This Hackathon was hosted by Brainstation & Microsoft. I worked with 6 other UX designers to tackle a challenge of improving the Work from Home experience. Along with the 22 other teams participating in the Hackathon we were given a span of 3 days to come up with a solution.
Our solution was VR Teams, an extension for Microsoft Teams targeted at improving the experience of young professionals working from home through virtual reality. This update brings the office space to you so that you can still experience an ‘in-person’ conversation with your colleagues before meetings or play games in the break room.
Problem Landscape
While working from home can be great, it can be a struggle for many as it fails to emulate the human connections and collaborative effort that come as a result of sharing a physical space.
“Statistics Canada found that 4.6 million Canadians who don’t normally work from home started to in response to the pandemic, based on a survey conducted the week of March 22, 2020”
“According to a survey conducted by Vancouver based polling firm Research Co., 73% of Canadians surveyed think the working from home trend will continue after the COVID-19 pandemic has ended”
Interview Findings and User Perspective
Work Too much
Due to the pressure of having to demonstrate productivity while working from home, many young professionals find themselves overworking.
They also expressed anxiety associated with unplugging from work as they fear being out of the loop.
Communication
Young professionals find communication during isolation frustrating as the inability to reach colleagues in real-time causes delays and missed opportunities
Although video calls and messages are useful, many miss the interactive experience of engaging with a colleague face-to-face.
Loneliness
When asked about their daily struggles of working from home, many expressed feeling lonely due to the lack of socialization outside of work.
People are discovering how much they rely on small-talk and breaks with colleagues throughout the day to recharge.
How might we mitigate the effects of social isolation and provide better collaborative opportunities to support young professionals working from home?
In order to tackle the core of the problem we defined a persona and created an experience map. This allowed us to weed out any confounds and focus on the user’s experience.
Our Solution
We decided to tackle the challenge by thinking outside the box. Looking at Chris, the major challenge was the lack of physical connectedness while communicating. It is straightforward to walk up to someone’s desk in an office space and use any tool necessary to communicate. However, with the challenges of working from home, such communication often becomes difficult. Our solution was to create a virtual reality (VR) extension for Microsoft Teams called VR Teams.
VR Teams is a virtual reality extension for Microsoft Teams targeted at young professionals working from home.
This update brings the office space to you so that you can still experience an in-person’ conversation with your colleagues before meetings or play games in the break room.
Why VR?
Although VR looks farfetched, like something from a Sci-Fi movie, it is becoming more accessible and affordable. VR market is expected to reach 98.4% million sales by 2023, according to Forbes. As VR becomes affordable, employers will start using them to train their employees. We can potentially leverage this technology to tackle the challenges of working from home.
However, would a regular employee be able to afford a VR Headset? We determined that a basic VR Hololens costs 400$-600$, which is within the affordable range for most basic tech employee and cost-benefit analysis determined that the benefits far outweigh the costs, and the majority of the employees will be okay with paying that price.
Ideation
VR Teams tab added to navigation menu of Microsoft Teams. Give access to mic and wear headset to view VR Rooms.
Users can view their schedule and easily access their rooms. Set clock to remind yourself of any breaks or when to end work.
Name and status of colleagues seen on top of avatars. Notifications are stopped in entertainment rooms.
VR experience using headset and controllers. Microsoft Teams navigation menu can be seen at the bottom of the VR screen.
Common rooms can be seen on the VR landing page. Click on a room to view more info before entering.
The HUD toggle is always present, but can be tucked away in the corners to minimize real estate.
Team Assignment
Due to the strict timeline and only two days left to produce the final product, we decided to assign tasks to each team member. I was responsible forthe Video Production and prototyping.I used my advanced prototyping skills to bring the design to life. Working with VR was challenging as the prototyping would require special tools. With the help of adobe after effects and adobe XD, I was able to patch together the design into an advanced prototype that effectively showcased our solution.
Team 1: Presentation write-up and slide deck design
Team 2: High fidelity UI design and copy writing
Team 3: Asset collection and image sourcing
Team 4: Video production and prototyping
The HIFI Prototype
Chris enters VR Teams extension through the existing left-hand navigation menu on the Teams web or desktop application.
From there, he lands on the welcome hub for VR Teams. Where he can see an overview of all the rooms and his current schedule .
Clicking on any room will reveal more information regarding the meeting and the number of current participants before you join.
The HUD (Heads Up Display) is personalized to every user. Here you can virtually interact with your colleagues where opportunities practically become limitless.
VR space is something that has always be very intriguing to me. I am glad that I got an opportunity to tackle design in the VR space and I am delighted with the results. I learned in this project that it is imperative to align the teams’ goal at the beginning to keep the project and design realistic. Moreover, it is essential to assign each team member role to ensure that the project can be completed within a strict timeline. We utilized tools at our disposal to aid our communication as there could be many things that can get lost in translation while working remotely. It is essential to schedule deliverables and work toward a defined goal properly.
