Magdalena Bravo


BRIDGE ME.





Team: Wanqi Fang, Camillo Dahl

Partner: Modal


In this project, our partner, Modal, asked us to go beyond the screen and explore voice-lead interactions for the Low-touch Economy. We chose to research how this technology can help professionals working from home, specifically when they transition mindsets from work to personal life and the other way round.


Bridge Me is a service that aggregates voice-based content, inspires users with sets of voice-led experiences, that can help them switch between mindsets, according to the moments of a day.The service can be accessed by voice with the support of a screen-based system that guides the learning for users. The voice-led experiences can be classified into 3 categories, Personal Instruction, such as for meditation, yoga or stretching. Informative audio, like news update, and ambient music.




BRIDGE ME. THE PROJECT





Working from home: Confusing and altering performance.



In the post-pandemic world, many professionals are working from home as a consequence of sanitary measures. Our research showed us that sharing the same space for work and personal life makes it difficult to change mindsets and perform well in both roles.




Bridge Me: Bridging mindsets for working from home



Bridge Me is a service that helps professionals working from home who want to have a healthier work and life balance by avoiding the blurred boundary between work and personal life and providing mindful transitional activities on a simple and playful voice interface.




Designing Adoption



Bridge Me, a voice lead platform, has been inspired by our users. We know voice-led services are not of common use to our target audience. This is why we have designed a screen learning support system that helps new users learn the possible voice commands they can use (it is not touch-responsive). The more the users use the app, the less the screen is of use.


At first, the screen works as a learning system, showing the possible voice commands users can say, but not touch responsive.



As users get used to Bridge Me they don't need the screen anymore and can access the service through the commands they learned.



Learnings



Some learnings from this project were:

1. The adoption of new technologies can be designed The adoption of new technologies can be designed.


We knew most of our users didn't see voice as a suitable platform to perform guided activities, so we designed an adoption process for them to transition from screen to voice.


2. Simple/ playful commands are key to voice-lead interactions.

When designing voice commands, these need to be simple. We discovered that playful and evident commands worked out, as they were action-inducing and easy to remember.

3. Small everyday activities (even unpleasant ones) were essential to switching mindsets.

Small unconscious and even unpleasant activities greatly influence our behaviour. Our research showed us how biking to work, or even listening to music in a packed train, could be triggering a transition of mindsets.

4. The type of transition is important.
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Healthy transitions promoting healthy lifestyle help users to be mindful and present, therefore, more efficient and happy.