Define

This project was a collaboration between multiple teams and Red Thread Innovations. At first, they gave us four months to think of an idea space and convince them why it should be the space the teams would all ideate a digital solution for. In the end, teams could choose between Healthcare in Rural Spaces, or Workplace Wellness.

Our team chose Workplace Wellness, but since we needed to create a digital solution to the problem, we had to think about which workplaces would benefit from that type of solution, and which careers and jobs would both make use of and have access to our solution. We decided that burnout was a huge problem, and focused in on that aspect.

Office workers were deemed the best choice of user for our solution, as they experience periods of burnout and could have reliable access to our solution.

Ideate

Once we had our users in mind, we needed to think about what the solution would actually do for them. What's the link between burnout and office workers? Why is it happening, what types of things relieve it, can it be prevented?

Originally, we were going to design a program that would remind the user when it was time to take a break, take a drink, get a snack, etc. It would chime in every so often to help them take better care of themselves and thus prevent burnout.

We then thought 'well, what if the user put in how they feel every so often and the system used an AI to suggest them taking a day off to prevent burnout before it can happen, rather than deal with it once it's already here?'

While talking to the head of our side of the project, he mentioned that some employees have access to benefits such as massages or an in-house cafeteria, and to try and make use of that, as well as our original idea. We talked about it after thanking him, and had the relevation about employee benefits - one of our team members said she could never keep her benefits straight and didn't actually know which benefits she had and didn't, nor when they expire or renew, if they did at all. We thought, "why don't we do that, then?" and immediately called our project leader back and pitched this new idea to him, which was received well.

Prototype

Our new idea was a system that kept track of the user's benefits (such as total money allocated for dental, what their health insurance covers, etc) all in one place. It would show when the renewal dates were, how many times you've used a benefit, among several other things.

The project didn't require us to design the full product, only up until we could create a solid pitch. We decided to mock up the onboarding process, as that would be the most important part. If it wasn't easy to add your benefits to the program, then what was the point?

Check out our prototype below:

As this was still a prototype, we barely had a brand style, and we didn't even have a name for the whole thing yet, so we just came up with something quick and put some placceholders in.

As you can see from our prototype, we originally had it so that the employee would upload a copy of their benefits package to the system, which would then parse it and use that data. We later revised this so that the company would input the benefits instead, which changed it from a personal program to a corporate program. Unfortunately this did mean that the company would have to care about their employee's wellbeing enough to use this program in the first place, but not every employee knows or has easy access to a PDF copy of their benefits package, or even has benefits at all.

(We planned for an employee having no benefits, as well - the program would be the standard 'reminds you to take breaks' program, with optional suggestions every so often to schedule a day off if you need it).

Test

Rather than feedback on our prototype, which we didn't have until nearly the end of the project timeline, we gathered feedback on our idea from our peers. We had meetings with groups of 3 to 5 and used the same general format for each meeting; inform the listeners about WHY we feel burnout is such a problem, walk them through our idea and how it works, then open up the floor for questions by asking a few, namely how they felt about the idea, would they use it, etc, and then let them ask any questions or comment any comments.

Privacy

Many of our peers brought up the issue of safety and privacy, in terms of sharing their data with a program that has an AI in it, as well as if their superiors or bosses could see their data and make decisions based on what they see. We wanted to clear it up immediately that this program would completely leave the company's hands once they input the types of benefits they offer their employees. They have no access to what their employees are doing with thoese benefits and who's using them or when.

Control

Another hot topic was control, specifically over the program's reccommended days off. A few peers expressed concern that the program would auto-book the days off that it felt was appropriate or schedule the use of a benefit automatically, which they didn't like. We assured them that the program would only make suggestions for when to take a day off, it would never do it for the user. The user has complete control over when they use a benefit - or when they don't. The user could absolutely decide not to follow the program's suggestion.

The Suggestions

During our final round of feedback, we had some really great comments and concerns about the suggestions the app makes and what they look like. One peer expressed that the usual gamut of suggestions being proposed on the market today are surface level, or things to do that don't actually solve the root issue of the probelm they're trying to fix. Meditating for 30 minutes doesn't fix the fact that you have a 10 page essay due in 2 hours and you're only 3 pages in because you procrastinated and have poor time management skills. It helps with stress in the moment, but doesn't help fix the real issue.

As well, with major mental health issues like depression, the usual laundry list of suggestions aim to fix something from a very "non-depressed" point of view. Yes, eating something and taking a walk can help, but again, it's surface level. Depression isn't cured because you went outside today or ate healthy for a week. We took this into account, as well as the fact that not everyone can just schedule a day off without repurcussions. Some people have other responsibilities that rely on the money they make from their job.

The types of suggestions the program will give has to vary between person to person; not only because different things will work for different people, but because not everyone has the same level of opportunity or leeway in what they can do. Not everyone has PTO, not everyone even has days off they can take. The program has to suggest things that can actually help the root issue, as well as the immediate stress and anxiety the user is facing. This was a huge point of debate for us and unfortunately we never had time to ideate a whole list of possible suggestions, but we would have put more focus into this topic if we were actually going to bring this product to market.

The Final Piece

It took a long time to come to where this project is now, and one day I hope to come back to it and continue the work we've done here. I said in the beginning that this project was a collaboration with Red Thread Innovations, but I didn't mention that it was a design contest they held and it had multiple groups particiapting. Our group was one of many, and RTI selected our idea as the winner. We were supposed to follow up with the company to try and make this project a reality, but things got in the way and nothing has happened quite yet.

I'll be updating this page later with some images of our ideation, once I locate and download them, and/or source them from my groupmates. I learned quite a lot while making this project, and most importantly how to better manage burnout and work stress!