Mentor
Employees with less experience (0-5 years) often struggle to initiate their work and keep track of their progress.
Mentor companion for seamless workflow sharing, streamlined team communication, and expert goal-tracking within user’s team community.
PROBLEM
Employees with less experience(0-5 years) often have a hard time initiate their work and keep track of their progress.
The first five years of working is an unavoidable stage, everyone at some point has to deal with the insecurity and anxiety that come along with the shifts in company and position. Excessive preoccupation change with uneasiness can often cause us stress, anxiety, and waste of time and effort.
During the research I did, I tried to focus on improving the overall experience of employees in various experiences they go through. An issue that has bothered many people is over-exhaustion, and the work-life balance their colleague mentioned is so hard to achieve.
Therefore, my goal was to help employees with less experience adjust to the work, approach the work-life balance they expected, and create a synchronization with the company.
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH
Exhaustion, loneliness and low efficiency.
I sampled 50 employees with less than 5 years of working history in different fields-design, architecture, landscape design, engineering, software engineering, and construction management with a questionnaire about their experience.
They reported common negative feelings such as exhaustion, loneliness, low efficiency, self-doubt, workflow unfamiliarity, and low job satisfaction. 80% believe their work-life balance falls short of expectations. The most draining aspects are adapting to new environments, keeping up with colleagues, and career doubts.
A deeper investigation is needed to understand the root causes.
CONTEXTURAL INQUIRY
Question focused on work experience, expectations and information exchange.
I conducted 8 interviews from the sampled employees with different backgrounds. I collected 8 interviews from employees with less than five years experience in different fields, and the questions focused on the work they were responsible for, length of the career, the company culture and the method of skills training. The interviewees are divied into group based on career length(0-1, 2-3, 4-5, above 5), I tried to understand the common reason behind the insecurity and insatisfaction.
Occupation
Briefly describe your background, how long have you been working in your current position?
Intensity
What gives you the most sense of accomplishment and the most rewarding thing in your work?
Training
Describe the company's training process and the training process of the last unhappy company.
INTERVIEW
Majority of the interviewees report lacking of confidence, burn-out and isolation between work, after-work life and personal progress
Based on the information gathered, it's evident that employee insecurity arises from multiple sources. Those with 0-1 years of experience reported lacking confidence and feeling lonely, employees with 2-3 years of experience expressed concerns about future development, and those with over five years of experience cited burnout as a primary issue. Ineffective communication is the common root cause, leading to workflow gaps and inefficiencies. We must improve information sharing and align workflow and capabilities.
Theme 1: Inefficiency ( 0-1 years )
Challenging to monitor new hires' skill development and task completion due to diverse and varying assignments.
Theme 2: Stress and inconfidence ( 1-2 years )
Inexperienced employees forced to switch between projects, learning new workflows and team structures, leading to exhaustion.
Theme 3: Insecurity ( 2-3 years )
Experienced employees have high expectations and inadequate support leads to costly mistakes.
Theme 4: Burn-out ( 4-5 years )
Repetitive work within a specialized field for 4-5 year experienced employees can reduce motivation.
Since the workflow is not documented, new employees often feel unprepared and uncertain of their role, leading to increased levels of stress
Overloading and underutilization may exploit talent, waste resources, and discourage retention.
Inexperienced employees lack clarity on career advancement, their current stage, and how their work contributes to career growth.
Experienced employees necessitate timely communication and file sharing to prevent delays and procrastination in multi-level team projects.
The main work arrangement issue for employees is often the lack of clear expectations.
New hires may experience stress and anxiety from pressure to make a good impression.
Onboarding new employees can be time-consuming without prior reference for work setup, correction, and education.
Experienced employees (3-5 years) require equitable development opportunities and minimized inter-group and office disparities.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Few software solutions prioritize enhancing employee experience, streamlining workflows, and delivering timely work updates.
My research revealed that the majority of the software prioritized project management and diagram establishment in steady of focus on promoting learning and summarizing. The project details are roughly recorded as “hours per unit” to measure the efficiency of the team as a whole. The competitive lacks the feature of encourage individual growth.
Notion
Can serve as a centralized platform but Limited function for cooperation and communication
Monday
Provide general industry insight but the resume and work experiences needs to be constantly update to match current status
Microsoft project
Team-based structure that focus on efficient communication between members but not task specific
TARGET USERS ANALYSIS
Persona
These personas serve as valuable insights for our future software design, enabling us to create a more user-centric and tailored experience. By understanding and catering to the unique requirements of each persona, we aim to develop a software solution that meets the expectations and preferences of a broad range of users.
User Journeymap
All of my interviewees’ recycling experiences are squeezed into their daily life with little reward.
Based on the information gathered during the interview, I observed that the incentives for recycling activities are primarily focused on economic benefits. Some interviewees expressed a decline in interest towards recycling, as they perceive themselves to be financially stable and find the time investment to be considerably higher.
User satisfaction is high with proper training and positive feedback but can be stressed under tight deadlines without team support.
Unfamiliarity with the workflow and high team expectations can result in increased workload and reduced communication due to stress and apprehension.
Opportunities can be found in workflow breakdown and alignment, expected feedback timing and instructions, personal growth through gamification systems, and a visualized working portfolio for colleague reference.
Workflow
Simultaneously record and share keynotes, workflows, and critical information.
"Based on interview insights, we've established a novel workflow that focuses on recording and sharing work processes, essential information, and automated, timely work summaries. The gathered graphics and samples become invaluable assets for future work, crucial references for decision-making, and personal progress tracking. Graphics and samples become valuable assets for future work and decisions, enhancing the user experience
Previous workflow(click picture for details)
The original workflow entails an excessive number of decision-making steps, a steep learning curve, and a scarcity of information sources for recycling guidance, resulting in minimal rewards throughout the entire experience.
Projected workflow(click picture for details)
Expanding the array of options available to customers, less decision making, establishing connections with platforms to enable customers to showcase their preferences, offer feedback, and receive rewarding gamified experiences.
Information architecture
Recording and sharing keynote, workflow, and other critical information simultaneously
Upon gathering insights from the interview process, a novel workflow was established that prioritizes the recording and dissemination of work processes, essential information, and automatic and timely work summarization.
The amassed graphics and samples serve as indispensable assets for forthcoming work, significant references for future decisions, and personal progress trackers. These optimizations seek to enhance the user experience by delivering a more streamlined and efficient workflow, while also increasing accuracy and accountability for all users involved.
Wireframe
3 Major improvement in design
Incorporating feedback from mockup users, my design enhancements focus on the integration of features, consideration of user habits, and improvements in accessibility, collectively resulting in a more user-centric and refined experience.
MOCKUP
