Human magic

Bringing human connection back to remote collaboration

The goal of this 5-week long project was to explore the audio-video interactive experience that enables people to bring the best of themselves in remote work. In collaboration with Konftel AB.

Teammates
Romy Koppert, Linda Kraft, Alexander Widua

Oct, 2020 | 5 weeks project | Professional user course | Umeå Institute of design

#User stories #Remote co-creation workshop #Ux experience video

Introducing “Human Magic”

Have you ever experienced attending 2-hour long Zoom meeting in front of computer screens sitting at home? If yes, then you definitely know how the experience is like.

So what is missing in a digital workspace?

What is missing that makes us so tired and even lose our motivation that we once had for working? What is missing that makes us feel so unconnected with each other?

The sensory experience used to freely flow in the physical space (Gif made by Alexander Widua)

◉ Challenge

How can we bring back the engagement, passion and energy that we have been sharing through interactions with others to remote work environments?

What we call human magic is…

The sensory experience we used to have through human interactions in real space, like when we are sharing a story with our friends during dinner.

To convey the concept of human magic in the real world, we created a video to show the dinner scene where the magic flows freely in the space.

◉ Outcome

Enable “Human Magic” in remote collaboration

1. Unlock visual signals of natural communication

Looking at the screen means directly making eye contact with your remote partners, as camera is embedded in the screen. Vertical frame allows more space to show your body language. No more guessing of the poker face, talking with people from the screen is just like the natural communication in real life.

2. Bringing directionality and intimacy to digital space

The placement of displays makes the “people sitting around a table” possible for remote work. Turning face to one direction will allow other people seeing another side of your face, just like how people see each other when they are sitting together around a table.

3. Creating a shared experience of the space

Now grab your coffee and work with your team in distributed places! With this immersive audio-video solution, people will feel togetherness once again through the shared experience, human magic flows again in the space. ✨

◉ Behind the scenes

The emphasis of this project is to conduct multiple ethnography research for understanding and representing user behaviour, as well as collaborative prototyping as a tool for exploring current and future work practices.

◉ My role in team

In the team, amongst other tasks I was mainly responsible for collecting user stories from interviews, sketching the experience model, explaining the metaphor in co-creation workshop, designing the visual deliverables.

◉What I have learned?

#This project is about remote collaboration which relies on our collaboration too.

In a team, it is essential to share equal time in expressing one’s opinion as well as listening actively. When receiving feedbacks, try to understand how others think about the problems from their perspective. One trick that I have learned now is to avoid excessive usage of NO or BUT. Instead, express how do you understand others opinion then give your viewpoint upon that.

#User experience video as a powerful tool in ideation and communication.

When narrowing down questions from the research phase, it is a good practice to start working on something as soon as possible. Using an initial prototype and making a 5 seconds clip out of it, surely allows you to think about the problem in depth through actual implementation. It is also an efficient method to get others on board before you present the idea to your clients.

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