Deliver a set of digital products for parents to gain work-life balance in the workplace
The pandemic in 2020 has changed human’s working behaviours, making it possible to work remotely. However, there exists invisible anxiety and stress for staying at home parents for their contribution on work and their roles of parenting to be seen.
Project for
The RSA Student Design Awards
Services
Speculative Design, Well-being, Inclusivity in the Workplace
Skills & Tools
Field Interviews, Desk Research, Persona, Journey Map, Iteration, Storyboard, Low Fidelity UI, Ecosystem Map
The Challenge
How can working parents understand their shifting roles of being parents and employees at the same time? How might we support them to be seen and understood by their family and colleagues during hybrid working?
The Process
We conducted desk research of issues faced by parents working at home. We conducted 5 in-depth online and 15 on-site interviews with experts and parents in London to gain a clearer picture of their work and life during the pandemic. After identifying opportunities around roles shifting and family teamwork, we came up with several prototypes, tested and iterated them into final outcome. I mainly contribute to interviews, the user journey map, identifying design opportunities and designing low fidelity UI.
The Proposal
The final outcome is Leafy, a digital task planner of family, work and personal schedule. Besides, the schedule is visualized into a real-time screening digital forest in the workspace, showcasing the difficulty and value of parents’ hard work.
The impact
Leafy allows working parents to be understood better and helps them relieve working anxiety to better work-life balance. Meanwhile, it leads to better inclusivity for company’s workplace.
Outcome-App Leafy’s user interface
Background
According to the Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2020, “About half of employed parents with children younger than 12 in the household (52 percent) say it has been difficult to handle childcare responsibilities during the coronavirus outbreak, up from 38 percent who said this in March 2020.”
2 out of 5 employees who work remotely at least part of the time said they felt impacted by a perceived absence from the office compared to their peers who reported to work every day.
“Children may feel that the parents are psychologically absent for them while being physically present and work is the parents' priority.”
—— Stewart Friedman, Organizational psychologist, University of Pennsylvania
“It can be so valuable and important for kids to be present and see their parents navigating the values and engagement in their work.”
—— Kim Ferguson, Dean of graduate, Professional studies, Sarah Lawrence College
Remote working employees feel like their work was evaluated less often, they received less recognition and were less likely to receive a raise or promotion than their peers.
Step 1: Discover the hybrid working life for parents
Understanding the life of working parents from both dad and mom side
The desk research led to the critical situation of being parents during hybrid working mode. To dive into the working life of the couples with kids, we reached out to the users in London and field research. It came to our realization that parents were supposed to work as a team instead of separating their schedules. What it means to be a working parent and how to prioritize their family or work tasks?
Step 2: Build up user journey to identify difficulties
Identifying parents’ prior needs within family and workplace
The challenging process of identifying the key problems pointed to the fact that the couple teamwork was only a part. After all the insights mapped out into journey, the conclusion was that their stress largely comes from not being seen of their dedication for works.
How might we help the working parents to better understand their shifting roles while being recognized by their family and company of the hybrid working pattern?
Step 3: Create solutions to balance parent’s work and family life
Framing ideas of balancing parents’ work and family schedules
We worked on the question towards helping parents have a clearer plan and schedule while being understood by colleagues. That’s why we ideated towards both supporting the working parents and educating the peers in the workplace. I finalized the Low fidelity UI of a digital experience for parents to plan the schedule as a family.
Glimpse of design process
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Brainstorming & Testing
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Ideation
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Ideation
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Prototyping
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Low fidelity UI
Step 4: Propose a digital experience for inclusivity
“It’s so meaningful to be seen by my company as a parent maintaining the family responsibility while working with full dedication. I can plan my work and family schedule with my partner and children together!”
Maintaining humanity at the workplace for working parents
Leafy is a digital set of products for working parents to plan their personal life, work and family tasks.
Besides, in the workplace, a digital wall of screening forest will demonstrate employees’ planner trees with different colors of leaves anonymously, sharing the value that everyone has the rights to stay as parents and working at the same time. The personal data will not be disclosed to any collaborators.
