UX Designer, Samsung R&D Bangalore
Graduation Project : 6 Months
Virtual Collaboration
worked in media & AI UX team. I researched on challenges and opportunities in virtual collaboration and how Samsung can intervene.
Meet the team
Navin
Lead Designer
Aravindh
Senior Designer
Arjun
Senior Designer
Sudip
Senior Designer
Lalith
Senior Designer
Sanofer
Senior Designer
It's meee!
Weekly virtual design review with the team
Design Brief
Identify challenges and opportunities in virtual collaboration for working remotely.
Making virtual collaboration easier by providing contextual solutions for students and working professionals.
Context
Remote working also called work from home created new challenges and opportunities. Many sectors like education, design studios, IT and architecture firms, etc. who are desk jobs need a revamp.
For any project, group work is essential and can not be ignored to achieve the goal successfully.
This work is trying to understand the problems that come along with collaboration in remote working environments and look for opportunities area where Samsung can intervene through its innovation.
Provoking Questions
How people are feeling about work from home? Is this shift is going to affect productivity?
How does it feel like working in the room all day without having any interaction with a colleague? How does it going to affect the interpersonal relationships of people? How people are working together remotely? Why people collaborate with each other? What are their motivation & needs? What software do they use for collaboration? Does current collaborative software are capable of WFH? What changes do they have to include for effective collaboration?
Initial Impulse
-
Flexible Schedule
-
No commute
-
Time family
-
No formal clothes
-
Can work while watching TV series
-
Can eat snacks in meeting
Distraction at home
Secondary Research
Top struggles for remote workers
-
Remote workers find difficulty in collaboration or communication
17%
22%
-
Unplugging
-
after work
19%
-
-
Loneliness
17%
-
Collaborating or
-
Communication
10%
-
Distraction at
-
home
8%
-
Staying
-
motivated
8%
-
Different time
-
zone from team
7%
-
Taking
-
vacation time
3%
-
Reliable
-
Wi-Fi
More work time
leads to
More screen time
Source: Global Workspace Analytics
Challenges in video conf. for remote workers
50%
Meeting
setting up
57%
Staying
focused
59%
Background distraction
62%
Being interrupted
or talked over
57%
Audio
quality
56%
Video
quality
52%
Internet
speed
Other challenges in WFH
Lack of face to face supervision
Source: Harvard Business Review
Lack of access to information
Interpersonal
Challenge
Distribution
Interpersonal
Conflict
Task
Conflict
Shared Identity
Shared
Context
Pamela J. Hinds, Mark Mortensen, (2005) Understanding Conflict in Geographically Distributed Teams
Spontaneous
communication
Elements & Goal of the platform in collaboration
Conveyance
The transmission of new information
5
Elements
Transmission velocity
Parallelism
Simultaneous cues
Reprocessability
Rehearsability
Source : Virtual Team Work Group
Decision Making in Virtual environments
Conveyance
the discussion of preprocessed information
Decision-making
Shared understanding
Social interaction
Phases of team development in collaboration
Source : Development model by Bruce Tuckman
Performance
Characteristic
Forming
Socializing
Focusing on group
Storming
Lack of participation
Conflict
Norming
Reconciliation
Developing cohesion
Performing
Interdependence
Balance of the task
Adjourning
Recognition of team & individual effort
Goal
Action
Primary Research
Method :
Semi-structured
interviews
Type :
Google form and
telephonic interview
Objective of semi-structured interview
-
To understand what has been changed since start of work from home (WFH) for the students and people working in the creative industry.
-
To learn about how they are working in collaboration.
-
Finding out user's pain points
-
Make user's insights to define design directions
Participants
Age group
Working status
User-based questions asked in survey
-
What has been changed related to group work since you started working from home?
-
What difficulties do you find in collaborating with other members of your team?
-
What are your goals in a collaborative group project?
-
What are the expectations of the other members of your team while doing group projects?
-
What makes you feel accomplished in a group project?
-
Do you need anything else to accomplish your goal?
Technology-based questions asked in survey
-
What collaborative software/tools you use?
Slack, Microsoft team, Trello, google doc -
What helped you to do work in collaboration effectively?
Real-time editing with a team member, Online editing of cloud doc, Remote desktop assistance, Video conferencing with a team member, Voice call with a team member, a Text message with a team member -
How do you share your work with the team member?
-
Experience with collaborative software - Pros & Cons
Key Observations
Prefer not to work in group
-
Non-availability of team member
-
Different time schedule
Prefer to work
in the group
-
Diversity in ideas
-
Team assistance
Format for sharing
-
image followed by video
Tools to share work
-
Primarily Email + Google drive
Texting preference
-
Text message frequency is more in the student than working participants
Voice/Video preference
-
Students prefer video call while working participants prefer a voice call
Voice/Video preference
-
Students and working participants do voice calls in case of the urgency of work. If not, they text
Identified User Needs
“किसी के साथ आमने-सामने बात करना वस्तुतः बात करने से अलग है”
Smooth Exchange
of information & emotion
“Sometime i have to wait to get feedback from my team and forgot where I wrote the changes.”
Make Feedback
cycle short
“Being graphic designer, my disk is full of more doodled work than actual work”
Screenshot less
experience to discuss
“while presenting, it feels like I am talking to screen ”
Making reciprocal communication
“Longer discussion in meeting causes headache.”
Make less exhausting
discussion/meetings
“I miss my early days when I come to home and play video games"
Better
work-life balance
Report download hub
For more details on the primary research download the report
Primary
Research
**Protected**
Affinity
Diagram
**Protected**
Observation &
User Needs
**Protected**
Design
Insights
**Protected**
Design Insights
Identify & Define
Opportunity Areas
Team communication
softwares
Presentation softwares / tools
3D Softwares
Persona
Soniya
22, Student,
LFH
About
-
Punctual but gets easily distracted
-
Gets frustrated if people don't work in time
-
Accepts leadership in the group often
Motivation
-
Keeps things in place
-
Wants to establish working setup at home
-
Wants to learn from others
Activities & Interests
-
Watches tv series in breaks
-
Works late at night to keep up
-
Frequently check drive/ppt
Pain Points
-
Team not being on time
-
Less focused during work due to social distraction
-
Sometimes misses messages from the team
Shubham
26, Design Intern,
Startup
About
-
Cautious about time schedule
-
Tries to meet deadlines
-
Sort of introvert guy
-
Enthusiastic for new work
Motivation
-
Make a good impression
-
Bring a unique idea to the table
Activities & Interests
-
Reads lots of articles
-
Shares with peers/friends
-
Look for other's work online
Pain Points
-
Can't have a casual discussion with the team frequently
-
Video conf. feels like wasting team's time
Priya
29, 3D Animator,
Startup
About
-
Overthinker and dramatic
-
Talks whenever necessary
-
Work contains a personal reference
-
New tech early adopter
Motivation
-
Be creative and unique
-
Learn a new way for animation
Activities & Interests
-
Watches short stories
-
Attends theaters
-
Spends time with a mannequin
Pain Points
-
Exceeds timeline cause of huge time goes in changes
-
Difference between what the narrator said in meeting vs output
Sidharth
28, Full-time job,
MnC
About
-
Confident and ambitious
-
Professional & Works very hard
-
Video game enthusiast
-
Get lost of time while work
Motivation
-
Wants to standout
-
Desire to be a good discusser
-
Always eager to know-how
-
Activities & Interests
-
Surfs social media in breaks
-
Discusses idea & events with friends and colleague
Pain Points
-
No clear boundary in work & personal life
-
No clarity on colleague status
Ideation & Solution
Due to an NDA signed at Samsung. I can't display the specifics of the project any further. Please feel free to reach out to me for discussion. Thank you for understanding
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©2020 Rajat Kumar