During their design case project, four User System Interaction students from Eindhoven University of Technology (Sophia Atzeni, Annemiek van Drunen, Aljosja Jacobs, and Dirk Verhagen) have designed a brainstorming application for our multi-touch wall made by SOCO Amsterdam. Below they briefly describe their project and the results.
“On assignment for Future Workspaces we have looked into how to improve collaborative moments for knowledge workers using multi-touch technology. One of the most promising collaborative activities that could be improved was brainstorming. An interactive system already offers many advantages, and especially during the idea clustering phase the advantages of multi-touch can be leveraged. We have developed such a brainstorming application in collaboration with knowledge workers and validated the concept using focus groups.
With our application we try to bring a good deal more fun to the brainstorming process by providing brainstorm participants with interactive games. These games bring participants to the multi touch wall, and also release some of the tensions associated with selecting ‘winning’ ideas. Next to that, we also made large improvements on the clustering process. We feel it is important to be able to freely try different clusterings, and be able to play around during this phase. Using intuitive gestures, and using a ’bubble’ metaphor, brainstorm participants are able to create, move, remove, resize, rearrange, undo and relate clusters and ideas. During the entire brainstorm we support structuring the discussion with a ‘compare idea’ tool so participants can backtrack decisions and their rationale.
Are you curious to see how this all works together to support an entire brainstorming session, from creation of ideas to the selection of them? Then please, check out our movie prototype below. We welcome any comments you might have.”
In a previous post about the Future Workspaces Concept Game we have described how individials can be inspired by the concepts in the game and how it can help them think about how they want to live and work in the future.
When the Concept Game is played by more people in an organization, it can help that organization determine what aspects of future ways of working are important for the people in that organization. The Concept Game can be played in a workshop of 8 to 10 people. In the workshop, people first select their own favourite and not favourite concepts. Secondly, the choices are explained and discussed by the group. Finally, a coherent view is created on what issues and opportunities of future ways of working are most important for the organization. You can download a flyer about the Future Workspaces Concept Game Workshop here.
Steven Haveman, Industrial Design Student at the University of Twente completed his master’s graduation assignment within FWS on a study towards new ways of working for system architects. This post is a roundup of the results obtained in this research project. It shows the general findings and the findings regarding the concepts that were developed.
Steven’s research project has been a study towards new ways of working for system architects. System architects are responsible for the architecture of complex systems, like printers, MRI-scanners or radar systems. A series of interviews has been conducted with system architects at Océ, Philips and Thales to discuss concepts and obtain insights. This resulted in Project Buzz Tracker, a tool that couples activity information to project and workflow planning. Persons frequently give an update on their actions, thus showing the Buzz in a project. By observing this overview, the system architect can see concentrations or a lack of Buzz. These can be indications of problematic issues. Project Buzz Tracker will further strengthen team cohesion, especially if distant workers are involved. (more…)
We are proud to present the Future Workspaces booklet series!
The booklets illustrate insights, best practices, and lessons learned during two years of research, concept development, case studies, and special interest sessions with experts and industry. We plan to regularly update the series with new booklets.
Currently, the series contains the following four titles:
Tijdens de Rabo Unplugged klantcase zijn verschillende methoden toegepast. Hieronder staan de verschillende methoden op een rij, om een beeld te geven van onze aanpak.
Startmeting. Elke Future Workspaces klantcase begint met een startmeting. Het doel van deze meting is om een ijkpunt vast te stellen: hoe gaan de individuen in het team om met informatie (welke strategieën hanteren ze) en hoe gaan ze om met kennis delen. Verder stelt deze startmeting vast welke typen kenniswerk de teamleden doen en worden persoonlijkheidskenmerken gemeten. Dit laatste is bijvoorbeeld relevant om uitspraken te kunnen doen over de effectiviteit van verschillende strategieën en technologieën voor verschillende typen mensen. Bij wie is de kans groot dat een wiki of een blog aanslaat?
Interviews. Aan het begin van de Unplugged klantcase zijn een reeks interviews uitgevoerd met de leden van het Unplugged team. Het doel hierbij was om een beeld te krijgen van de situatie waarin het team zich bevindt, waar quick wins te bereiken zijn en om belangrijke randvoorwaarden voor de interventies boven water te krijgen.
Cultural probe. Dit middel heeft als doel om input te verzamelen vanuit het Unplugged team over wat zij op dit moment al echt Unplugged vinden aan hun manier van werken en waar dat nog te wensen overlaat. Bij de cultural probe is een tiental Unplugged medewerkers gevraagd om gedurende een aantal weken foto’s te maken van situaties waarbij ze het gevoel hadden echt Unplugged bezig te zijn, maar ook van situaties die niet bij de Unplugged filosofie passen. Door hiermee bezig te zijn en de resultaten met elkaar te bespreken, begint feitelijk al een interventie.
Workshops. We hebben een workshop georganiseerd om de Unplugged leden de resultaten van de cultural probe te laten bespreken en een workshop rond Unplugged samenwerken. Deze workshop diende om ervaringen, tips en trucs rond nieuwe manieren en tools voor samenwerken binnen het team te delen.
Inspiratie bieden. Om de Unplugged leden zelf en bezoekers van de Beneluxstaete inspiratie te bieden over de mogelijkheden van innovatieve (virtuele) hulpmiddelen hebben we twee richtingen gevolgd: 1) informeren van de Unplugged leden via e-mail en presentaties, en 2) door concrete prototypes te laten zien op de Werkplaats – de plek waar bezoekers (van binnen en buiten de Rabobank) een kijkje kunnen nemen in de toekomst van Rabo Unplugged.
This case is focussed on supporting the Dutch Tax Administration in collaborating with fiscal advising organizations as part of the Horizontal Monitoring initiative. The purpose of Horizontal Monitoring is to come to an effective method of monitoring by the Tax Administration, where trust and openness are key terms. In this pilot we explore the possibilities for innovative shared workspaces to make collaboration between the Tax Administration and a selection of fiscal advising organizations more effective and efficient, while stimulating openness and trust.
During the projectday one workshop was used to discuss the feasibility of virtual worlds for nomadic working. We see a growing group of nomadic workers, as work is not fixed solely to the office anymore. Increasingly people are working from home or the customer. Besides organizational problems, like planning of resources and projects also personal problems for nomadic workers arise. For example, keeping in touch and in sync with your colleauges and team members becomes more complex. One possible way to deal with these complexities is by using virtual worlds. This workshop was used to play with two virtual world demonstrations and to discuss the merits and drawbacks of this type of technology for nomadic workers.
The participants of the workshop were divided into two groups. One group played with the Virtual Media Office demonstration, prepared by Sefan Burgers from Ericsson. The second group played with the Second Life demonstration, prepared by Bart van den Hooff of the VU.
The result was a nice discussion from which the following elements struck me:
Staying in touch with colleagues can be facilitated using virtual worlds however currently it cannot complete replace face to face contact. For example, drinking coffee at a coffee corner is still very valuable. Maybe a good virtual coffee machine could be a way to go.
Choosing (remote) team members using virtual worlds could become more objective as politics and personal aspects play a lesser role.
Virtual worlds (including avatars) could become a intuitive graphical interface on top of the resources of a worker.
A lot of workers use tools with a lot of (unintuitive) features (e.g. email), virtual worlds could provide a intuitive interface that discloses all these features in a more natural way, after a learning curve has been taken.
Not all tasks of a knowledge worker may be suitable to perform in a virtual world (e.g. editing excel).
The more important decisions become, the more face to face contact is needed to also grasp indirect communication aspects (e.g. body language). Current virtual worlds are less suitable to grasp indirect communications and hence may be less suitable for very important/delicate decisions.
Mike from Jam visualized outcomes of the discussion. More of the results (also from the other workshops) can be found here.
We are currently working on concepts in four concept areas, named ‘Nomadic Working’, ‘Decision Making’, ‘Have a break’ and ‘Co-creation’. This post is dedicated to the last area, Co-creation. Within this area we have generated ideas on how people can work together using multitouch surfaces. Part of this work is done in collaboration with SoCo. A large multi-touch wall is currently under development and we are eager to start developing the right tools that can help people to work together more efficiently. The scenarios (and comics) presented here illustrate our first ideas about how such tools could work.
Smart Working Center (SWC) Almere is an initiative of Cisco and the municipality of Amsterdam and Almere to create an advanced working environment in the Almere area to reduce travel times for Almere-Amsterdam commuters. (press release (in dutch): here. SWC is part of the Connected Urban Development program of Cisco and partners.
Objective of this user experience study case is to create insights in how the Smart Working Center Almere as a working environment can optimally support professionals in their work. Key questions to answer are how professionals experience the SWC services and facilities, how they adapt over time their working styles and processes to the new possibilities of the SWC and what the feasibility is of the concept in terms of business value for the different stakeholders. — More to follow shortly –
To inspire knowledge workers and to gain more insight into what concepts or concept areas appeal to them, we have created The Concept Game. This game can be played individually or in a workshop with a group of people.
In a 
Steven Haveman, Industrial Design Student at the University of Twente completed his master’s graduation assignment within FWS on a study towards new ways of working for system architects. This post is a roundup of the results obtained in this research project. It shows the general findings and the findings regarding the concepts that were developed.
We are proud to present the Future Workspaces booklet series!
Tijdens de 
This case is focussed on supporting the Dutch Tax Administration in collaborating with fiscal advising organizations as part of the Horizontal Monitoring initiative. The purpose of Horizontal Monitoring is to come to an effective method of monitoring by the Tax Administration, where trust and openness are key terms. In this pilot we explore the possibilities for innovative shared workspaces to make collaboration between the Tax Administration and a selection of fiscal advising organizations more effective and efficient, while stimulating openness and trust. 
During the 
The participants of the workshop were divided into two groups. One group played with the Virtual Media Office demonstration, prepared by Sefan Burgers from Ericsson. The second group played with the 
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