Research / Evaluation / UX/UI Design
In a time, when modern employers try to improve the workplaces of their employees as an extra benefit, when companies like Google or SAP provide special areas for relaxing or playing table tennis, feedback is needed a lot. Because at the workplace 4.0, the employee should be the focus of all facility management decisions, to provide an inspiring work atmosphere.
The Feedback App was my bachelor thesis in cooperation with SAP. It enables the user to easily provide his feedback to the facility management and keeps him up to date about his reported issues. At the same time it takes the extra communicational work from the facility management.
The problem was, that the existing feedback channels were quite cumbersome and the managers receive requests very delayed. Surveys take too long until you can work with the results. The employees are loosing motivation of giving feedback quickly, if they don’t see the outcome of it. The challenge I was facing, was:
How could I design a tool, that provides the employees feedback and wishes directly, without causing extra communicational work for the facility management, to keep the requester up to date?
The research phase started with expert interviews in facility management departments of different companies and employees that work in an workplace 4.0 environment. Those potential users were also asked for feedback about the prototypes along the process.
I had the „fail-early“-approach and kept on evaluating every stage from the very beginning. Paper prototypes helped me quickly evaluating ideas of different sets of features and showed me how pragmatic the employees send their requests.
After the interviews, I synthesized the user needs. For the facility management it was important to get the employees feedback directly and reduce the effort of keeping them in touch about their requests.
For the employees its important to give feedback immediately when a problem appears and where it appears. If the communication process takes too long or is cumbersome, no one will tell about small things that can be improved or repaired and only bigger issues will be reported.
The insights I got and a broad analysis of the tools that cope the feedback topic, led me to a set of features that I introduced into paper prototypes. Testing those with users, gave me a better vision of what the users like to use best and how the tool should be structured, based on a prioritization of the users.
Using a conversational UI the employees can communicate with the smart system of the building, which keeps him up to date and informs the facility management at the same time, without overwhelming him with to much communicational work.
For the paper prototypes I sketched several features and tried different app structures, to find out what users prefer.
After evaluation, the next stage were wireframe prototypes and click dummies that evolved from wireframe to a more defined screen design.
I decided to provide 3 categories (suggestion, request and praise) for the users to choose from. The user will see his position on the map of the building and can directly place his feedback wherever the issue appears. Photos, voice or a sketch can be attached if needed.
When the feedback ticket is sent, the user gets into conversation with an intelligent system, that informs him of updates or asks further questions to clarify things. This way the facility management gets the information they need, but get released of writing the users in person if they don’t have the time to.
Since the application will be part of the Cloud for Real Estate, the data will also be connected to the C4RE-Database and also gets all information need from it. At the same time it even provides data and enriches the wholistic view of the digital building.
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