Togi - A tool for remote team bonding

After the pandemic hit in 2020, I switched over to a new department in the same company (King) and found myself collaborating with a bunch of fresh faces. Being the sociable soul I am, I really missed having those team social interactions. So, I suggested playing quick games during our daily catch-ups, and it worked great for breaking the ice and making me feel like I belonged. That whole experience got me thinking, and it’s what sparked this personal project.

Here is the process behind the creation of a tool to make remote team bonding more fun and spontaneous.

Problem

Remote work is here to stay, and although it has its enthusiasts, some employees experience isolation, which affects their productivity. To address this, games and virtual social events are used for team building but scheduled team bonding can feel forced, boring, or take too much time from people’s working schedules. How do we make remote socialising more engaging and inclusive?

Outcome

I created a digital tool that enables spontaneous fun and relaxed moments of social interaction for remote teammates. The central features included calendar sync, mini-games, and voice chat.

My design process and role

I followed the stages of the Design Thinking process and the project took 10 weeks to be completed.

End-to-end project: Responsible for all phases of the project including:
User research — Ideation — Design and Art Direction – Prototyping — Testing — Iterating — Final product.

Research goals

To investigate how social time happens in a remote team setup I set up the following research goals:

What kind of activities do teams have in a remote setup?
How does that impact their work schedule?
How do employees feel about accepting/declining to participate in social activities at work?
Do introverted people react differently from extroverts?
Do team members have a say in deciding the activities?

Research method

Desk research
– Existing articles/studies
– Competitive landscape

Primary research
– Interviews with Team leads and Team members
– Survey: (Quantitative research) via Google Forms

Total:
8 interviews with 2 user segments (team leads and team members).
73 survey responses.

Competitive Landscape

I benchmarked competitors and analyzed their strengths, business strategies and gaps. They don’t enable spontaneous fun connections but instead schedule time for activities. Some are very focused on quizzes and scavenger hunt games while others offer virtual coffee activities and randomly pairing work colleagues for virtual conversations.

Quantitative and quality research

To get better insights on the problem I interviewed 8 people from 2 user segments (team members and team leads) and also sent out a survey.

Main findings:

41% of activities are proposed by the team lead.
62% have positive feelings about playing games at work.
1 out of 4 employees declines participation because is outside their working hours.

Main insights the affinity mapping revealed:

Little spontaneous conversations are the favorite social interaction between work colleagues.
Employees prefer to decide together what social activities/team-building events they are going to have. Also, they dislike when is mandatory to participate.
Long activities annoy people with busy schedules. Employees are likely to decline participation in virtual social events that takes longer than 45 min and are held during working hours. They don’t want social team bonding to disrupt their workload.
In virtual activities, people prefer to gather in small groups. Specially people with introverted traits. They struggle to interact with colleagues on virtual events with a large group of people. They feel like observers more than actually interacting with the group.

“Not really keen on organized fun. Is better when
you can spontaneously chat with people” — Quote from user interview.

Archetypes

After running interviews with 8 potential users I got enough insights to generate a couple of archetypes to address my 2 user segments needs: team member and team leaders

The team lead

Goals: Make sure the team collaborates and keep a good team environment.

Pain points: Want the team to socialize and collaborate better but need to keep track of project progress.

Jobs to be done
I want to: Provide some space and incentives for them to feel closer to each other and improve their communication. Also, make sure they concentrate on the tasks at work and don’t spend too much time on social activities.

The timid team member

Goals: I need to feel I’m being productive and also enjoy chatting with my 2 close colleagues so I have a mental break from work.

Pain points: When we have a virtual happy hour I don’t usually interrupt and participate. I feel I’m just watching people talk.

Jobs to be done
I want to: Have little breaks and chat with my colleagues so I can recharge and continue focusing on my daily tasks at work.

Final Hypothesis

Having defined the archetypes, their needs, and pain points, I proceeded to reshape the hypothesis.

We believe that enabling teams to have little social breaks throughout their working week for remote teams will improve their engagement in social activities, make them feel more dynamic and spontaneous.

How might we statement

We believe that enabling teams to have little social breaks throughout their working week for remote teams will improve their engagement in social activities, and make them feel more dynamic and spontaneous.

Ideation

In the ideation phase, I sketched a lot with pen and paper: crazy 8’s and drafts of how the features could work and how the solution could be structured. Also, I worked on an Ideation board in Miro to put all the ideas together and filter the best ideas that would cover the user’s needs and pain points.

Solution

Value proposition: A tool to enable spontaneous fun and relaxed moments of social interaction for remote teammates.

A digital solution: Design decisions connected with research insights

Calendar sync: Automatically find free slots for a fun time with peers. In the research findings, I saw users complain about the need of organising and scheduling time for social time.

Play mini-games and challenges: Teams do play games and they love it. Let’s keep the things that are working well.

Voice chat feature: The affinity mapping revealed a pattern regarding camera fatigue. Users have video back-to-back meetings and experience video fatigue. To avoid that, the tool’s main chat feature is through voice chat. You still can activate the camera or text chat but as a secondary functionality.

Get rewards: Employees appreciate getting recognition. Team leads have a budget set aside for entertainment and they can use it to incentive good communication among the team.

Wireframes and iterations

Usability test — 3 main changes

Usability tests are a key part of the process and I got a lot of valuable information about users’ input on the digital tool. Here are the main 3 changes I made after conducting early usability tests:

Mood meter: After conducting usability tests on the low-fi prototype I made this feature more prominent. Users found that interesting as it allowed them to see how their colleagues are feeling. Also, added a tip functionality that recommends an activity according to the user’s mood.

Calendar sync: Added Calendar sync options. Users wanted to be able to select the days they are available to have social interactions with colleagues.

Leaderboard: The first prototype had a Leaderboard table where users could see their colleagues’ points. I removed that after getting feedback that this feature could create conflict as teammates can get uncomfortable if others are playing more than they should and are compromising work productivity.

Final branding and art direction

The naming of the tool is “Togi” and reminds the word “together”.

The concepts for the branding are: fun, vibrant, and quirky. Togi brings some spontaneous colorful bright moments of fun and social interactions for work colleagues. The colors inspire a mood of warmth and vibrant energy.

Moodboard

Inspiration from other designers/artists*

I created a mood board with inspiration from other artists and designers with the concepts of “vibrant” and “office nostalgia”. “Office nostalgia” because research revealed users missed some aspects of the physical office spaces like casual encounters and conversations around the watercooler and kitchen area. To bring back the “office space nostalgia” I created illustrations using the technique of “collage” with old pictures from between 1950 and 1980 which is when a lot of office spaces boomed in capitals around the globe.

Bespoke illustrations for Togi’s branding and UI

Bespoke illustrations I designed for the project. I used collage and geometric shapes to create a fun and quirky look and feel.

Happy path

Final prototype

Some of the final screens

Thanks for reading! Crafting this project to enhance remote team dynamics and foster togetherness in the digital realm was truly thrilling. If you’re interested in diving deeper into the process or have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to get in touch!

Togi - A tool for remote team bonding

Problem

Outcome

My design process and role

End-to-end project: Responsible for all phases of the project including:
User research — Ideation — Design and Art Direction – Prototyping — Testing — Iterating — Final product.

Research goals

Research method

Competitive Landscape

Quantitative and quality research

“Not really keen on organized fun. Is better when
you can spontaneously chat with people” — Quote from user interview.

Archetypes

Final Hypothesis

How might we statement

We believe that enabling teams to have little social breaks throughout their working week for remote teams will improve their engagement in social activities, and make them feel more dynamic and spontaneous.

Ideation

Solution

Value proposition: A tool to enable spontaneous fun and relaxed moments of social interaction for remote teammates.

A digital solution: Design decisions connected with research insights

Wireframes and iterations

Usability test — 3 main changes

Final branding and art direction

Moodboard

Bespoke illustrations for Togi’s branding and UI

Happy path

Final prototype

Some of the final screens

Password protected

Under construction

Togi - A tool for remote team bonding

Problem

Outcome

My design process and role

End-to-end project: Responsible for all phases of the project including: User research — Ideation — Design and Art Direction – Prototyping — Testing — Iterating — Final product.

Research goals

Research method

Competitive Landscape

Quantitative and quality research

“Not really keen on organized fun. Is better whenyou can spontaneously chat with people” — Quote from user interview.

Archetypes

Final Hypothesis

How might we statement

We believe that enabling teams to have little social breaks throughout their working week for remote teams will improve their engagement in social activities, and make them feel more dynamic and spontaneous.

Ideation

Solution

Value proposition: A tool to enable spontaneous fun and relaxed moments of social interaction for remote teammates.

A digital solution: Design decisions connected with research insights

Wireframes and iterations

Usability test — 3 main changes

Final branding and art direction

Moodboard

Bespoke illustrations for Togi’s branding and UI

Happy path

Final prototype

Some of the final screens

Password protected

Under construction

End-to-end project: Responsible for all phases of the project including:
User research — Ideation — Design and Art Direction – Prototyping — Testing — Iterating — Final product.

“Not really keen on organized fun. Is better when
you can spontaneously chat with people” — Quote from user interview.