NewDays Desktop Application by Inn Sun Park

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DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?

ISP : As the new environment has brought both advantages and disadvantages, I wanted to develop an innovative product for the remote work environment with my teammates because the current methods make people feel disconnected and onboarding more difficult for new employees.

DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?

ISP : Innovation creates a solution that improves people's lives. This idea will help managers onboard new remote employees to the team, and the organization will create a better remote work environment. As this is a solution that can enhance the quality of a remote work environment, it is an innovative product.

DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?

ISP : If we discover new needs, we may add a few more features or refine an existing one.

DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?

ISP : The project started in September 2021 through remote collaboration. It is an ongoing process with updates depending on new needs.

DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?

ISP : The ways in which teams communicate and work together have changed a lot since the pandemic began. As the new environment brought both advantages and disadvantages, the current methods we use have some difficulties for managers to have an overview, encourage each team member, and onboard new remote employees. Therefore, considering the various remote work environment stress points, we designed a cross-platform that would solve the problems mentioned above in the current process.

DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?

ISP : My team hasn't made a decision yet.

DI: What made you design this particular type of work?

ISP : I have found that the way my coworkers at work communicate and work together has changed a lot since the COVID pandemic began, so I wanted to design something for this new work environment with my team members.

DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?

ISP : We interviewed many designers, researchers, and engineers. We got many insightful findings from the interview.

DI: Who is the target customer for his design?

ISP : We set about with the intention to create a friendly yet productive tool application for the workplace. Our target customers are managers and their team members.

DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?

ISP : We knew that NewDays had to address the needs of an employee's (including managers) entire work routine, from onboarding to becoming a settled, thriving member of the team.

DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?

ISP : This is a desktop application to support the new work environment, so we named this product, NewDays.

DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?

ISP : We used Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, After Effect, and Miro Board to design the UX and UI of this desktop application. In addition, we used many research tools like user journey maps and service blueprints to create the experience.

DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?

ISP : NewDays is a cross-platform product for the new work environment. The absence of face-to-face workplace interactions has left employees more disconnected than ever, and managers face the challenge of leading a team in a completely virtual setting. NewDays provides managers with the tools to help maintain team morale, oversee performance, identify problems flagged by members, and onboard new employees.

DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?

ISP : Inn Sun Park (myself), Gabriela Sudirja, Jing Qiao and Yoyo Dong

DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?

ISP : It helps to enhance users in the new remote work environment.

DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?

ISP : During the initial stage, we created an affinity diagram and interviewed people to understand the current work environment. We discovered many pain points that the managers were experiencing, then we went back to the group of research participants to test our low-fidelity mock-ups. We were able to gain insightful findings around its usability as well as its viability as a proof of concept. We created quick prototypes to A/B test with the group multiple times before finalizing our product design.

DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?

ISP : It was challenging to figure out the core needs for the current remote work environment. We also had to ask multiple questions to come up with our initial product idea. After we decided to set managers as target users for our product because of the product's scalability, we had to spend an extensive amount of time building the ideal user journey for our target users. Simplifying the complicated information on the interface design was also challenging.

DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?

ISP : We always wanted to try an international design competition.

DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?

ISP : I learn something meaningful every time when I design something. Through this work, I was able to sharpen my overall skill sets as a UX/UI designer.

DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?

ISP : I think you covered everything!