a coworking session

Coworking space → View available sessions → Join a session → Follow moderator’s instructions for work sessions and for breaks → Gain a unit of time toward your daily goal!

Task 2: Decorate your office

Office → Scroll through options of elements to add → Select and move desired objects → Repeat until satisfied!

UI + Functionality Inspiration

I was inspired by games like Among Us, Minecraft, and The Sims to make an illustrated cartoon-like app. Certain design patterns like life bars, floorplans, player IDs, small challenges framed as games, and customization functions were influential as well.