Intertwi­ngle

In a humble effort to take heed of feedback from the Macro Unit assessment and improve the User Experience on my blog and website overall, quoting:

"Your task is to design a device, apparatus or set of interactions that reaches across disciplines. Your designed outcome should help people identify synergies and navigate practical issues".

Keywords

We spent a significant amount of time picking apart the brief, understanding keywords and what "interwingling" meant in a general sense. The keywords were:

• Collaborative working tool
• Siloed working practices
• Participatory design
• Embracing metaphors
• Reframing existing interactions

Our summative understanding of these we need to find a way to enhance cohesiveness, collaboration and interactions beyond what is currently happening in institutions/workspaces.

Before we delve in any further, our brief was very specific about the do's and don'ts – quoting:

After a brainstorming activity, we laid out different sectors we were interested in researching and looking into communication gaps that could exist within them. To keep things simple, we focused on transport, hospitals, local areas, housing, and commercial businesses. To do this we separated into small research focus groups to help explore stakeholders, structures and potential problems within each one.

Transport for London: Keeping London moving

Under TFL, we looked at the London Underground and Docklands Light Railway, as well as London's buses, taxis, principal road routes, cycling provision, trams, and river services.

NHS: UK's healthcare system

Understanding the gap in communication within the healthcare system and the stakeholders.

We established that there was a connection between the physical design of an office space and the different verbal communication tools used to foster better communication among employees. The design of the office can impact the effectiveness of different communication tools, and vice versa. For example, an open office design can encourage collaboration and make it easier for employees to have impromptu conversations. This design can complement the use of verbal communication tools such as face-to-face conversations, team huddles, and brainstorming sessions.

Spaces

We branched out onto YouTube for research on established companies or organisations and how their spaces are set up. First, is an Administrative Building and Research Tower as example of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's unique approach to office design and what it really feels like working there. Second, is a video showing LinkedIn's new flagship office where desks are no longer the primary focus with dozens of different work settings and conference room setups. Third, is a video of Adobe's headquarters in San Jose that has outside‐shades of gray granite but redesigned by Gensler on the inside to reflect Adobe's colorful brand. And lastly is a video of Cisco's redesigned New York office to showcase both the company's technology and be an example workplace evolution through their lens.

The video below however, takes a different twist as it ventures into how open offices have been around for a long time but have relatively been misunderstood for their role in workplace culture. It further explores where open offices and cubicles came from, and whether they are really what we want?

Relationships

We explored relationships between people at work and how this impacts collabotation and communication. Below is an image picturing a fictional employee's scenario, Jane, in a typical agile working environment.

To have a better grasp of the communication problem especially in siloed workplaces, we explored more on these:

Challenges from which Communication gaps arise in Workspaces

• Lack of clarity: Use of unclear messages that lead to misunderstandings and confusion.
• Cultural differences: Different cultural norms and values can impact communication styles,
• Technological shortcomings which lead to frustration.
• Lack of feedback makes it difficult to know if the message was received and understood.
• Different communication channels can lead to miscommunication.

Suggestions to bridge the gap

• Using a shared language that is easily understandable by all parties involved.
• Clarifying expectations: Establishing clear goals at the outset of the collaboration.
• Encouraging open communication like safe spaces to express opinions and concerns.
• Active listening which involves seeking to understand perspectives.
• Addressing conflicts proactively: Acknowledging and addressing issues as soon as they arise.

• Rationalisation: Analysing the current layout, usage patterns and occupancy levels.
• Flexibility: Adaptability to different activities.
• Zones for collaborative work: Such as a quiet area for focused work and a more open area for group discussions.
• Technology: Equipping teams with the necessary technological tools to collaborate effectively.

We had tutorials with the ever–amazing Tonicha who emphasized the need to physicalise our research, or in other words, get our hands dirty!

To better manage our time, here is the timeline we made for the Micro Unit duration:

Here was the feedback from Week One's round‐table presentations:

• Taking a look at smaller‐sized companies or organisations, working our way around that and later finding a niche group.
• Physical workshops were to be vital for our next steps, but to consider facilitation of the participants too. The instructions would aim to be as simple as simple or straight‐forward as possible.
• Try to to avoid conventional ways of holding workshops and interviews, instead try to approach it in a way that is more fun, engaging and explorative. Bring more play into it.
• Make use of metaphors for example in the way we were to phrase our questions.
• Alternatively, we could go explore flipping the experience by asking ourselves how unbearable collaboration or communication could be made and reversing the results to our advantage.

As this was our first week and research was really important to have, it would have been more helpful to start exploring with different physical tools, methods and materials to make prototyping easier.