Creating a healthier and more productive home office environment.
The goal of this project is to design a system that helps people create a better home office space and helps maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Commissioned by
Duration: 3 months
Research
Users and environments
User research
My primary user (left) is an employee who started working from home due to the pandemic. At first she worked in the living room which was not a functional working environment so she decided to set up a separate home office. This solved a lot of her struggles when working from home except the lack of daily exercise (she cycled to work often).
My secondary user is a university student, she works from home during the weekend and from her student room during the week. At home, she works at the dining table that faces the tv which is a big distraction and it's also a high traffic area. In her student room, she has one area where she works, sleeps, eats and relaxes. Both are not ideal conditions to be able to concentrate on the work as there are a lot of distractions.
Idea generation
The first round of idea generation is about creating a large volume of sketches and ideas. These sketches are centered around three topics: separation of work/life, healthy working environment and healthy work/life balance.
The second round of idea generation is about narrowing down the amount of sketches. This is achieved by eliminating concepts and combining others to create new, improved concepts.
After two rounds, there were some good concepts but the form of some concepts was not good enough yet. This is what the third round of ideation is, creating a large amount of concepts focused solely on shape.
Visual inspiration board
Three final concepts
The first concept is about separation work and life. It's a foldable table divider meant for people who don't have a separate home office. The divider creates a specific work space but the light backing material lets through enough light to keep the space airy.
The second concept is about creating a healthy working environment. It's a table divider with storage and integrated led lighting. The back and side panels are also covered with sound dampening foam to create a quiet working environment, this also serves as corkboard to put up notes and such. The storage means that everything work-related can be put away at the end of the day.
The third concept is a taskbar that displays current tasks. It's focused on creating a healthy work/life balance by keeping the user's attention concentrated on the current task when necessary. It can also notify the user when an important event is going to happen soon.
Final concept
The choice of final concept is based on several factors. Users responded positively on this concept because it is more unique. Feedback from external designers also pointed out the potential of this design, a lot of other useful functions could be added to the device to make it more appealing for more users.
Final iteration
A final round of ideation was done to figure out the best shape for the device.
Testing
Lastly, the led's ability to shine through plastic was tested with a sheet of polystyrene.
Final prototype
Brand
Packaging
DUOmi will be sold online exclusively, above is an example of how it could look like on a site.
Final model
Materials and manufacturing
The shells and button will be injection moulded first, then hydrodipped with wood grain. The screens are die cut from sheets of ABS to prevent deformation and then everything will be assembled with the electronics.
User interactions
DUOmi has several functions that can be put in two categories: work efficiency based and health based functions.
The work efficiency based functions help to learn to stick to a schedule and are a visual reminder of what the user is supposed to be doing.
The health based functions serve to help the user learn new good habits such as: drink more water, stretch, look away from the screen, mind your posture...
