Client
Antwork
How do we design ownership in a shared co-working space?
About Antwork
Antwork is a technology company powering co-working spaces in Europe & the Middle East. It provides private offices & shared spaces within a global Antwork community.
Challenge
Antwork sought out a better user experience for its mobile app. The challenge was to find new avenues to connect the space to the needs of the people using it.
Accomplishments
With rigorous research and service design tools and methods we introduced ‘customized plans’ which gave autonomy to the user over his purchases and space. Alongside it we found opportunities to augment the experience by introducing a wallet, perks, a time tracker and more.
Project Structure
The design process along with the design research methods that will encompass the whole project.
My Role
Service Designer / Researcher
Design Strengths
Design Research, Design Strategy , UX Design, Service Design
Project Collaborators
Davina Attalah (Service Designer)
Nour Hazim ( UX / UI Designer)
Design Methods Used
Stakeholder Interviews / Stakeholder Co-creation Workshop
competitive Analysis
Usability Testing
Desk Research
Contextual Observations
User Interviews, Co-creation workshops
Value Proposition Canvas
Customer Value Wheel
Service Design Blueprint
Affinity Diagramming
The process & methods
Phase 1 Kickoff
What did we want to find out from our stakeholders?
What are their long term and short term business objectives ?
What is their business model, value proposition, main revenue channels, and potential opportunities they have identified?
Which target groups bring them the most revenue?
Where do they see areas that need to be improved?
What did we learn?
1.To outsiders, the Coworking space is intimidating and ‘elitist’ and people are not used to it. The concept of a cowering space is still relatively new, it is unclear to customers the value of being in a shared space, most resort to cheaper alternatives such as coffee shops and libraries.
2.Expanding to Real Estate After conducting several one-on-one interviews we understood that they needed to design the perfect seamless platform. Their goal was not just to increasing their customer base but also being able to scale this technology to other co-working spaces, empty residential buildings, and finally go international.
3.Main competitors are not other co-working spaces With not too many Their main competitors ncrease the people that are subscribing to the space, understanding how they can rival their competitors who are mostly coffee shops, and become a technology driven company that powers unused spaces and tap into the real estate market.
4.Their users don’t even use their app Most of the magic still happens in the back-end but the users only use it to open doors. Customers needed to rely on this interaction and make it indispensable.
5. With a relatively weak economy people cannot afford to go there.
6. Main revenue is from office space. That is why they see that we need to strengthen the subscriber base since there are limited offices but ample space for shared spaces.
Phase 2 - Discovery
This phase contains several research tools and methods to get to the assimilated insight.
In the discovery phase we explore the behaviors of 4 groups of people that are linked to 4 different type of plans.
Residents ( either have an office or work at an office located at Antwork)
Subscribers ( have a weekly, monthly pass and can use the shared spaces )
Nomads ( visit once or a few times but never subscribe to the app or pay for memberships )
Community Guides ( employees that interact with all four target groups ).
Evaluation & Usability Test
The next step was to observe and record user insight from the interaction with the current state of the app. I asked 15 people with different relationships to Antwork to describe their pains and gains of interacting with the user interface. This opened up research areas into their behaviors in the physical space.
Learnings from Usability Test
There is a general unanimous frustration in the interaction with the current app. This includes not only issues of responsiveness, but clutter, inability to find what is needed in the right time, ineffective information, controls that are are personalized, inability to comprehend the credit based system, and customers even said they barely used it as they see no benefit other than opening doors.
2. UX Scope / Identifying Pain Points
The usability test gave insight into which areas we should be further researching and innovating in. While at surface level it seemed that there were in fact redundancies and elements that weren’t fit for all users to see. The main learning was opening up these different sections for further behavioral research.
Qualitative Research
The guided interviews served to validate and or inform of behaviors and needs in all the affected UX scope areas. This also meant that we needed to include questions to meet the stakeholder objectives for their customers. The questions encompassed Plans, Bookings, Service Exchange, Services, Purchases, Credit Payments, Community, Calendar,
Main Insights from residents / office owners
Main Insights from Subscribers
Main Insights from Employees
Subscribers definitely have more chance to integrate with the community, we on the other hand feel mentally locked in our space even if it is a shared space.
Working within an office here gives you even less privileges than being a subscriber. You don’t have your own account and most permissions have to go through a higher executive power of the company.
Interacting with the wallet, the atmosphere controls are all part of a non-owned plan. We basically have no use for the app except opening the door.
Phase 4 - Analysis & UX Strategy
Aggregating Research
Plans
The fixed plans don’t illustrate what is left of the bundles and it is hard to add things on.
Space Controls
Space controls are only relevant if you are in charge of an office.
Credit System
The credit system is confusing when dealing with diverse units such as paper, meeting hours, access days.
Space Mood
Describing spaces by mood, sound isolation, capacity, etc.
Statistics
Average spending, average time spent, are all things that can bring meaning when tracked.
Perks
Could people be rewarded for staying long, or doing community exchanges or helping others out?
Tracking
Can the time entered and exit and time spent in meetings be reflected like the sleep graph on an iPhone?
Phase 3 - Strategy
Objectives
After assessing the project scope it was clear that the business offering had to be redesigned and only then the app would follow.
Design + Business Strategy
Antworkers feel like they the fixed plans are not being utilized properly because of their different needs, for that reason we created the marketplace.
Phase 5 - Design Solution
the marketplace
Residents, Subscribers (Hot deskers), walk-ins, can all access the marketplace for all services.
Meeting Rooms, Access Passes, Services from other member in the community, food and beverage, printing, internet services, lockers, just about anything is now on the marketplace. Rather than getting pre-fixed plans by Antwork, you can build your own plan and see the progression of it.
Can we show through a star how much time is remaining?
In the initial sketches we look into how the front page of the app or the wallet would look.
Phase 6 - Implement
UX design
The new app gives autonomy through customizable plans
Subscriptions clearly show what needs to be replenished. In old plans some services were remaining untouched which drove people away from committing to plans.
My Plan
My Balance / Wallet
The front balance shows everything from meeting room hours to access days, something that was not there before.
Front page clearly showcases events of the day, ongoing subscriptions and purchased items.
Top Up and records are directly on the tab of the selected purchase
The Marketplace
The front page of the marketplace lets you browse through diverse offerings form events to booking a meeting room.
Booking a meeting room
My account
Users can also access all the marketplace on the left tab.
Statistics.
The interaction with the co-working space can give insight into spending habits, arrival time and average time spent in meetings.
Space Control
Another added feature is allowing residents and hot desires to access their space controls in their office and have and give access to them for everyone.
Conclusion
The business model is now being tested, and the implementation of this suggested wireframe is being discussed.