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A start up company that is utilizing the combination of AI and psychology to prevent burnout in the workplace
Overview
Challenge
As a part of a client project, my co-designers and I formed a team of 20 to tackle a set of objectives given by Pioneera. We explored on how we could improve upon the existing onboarding experience, which was associated with the trustability of the product. Being the new technology that it is, the challenge lay in trying to dissect the skepticism associated with the product.
Role
Researcher
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Miro
Google Forms
Timeline
2.5 Week Sprint (May, 2022)
Discover & Define (1 weeks)
Develop (4 Days)
Deliver (4 Days)
01 Empathize
Pioneera is a female led start up tech company, taking the lead in innovative tech to help assist companies in preventing workplace burnout. They’ve created “Indie”, a digital solution where upon implementation, assesses your work emails and chats for language which indicate signs of stress. When signs of stress are detected, Indie will give provide feedback and tips to the user on how to de-stress.
To understand Pioneera from the user’s perspective, we conducted our desktop as would any other users. Considering we didn’t have any deep insights on the product or company, it gave us a first hand perspective on what users would experience. Initial problems we encountered were:
- Demo is locked behind appointment
- Accessible information was very limited
- The site seemed very business orientated even though the main users would be employees
While Pioneera’s intentions were to help both the workers and managers to create a better working environment. We found through our initial research, that neither both workers or manager fully shared that sentiment.
What's the problem?
Professional Aussies are unsure of the security behind AI technology to help their work stress levels, so they are hesitant to try out new technology and sign up with Pioneera
The Research
Now that we have an understanding of what Pioneera and Indie are, we started our research to present Indie to users, to gauge their responses. One on one interviews with people across multiple industries were conducted to gain an insight on their perspective on the implementation of AI in assisting with mental health.
We found that the shared apprehension came from the security surrounding Indie, more so with workers. With most workers feeling that the information provided regarding the security behind Indie, was not sufficient. While managers were open to the idea, they needed the appropriate information to validate the software, but were time poor. Another common pain point was the fact that they weren’t particularly clear on the implementation of Indie, and how it would benefit them.
It sounds very intrusive
What if I was feeling fine but because of the tone of my messages, it could be interpreted wrong
I wouldn’t use it if it had the potential to upset other employees
To answer our remaining questions, and gain a quantitative to reinforce our interview insights, we sent out an online survey. Scoring 102 responses within 24 hours, it was evident that this was an engaging topic.
Employee Insights
The reception to an implementation of Indie were divisive, mainly between managers and employees. Through categorizing the data, it was even more evident where the pain points lay for employees. In the topic of trust, 46% were sceptical, while 29% were trusting of Indie. Stating misuse of Indie and lack of validation that it works were the contributors to scepticism. When it came to privacy, 45% were concerned about privacy. Worried that information was going to be used against them and feel uncomfortable about having their communications monitored.
Manager Insights
Managers currently have tools in place, to help monitor workplace stress, so Indie was met with more positive reception than employees. They felt Indie was a very cool tool, but were worried about how employees would react to it. Being busy, they didn’t have time to conduct the necessary research to validate its implementation.
The Pivot
Professionals are time poor and unsure of the purpose of Indie to assist with stress management in the workplace, so they are hesitant to advocate this new technology.
The Personas
Through the synthesis of the data, we produced 4 personas which we felt represented the different perspective users had with their approach to Indie. We have Rebecca and Sarah representing the managers, while Oliver and Hannah represent the employees.
02 Define
Customer Journey Maps
Rebecca and Sarah’s journey identifies the common pain points we found through our insights. They show that they are both interested in using Indie but lack the information to properly articulate the product to their employees. Their employees are apprehensive about the product due to the lack of information on privacy and both Rebecca and Hannah are unable to troubleshoot the problem.
Oliver and Hannah share the confusion about the implementation of Indie, and being not able to understand its benefits. This leads to them to misunderstand their manager’s intentions as wanting to monitor their behaviour at work.
Workshop & How Might We?
We had 11 how might we (HMW) statements, and identify the following 3 as the ones that frame the paint points best:
- How might we help Rebecca build confidence in Indie?
- How might we help Sarah communicate to her team about Indie so they feel more comfortable using it?
- How might we provide more trust for Hannah and Oliver before, during, and after the onboarding process
With these 3 HMWs, we conducted two separate workshops. Since we had two categories of personas, we had one workshop to generate ideas for managers and one for employees.
Storyboard
We identified our top ideas that would share mutual benefits amongst our personas and plugged them into our mvp matrix. The top ideas we proceeded with covered the pain points regarding the purpose, trust, data privacy, security and anonymity with Indie. We added some deliverables outside of the requested ones as we felt we needed to take a holistic approach to the solution. These ideas included:
- Website uplift to improve trust between the users and the product. (Including endorsements by professional psychologists, transparency in the product and more accessible information on the site)
- Indie Dashboard Uplift. (Highlighting and adding features so users will find value in using it)
- Indie’s implementation on slack uplift. (Generate trust and comfortability in the way in which Indie conducts herself)
- Addition of Electronic Digital Mail (EDM). Because our personas were time poor, EDMs would help them overcome that obstacle.
03 Develop
Website Uplift
While working on the lo-fi prototypes of the website, we kept these key points in mind, and continued to improve upon each based on feedback.
We know that our group of personas have trust issues which stem from the lack of transparency and access to information on the official site. So we re-worked the existing site information architecture, giving pages to topics (Indie, security) and making this information easier to access for our Personas.
Website User Testing (Round 1)
Website User Testing (Round 2)
Dashboard Uplift
Similarly to the website, we had their current version of the dashboard to improve upon. Olivers and Hannahs weren’t convinced that the current version of the dashboard was useful to them, and didn’t really understand the data that was presented to them.
Dashboard User Testing
Slack Implementation Uplift
Indie’s slack implementation plays a key role in how our personas would interact with her, and essentially serves as the first touch point of interaction between users and her. With this in mind we tackled:
- Humanization. We changed Indie’s language so she would sound more empathic towards users, and help build trust. She would also use emojis to further reinforce that sense of humanization in her character.
- Identity. We gave Indie a presence by giving her a profile picture of her character. This further eliminates the confusion between Pioneera and Indie.
04 Prototype
Website
Key Outcomes
- Simplification of the information architecture, and cutting out redundant or repeated information.
- Clarity and consistency was not only used for ease of navigation but helped with identifying key areas of interest for our personas.
- Identity crisis was resolved by making changing the language and the way Indie was presented. We switch the wording around to say “Indie, powered by Pioneera”
- Trust and security were tackled by expanding upon its page and making easier to access this information
Dashboard
Key Outcomes
- Value was something that was lacking in the current version. We wanted to encourage users to use through implementing features that would provide them with what they needed and not wanted.
- Personalization. Each person’s experience with burnout is different, and therefore so should their dashboard.
- Clarity in the way the information is presented so that our personas can understand what they’re looking at.
- Tutorial as a form of autonomous induction into how to use the dashboard.
Electronic Digital Mail (EDM)
Key Outcomes
- Imagery as opposed to the original text heavy emails help eliminate monotony in the emails, and making the information more engaging to digest
- Information about the key pain points such as security and the functionality of Indie, would be sent out to registrants to bridge the trust.
- Summary of the team and individual’s wellbeing would be emailed to them weekly. So even the time poor users can be updated without having to access the dashboard.
Next Steps
- Humanizing the AI and visual representation of Indie, by tweaking the language used and visual animation cues when interacting with Indie.
- Create an interactive demo to assist Sarah and Rebecca in learning how to use Indie.
- Revamp the branding to make sure assets, iconography, graphic etc are consistent.
- Further user testing with the dashboard.
