A comprehensive case study about the new landscapes of the worksphere and the relationship with stress.
This is the transversal project group work supported by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore & Politecnico di Milano for the UXP Master's 4th Edition. The theme of the year is worksphere, and this project aims to let us take on the challenge of designing from start to finish a solution able to reduce stress in the worksphere.
Company
UXP Master
My role
UX Researcher & Designer
Software Engineer
Product Designer
Wellbeing Psychologist
What I did
UX Research
Interviews
Prototyping
Concept
Service Blueprint
Moderator
Timeline
6 Months, 2024
Challenge
Understanding the relationship between work and stress. Creating an app capable of preventing stress or curing it in a personalized way.
Opportunity
Understanding what dynamics and traits cause stress, how they manifest and are related to the worksphere and trying to apply psychology strategies in the work routine.
Research
Brainstorming
Desk Research
Benchmarking
(01)
Emphatize
Interviews
Surveys
User Persona
User Journey
How Might We
(02)
Define
Concept Definition
Information Architecture
(03)
Design
Wireframing
Low Fidelity
Mid Fidelity
High Fidelity
Prototype
Usability Testing
(04)
Deliver
Final Design
(05)
What is Stress?
What is Work?
How can they be related?
The task that we had been assigned for the transversal project work during our Master's path was to investigate, understand and act with purpose about a theme more and more recurring: stress management in the worksphere.
We are in a fast paced society and data show how it is the more and more common to feel stressed.
As a team of 4, we started off this project with a moodboard phase. This practice was not only useful to approach the task but was also a nice team-building strategy in which we could start showing our ideas in a safe environment.
We decided to focus mainly on Personal, Work and Environment
As a team of 4, we started off this project with a moodboard phase. This practice was not only useful to approach the task but was also a nice team-building strategy in which we could start showing our ideas in a safe environment.
Scientific theories we found correlated to our topic:
Positive Psychology
Positive Technology
Utilizes challenges, skills, goals, and presence
Core Affect/Circumplex Model
PERMA Model
Positive feedback systems
Emotional modulation of cognitive control
Self-actualization
Engagement
Self-efficacy and motivation
Relevance to personal experience
Team Boosting Behaviors
Team Resilience
Problems perceived by users:
Increase of stress due to lack of autonomy at work
Mental health affected by
leadership/hierarchy
Lack of satisfaction due to
mismatch between engagement style and performed activity
We found 3 main categories in the benchmarking
E.G: Calm - Headspace - Relax VR - etc.
E.G: Jira - Asana - Trello - etc.
E.G: Serenis - Talkspace - BetterHelp - etc.
For our benchmarking we searched for apps and solutions that aimed to help people dealing with stress. Because our focus was stress in the worksphere we then looked for softwares and apps of project and task management.
For our User Research we opted to adopt both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
The main topics we wanted to investigate after our Desk Research are: role, technostress, management, relationships and possible wellfares.
How people manage work-life balance?
The origins of stress: work or life related?
Are people interested in implementing stress-management strategies provided by their companies?
How people experience stress at work?
What is the role of technology in work?
We conducted 11 interviews.
In person and hybrid.
Employees in mid to high level corporations
Working in various sectors: sales, communications, engineering
Working in USA and Italy
Use technology frequently
All university graduates
Reasons of stress in the workplace
Positive findings:
Levels of autonomy
Managerial reasons
People’s individual
engagement styles didn’t fit their tasks
Current stress relief programs are underutilized
Everyone uses a different
coping mechanism
Open communication and positive relationships with coworkers and managers correlated to lower stress levels
Being aware of one’s emotions helps them increase resilience and empathy
"I take on extra work to impress my leaders and because they can trust me to handle it"
Needs:
Pain points:
Direction for what to do in achieving goals
Positive
relationships with
coworkers
Overworking
until
exhaustion
Lack of
communication
transparency
Fig. 05: keypoints of our User persona
User Journey AS IS
User Journey TO BE
Opportunity to communicate with manager about workload
Public mood
sharing for teams
Seamless
communication with
manager to share current state through quick
comments
Taking on too much work in order to prove her manager she can do it
Growing resentment due to lack of
transparency
Unable to communicatethe fact that she’s
overwhelmed
After our work it was super interesting to find that basically we could cluster the people interviewed in 3 engagement styles.
What does it mean? Basically all the data made us conclude that a key point is coping mechanism, and people have basically 3 coping styles that makes them:
- require to be challenged
- require to be calm
- require to learn
These 3 engagement styles must be connected to the behavioural style
Joy, H. (2020). Stress management and employee performance. European Journal of Human Resource Management Studies.
Avallone, F. (2011). Psicologia del lavoro e delle organizzazioni. Costruire e gestire relazioni nei contesti professionali e sociali. Carocci.
David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Avery.
Garg, N., & Singh, P. (2020). Work engagement as a mediator between subjective well-being and work-and-health outcomes. Management Research Review, 43(6), 735-752.
Meneghel, I., Salanova, M., & Martínez, I. M. (2016). Feeling good makes us stronger: How team resilience mediates the effect of positive emotions on team performance. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(1), 239-255.
Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110(1), 145–172.
Seppälä, P., Mauno, S., Feldt, T., Hakanen, J., Kinnunen, U., Tolvanen, A., & Schaufeli, W. (2009). The construct validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Multisample and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Happiness studies, 10, 459-481.
Gray, J. R. (2001). Emotional modulation of cognitive control: Approach–withdrawal states double-dissociate spatial from verbal two-back task performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(3), 436.
Fortuin, D. J., van Mierlo, H., Bakker, A. B., Petrou, P., & Demerouti, E. (2021). Team boosting behaviours:Development and validation of a new concept and scale. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 30(4), 600–618.
We then created a list of possible labels for our ''equation'' to match every possible scenario.
Very Unpleasing:
VeryUnpleasingInvigorated = Furious
VeryUnpleasingActive = Distressed
VeryUnpleasingStimulated = Overwhelmed
VeryUnpleasingNeutral = Miserable
VeryUnpleasingCalm = Despondent
VeryUnpleasingInactive = Exhausted
VeryUnpleasingSluggish = Hopeless
Very Pleasing:
VeryPleasingInvigorated = Ecstatic
VeryPleasingActive = Joyful
VeryPleasingStimulated = Excited
VeryPleasingNeutral = Content
VeryPleasingCalm = Blissful
VeryPleasingInactive = Relaxed
VeryPleasingSluggish = Complacent
Pleasing:
PleasingInvigorated = Energized
PleasingActive = Happy
PleasingStimulated = Enthusiastic
PleasingNeutral = Satisfied
PleasingCalm = Peaceful
PleasingInactive = Restful
PleasingSluggish = Unruffled
Slightly Pleasing:
SlightlyPleasingInvigorated = Alert
SlightlyPleasingActive = Pleased
SlightlyPleasingStimulated = Interested
SlightlyPleasingNeutral = Balanced
SlightlyPleasingCalm = Calm
SlightlyPleasingInactive = Easygoing
SlightlyPleasingSluggish = Laid-back
Neutral:
NeutralInvigorated = Awake
NeutralActive = Normal
NeutralStimulated = Curious
NeutralNeutral = Neutral
NeutralCalm = Tranquil
NeutralInactive = Idle
NeutralSluggish = Indifferent
Slightly Unpleasing:
SlightlyUnpleasingInvigorated = Annoyed
SlightlyUnpleasingActive = Irritated
SlightlyUnpleasingStimulated = Agitated
SlightlyUnpleasingNeutral = Meh
SlightlyUnpleasingCalm = Bored
SlightlyUnpleasingInactive = Tired
SlightlyUnpleasingSluggish = Dull
Unpleasing:
UnpleasingInvigorated = Angry
UnpleasingActive = Upset
UnpleasingStimulated = Frustrated
UnpleasingNeutral = Unhappy
UnpleasingCalm = Sad
UnpleasingInactive = Drained
UnpleasingSluggish = Depressed
Need of
Challenge
Need of
Calm
Need of Learning
How might we share awareness of emotions and skills among employees and encourage workloads to be shared more fairly and efficiently?
Our concept is the only solution that utilizes mood and engagement styles to manage
daily tasks.
So we propose a solution that will provide workers with what they need based on how they feel, their coping mechanisms, their engagement style, their behavioral style, all in a safe digital environment.
It is useful for employees and employers, in order to have a more tailored approach on their work experience.
Big Companies
Personal Coping Mechanisms
Gratitude
Shared Safe Environment
Sharing
Self Awareness
Freedom
Open Communication
Wellbeing
Flexibility
MOOD:
starting from the Core Affect model by Russell for assessment, with the valence of affective status and the level of activation felt.
ENGAGEMENT:
stable dimension, assessed by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, that reveals precisely the levels of Vigor, Dedication and Absorption in working tasks - connected to behavioral styles.
TASK MANAGEMENT - TEAM FLOW:
the alignment between distribution of tasks and
mood leads to an optimization of performance.
The possibility to see the moods of other team-members and enact supportive actions will promote new “Team Boosting Behaviors” = +performance, +engagement, +positive moods.
Create a solution
empowering employees in:
Understanding
emotional influence over
workflow
Exploiting mood awareness to manage daily task-flow and upscale work-life balance
Acting on their engagement and motivation through personalized suggestions and support(2);
Sharing awareness
of emotional flow and energy of a team.
Increasing sense of
belonging to a team
Killer Features
Mood tracking and
awareness among
employees
Suggestions based
on individual
engagement styles
Task organization
based on mood and
engagement
archetypes
Become aware of personal feelings and activation states is the first step for change
Easily update and verify your mood in real time and receive personalized Wellbeing suggestions for your workflow.
Find the Engagement Style tailored for
you.
Experience and promote good vibes with a new sharing dimension for your team.
First Round
Second Round
Third Round
We did a moderated usability test , where participants were asked to complete specific tasks on our prototype. The participants included a product designer, a psychologist, a teacher, an architect, a graphic designer, and a software engineer.
After the testing we improved:
- overall consistency
- color scheme
- labels
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Goals and What I learned
Merging scientifical and academic research to the design thinking
The importance of iteration
Working in a diverse team provided me a nice opportunity to improve my skills in producing valuable datas based on interviews.