Stakeholders: Communication and Interior design team at IKEA Core Business Franchise, Co-workers at the IKEA Delft office, TU Delft
Project brief
Since the transition to an open-plan office in 2016, the Communication and Interior design (Com&In) team started to receive complaints from co-workers about nuisance within the office. This project focused on creating an overview of the experiences of co-workers and empowering the Com&In team to tackle the various sources and decrease co-workers’ experience of nuisance in general.
My activities
User interviews / Contextmapping / Co-creation / Research communication
Experiences of nuisance in the office
Co-workers identified six main sources of nuisance. They also identified factors related to the presence of sources and general ability to deal with nuisance, showing two ways to decrease their experiences of nuisance in the office.
Tackling nuisance within the office
The diversity in sources and experiences meant that the amount of nuisance co-workers experience could be decreased most effectively by interventions that would improve their ability to deal with nuisance
Design goal
Create a fridfull/serene individual workspace for employees by decreasing nuisance from co-workers
Together with the Com&In team I decided to develop a design, that would further empower them to tackle nuisance from co-worker conversation and interruptions at individual deskspaces. With the aim to make individual workspaces better suited for focused work
Lowering the stimulation and perception of nuisance through
Fridfold
Fridfold is a foldable desk screen that helps co-workers to close themselves of during focused work
The design aims to decrease both the amount and perception of stimulation. Where the three-dimensional texture of the screen and interactivity, should enhance the perceived sound damping of the felt screen. This effect was measured through user testing with a full-scale working prototype.
My activities
Design conceptualisation / Interaction prototyping / Usability testing / Design presentation
Paper-prototypes to discuss textures with co-workers 
Early laser engraved prototype from a foldable polymer 
Remote-evaluation packages for co-workers
Making co-workers feel relief at their desk
The interaction with the screen and applied materials are developed to make co-workers feel calmer at their deskspace. For this I relied on an interaction and material experience vision. Where for instance the material qualities, for instance the quality of ‘protective’ is found to be associated with the application of three-dimensional textured surfaces
Impact & learnings
The Com&În team has indicated that the research insights, helped them to understand the context better. Based on this they intended to start projects to tackle these sources. Furthermore, they were very enthusiastic about the workshops and wanted to learn how they could implement these themselves. Due to COVID-19, however, co-workers started to work from home, which meant that the development of Fridfold was put on hold.
