Me Time
A connected experience for working mothers is an IoT enabled experience that aims to lift the burden off of working-from-home mothers so that they can pay heed to their mental well-being while the family empathises with her situation. It connects a wearable that detects the mother's emotions and stress levels through an app meant for the mom and dad, and a clock that displays the opportunities for family time.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Top 8 Finalists in
Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge 2021
organised by Stanford University
Theme - "After the Pandemic: Designing the Next Version of Our World”
Overview
MY ROLE
Researcher, UI Designer, Conceptualisation, Product Design, User Testing, System Design and IoT
TOOLS USED
Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Miro, Autodesk Fusion 360, Arduino UNO
DURATION
Oct 2020 - Nov 2020
(2 months)
TEAM MEMBERS
Preshita Deshmukh, Khushali Parekh, Nidhi Kastiya
MENTORS
CHALLENGE
Trying to strike a balance between progressing career wise and nurturing the family is seen to be difficult for most mothers. We expect women to work like they don’t have children, and raise children as if they don’t work. Because of this, women feel guilty — guilty for working and guilty for not. Blurred boundaries of work time spill into their family time, and half listening to their children’s stories from their day or missing out on meaningful time with them can lead to mother’s feeling like they are failing. It feels like a no-win situation, and it fuels feelings of overwhelm, exhaustion and defeat that can lead to burnout. Not only does the mother have to work and cater to the family, but now she has to make sure to get it done without the luxury of distinct boundaries of the workplace and home.
OPPORTUNITY
A systemic IoT solution that helps working from home mothers realise that they have the power to make time for their family and themselves by setting up clear boundaries while also helping the family be empathetic and respecting of her situation which lifts the burden off of her, so that she can pay heed to her mental wellbeing.
Introduction
Before we jump in, some background to the topic
How did the pandemic affect working mothers?
Before COVID-19 hit, the option of working from home was available to only some high-end businesses. That percentage has increased now more than ever. Remote work is on the rise now. Working mothers in particular have been facing a plethora of challenges that come with working from home. At work she is an employee, however when working from home she is juggling between the identities of a wife, daughter-in-law and mother all while trying to do her best on the job. There are bandwidth issues and children yelling in the background which could lead to embarassment and frustration.
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Women with partners in India take on most of the domestic tasks such as childcare, cleaning and other domestic tasks. Just 15% of women in India split these tasks equally with a partner. Mothers continue to bear caregiving duties in addition to their professional commitments. Therefore, the situation hits women the hardest. They have been struggling to maintain a balance between their professional and personal lives in the home around their children all the time.
Who did we interact with?
We spoke to various target groups like working professional (22-30), middle-aged working professionals, family members and students to identify the challenges faced by various audiences
CAMERA STUDY
Observing the users and their environment was critical in understanding the problems they face. We observed that most mothers would work in a common area as they did not have a designated workspace. They had utilised their dining table or living room as their work environment. We also noticed the objects they had in their surroundings along with their child’s belongings and toys.
Focus areas of my study
Click on each to learn more!
To have a deeper understanding of users’ preferences and views on claustrophobia, I did research in the form of literature review, surveys and conducted interviews to identify the key findings:
Behavioural Insights
INSIGHT #1
Guilty of not being able to give it their all in all areas of life
Being at home, mothers juggle responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, and assisting their child with schoolwork. However, the shift to working from home increases their workload, reducing time for household tasks. The assumption of greater availability in a home setting results in increased work responsibilities.
A survey conducted by the University of Birmingham stated that mothers identified increased housework and childcare as one key negative experience of working from home. The majority of women responded that they are doing more (or much more) housework and care – for example more than ¾ say they do more children’s education. Only 50% of mothers and 58% of fathers could secure a stable block of time to work during the lockdown, and only 15% of mothers had clear boundaries between work/family, underlining mothers’ struggle to work during school/childcare facilities closures.
Perception on work family conflict of parents working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown
INSIGHT #2
Family not understanding the seriousness of her work
Working mothers are supposed to be a “supermom.” They should be able to switch effortlessly from being a career woman to a homemaker without sacrificing job or children. Whenever moms are at home, it is a default assumption for the family that she can be disturbed. The mom has brought her work into the house which is not understood and taken seriously by the family. She is expected to still do all the house chores and cook food like she would before going to office and after coming from office.
INSIGHT #3
Society judgement: career vs family priority
Mothers often face challenges in balancing career progression with family responsibilities, particularly when raising young children. The struggle to devote attention to family while juggling work is pronounced. Overcoming the challenge of aligning family expectations with the mother's professional role at home is crucial. The family's acknowledgment of her work is subjective and tied to the perceived value they attach to her as an employee. While fathers are identified with their work, mothers are primarily seen as caregivers, a perception organisations often overlook. “Good” mothers are not only supposed to be physically at home with her child but also spend “quality time” with them to ensure their “proper” growth. Due to this ideology, societal norms expect mothers to prioritise family over career advancement, reinforcing traditional gender roles.
Problem Statement
Mothers with children aged 6-9 years want to not feel guilty for sacrificing work over their family and vice versa by setting up clear boundaries with their family that are acknowledged and respected
Concept
How are we solving it?
An IoT solution that helps working-from-home mothers realise that they have the power to make time for their family and themselves while also making the family empathetic and respecting of her situation
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Me time connects the mom and dad via an app to log their schedules. The mother utilises a smartwatch for real-time emotion and stress monitoring, offering insights and facilitating stress regulation through a home assistant. A wall clock visualises family schedules, promoting boundary establishment and identifying opportunities for quality family time.
Solution narrative video
Interested to see a detailed video?
4 Nodes of the System
Click on each to learn more!
Visualizes the mom’s and dad’s schedules for establishing boundaries and looking for opportunities to spend quality time with the family. Tailored to Indian household decor, the analog clock serves as a central piece accessible to all family members, promoting the anticipation of shared moments.
Mom and dad log their schedules in the app. Their tasks are tagged as self, home, work and family. Home and Family task lists are collaborative in nature, which encourages the dad to participate in chores and doing things for the child. The mom is also prompted to input her “Priority Task” for the day
Monitors her emotions and stress levels throughout the day, providing insights into her everyday activities. When the emotion or stress levels go beyond the calibrated baseline, a cue is given to the mother to pause and destress through a meditative session. The emotions detected are happiness, sadness, anger and the neutral state.
Existing home assistants (Google/Alexa) that people have could be synced with the system. The home assistant is triggered to play a playlist of soothing sounds (rain, ocean waves, cafe ambience etc ) based on how the mother is feeling at the moment. This is triggered to help her destress and regulate her emotions.
PRODUCT DESIGN
INTERFACE DESIGN | DATA VISUALISATION
INTERFACE DESIGN | DATA VISUALISATION
EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
NODE #1
Analog Clock
What is it?
The wall clock (centrepiece) visualizes the mom’s and dad’s schedules for establishing boundaries and looking for opportunities to spend quality time with the family. The clock is designed to be analogue to complement the Indian household decor. This centrepiece is placed in the dining/ drawing room where all family members can access it. The product intends to show the people in the family the opportunity to spend time together and instills anticipation.
01
Normal Mode
The inner circle (pink) corresponds to the mother’s schedule and the middle circle (blue) plos the father’s schedule. The outermost shedule shows the time which are opportunities to spend quality time together as the whole family is available at that time.
02
Do Not Disturb (DND) Mode
Through the app, the mother enables a do not disturb mode that alerts all the family members on their respective devices as well as the clock for the child. On the clock, the mother’s circle becomes red to indicate she is not available.
Final Design
The user feedback was incorporated and the form of the clock was iterated. To assist the child, the roman numeric was replaced with standard numeric. The colour indicator circles were defined further with 30-minute blocks for easy comprehension and a slider was added.
CAD model of the clock was created using Autodesk Fusion 360
Sketches
The form was iterated by making quick prototypes using paper and green foam models of the sketches and then validated with users based on defined factors.
NODE #2
App
Features of the app
01
Setup and sound caliberation
When the app is first installed, it needs to be synced with all the devices and other member’s apps. A series of different ambient sounds are played in the beginning and the mother must select the stress level, she feels each sound corresponds to. This calibration helps the AI learn her preferences, so the home assistant to play them when required.
02
Emotion dashboard
She can view how she’s done at the end of the day which further increases her sense of accomplishment
03
Adding schedule
On the app, the mother can enter her schedule. It also syncs up with her personal to-do lists, agendas, and project management softwares to log her schedule. She can choose to input deviations in her day-to-day activities via the voice assistant or manually. The tasks are categorized according to work, self, family, and home. She can collaborate with her husband on home and family tasks.
04
Priority task
Everyday, the mother can choose to set one important priority that enables her to spend quality me time or family time. It makes her feel accomplished in a day. She can also capture the memory as she completes it
05
Alerting the husband (Husband's POV)
The father too is alerted. The app nudges him to help the mother out with some tasks based on his availability.
06
Community connect (Friend's POV)
Enables friends or neighbours to help out people who are overwhelmed and require a little support. They can do so by selecting tasks as per their bandwidth to relieve the stress and pressure of others.
Sketches
NODE #3
Smartwatch
What does it do?
The mother has a smartwatch that monitors her emotions and stress levels throughout the day to provide her with insights in accordance to her daily activities. When the emotion or stress levels go beyond the calibrated baseline, a cue is given to the mother to pause and destress through a meditative session. The emotions detected are happiness, sadness, anger and the neutral state. The mother’s emotion and stress data determines the actions taken by the other nodes. These eventually have a different effect on the different stakeholders.
01
Stress and emotion tracking
Stress and emotion levels of the user are tracked and this helps provide more personalised data to the user. It detects when the mom’s stress levels are high and automatically triggers the 'DND' mode that is represented by the mom’s ring turning red on the clock centrepiece.
02
Guided relaxation
The wearable alerts her, when her emotion or stress levels drop, and syncopates to her heartbeat for guided relaxation. The watch vibrates to provide haptic feedback and the home assistant is triggered to play soothing sounds.
Paper prototypes
NODE #4
Home Assistant
What does it do?
Existing home assistants (Google/Alexa) that people have could be synched with the system. The home assistant is triggered to play a playlist of soothing sounds (rain, ocean waves, cafe ambience etc ) based on how the mother is feeling at the moment. This is triggered to help her destress and regulate her emotions.
Paper prototypes
User Feedback
Assist in having clear boundaries
Motivation to use
Learnability
Overall, the users felt -
6
participants tested
What worked
Form of the clock was appreciated by all as it was very unique and modern. It could also be used as a normal clock!
The mothers valued the representation of the schedules as it was very important for each family member to know who is doing what and if they are available.
The children were able to distinguish between the clock circles.
What could be improved
The opportunity for family time circle is different and took a couple minutes to understand at first
The sections in the circles were merging with one another and were not clear
So, what did we change?
To assist the child, the roman numeric was replaced with standard numeric.
The circle segments were defined with 30-minute blocks for easy comprehension & a slider was added.
The sound calibration was refined to personalise the aspect further to tailor the experience for each user.
What users said...
Community connect is very nice as I do not have the time to text, ask who is free
I find the clock impressive with a lot of helpful features
Indicator is very unique and stylish
It will be extremely helpful and will also teach my child how to read time!
User testing video
What did Me-Time change?
Me time helps in better management and understanding within the family which lifts the burden off of working mothers allowing her to spend more time with her family. From getting frustrated and shouting at her child and then feeling guilty, she can work and plan her time properly while also nudging the family members to help out when in need.
Current scenario
Intended scenario
Working mothers can have it all!
As we can see,
Technology plan
How the system works?
A low-fidelity prototype was worked upon using a NodeMCU board, heart rate sensor and LM 35 temperature sensor. The data was then observed and uploaded on thingspeak to get a constant data visualisation of the heart rate and skin temperature values. To indicate to the user if she is stressed or no, "you are stressed" is displayed on the screen and a led indication is also provided if the user does not see the screen.
Video of the working model
Technology plan of the complete system
Data points
The data points were divided into understanding the sense, data and decision from the product’s point of view. For eg: the product is sensing the increase/ decrease in the heart rate of the person and sends the data to map heart variability and along with skin temperature and EDA, it maps the user's emotion and stress level. This results in it making a decision of whether to activate the DND mode.
Sensing data and decision module
Business model
Empatica Embrace Plus Band (Plug and Play)
The proposed solution employs the Empatica Embrace Plus band due to its real-time continuous data capture, cost-efficiency, and suitability for research projects. Utilising Empatica's open-source platform, the solution builds its own application, eliminating the need for multiple apps. The band's sensors, including EDA, skin temperature, and heart rate variability, ensure accurate stress and emotion monitoring with minimal margin of error.
My learnings and takeaway
Technology is not scary!
I was prototyping a working model of stress detection for the first time using Arduino and was overwhelmed at first but once I started to work it was FUN to see the actual working of it :)
Check in with actual users!
We were confused with a few design options and that's when we seeked feedback from users (ex. design of the wall clock)
Embracing imperfection
I realised that I need to let go of having the perfect solution at one go but instead start with a base and keep building on it. In the end you'll have an holistic solution because in the end... Design is all about iterations and feedback
Also, this is an award winning project!
Top 8 finalist
The 2021 Longevity Design Challenge focused on ideas inspired by the cultural shift that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic that support long, healthy, and happy lives for everyone. The theme for the challenge was "After the Pandemic: Designing the Next Version of Our World"
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Me time was selected from a pool of more than 223 submissions from 37 countries!
Presented at
Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge 2021
organised by Stanford University
My team :)
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