A project for my fall-term course in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Texas at Austin, WorkSafe was begun with an eye for confidentiality and comfort.
PROBLEM
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone, world-wide. People are staying home, avoiding others, wearing masks, and yet, the spread continues. Of course, many of these precautions are helping to mitigate the spread, but the fact remains that the virus is going to continue to run its course, at least until a viable vaccine is created. One effort meant to slow this spread is that of contact tracing: the process of identifying those who may have come into contact with an infected person. The issues with such contact tracing apps abound, however; they can be time-consuming, difficult to navigate, and, most importantly, be a threat to privacy.
TASK
Create a contact tracing app that is simple, quick to use, intuitive, and confidential.
TOOLS
Zoom
Miro
Balsamiq
Miro
Balsamiq
TEAM
Linnéa Marks
Apurva Shah
Jordan Longoria
Apurva Shah
Jordan Longoria
SCOPE
We decided to focus on the use of our contact tracing app in medium-sized businesses, so as to narrow the range of uses we would have to support with our product. We chose businesses, because they are a hierarchical group of individuals who must follow the rules set down for them, which is ideal for a contact tracing app such as ours. We further narrowed our scope to medium-sized businesses, because small businesses wouldn’t have enough employees to warrant a contact tracing app, and very large businesses would be too large in scope for a team of three first-semester students because such businesses require very complex tracing systems. Medium-sized businesses would likely have moderately complex requirements, which we believed would be more suited to our team's skills.
CONCEPT STATEMENT
WorkSafe will provide company employees with a simple, confidential way to trace their contact with other employees in the event that they contract COVID-19. Automated contact logging through bluetooth will make contact tracing effortless. If an employee tests positive, they simply report it in the app, and those with whom they have been in recent contact will be notified automatically. Simple integration with existing employee databases from Human Resources departments allows businesses to easily and quickly implement our service for their employees.
Business owners and employees should feel safe in the fact that they are doing their utmost to keep their friends, family members, and communities safe and informed. A focus on confidentiality and intuitive design will ensure that companies that adopt WorkSafe will be able to stop the spread of COVID-19 quickly and efficiently without compromising their employees’ right to privacy through restricted and monitored administrator data access.
DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY
Contact tracing will be effortless through WorkSafe’s bluetooth-based automated contact logging. WorkSafe allows for tracking COVID-19 symptoms, but also gives employees the ability to track their general health. If the system flags their symptoms as a potential COVID-19 case, they will be advised to stay home and take a test, as will all others with whom they have recently come into contact. If an employee tests positive, they simply report it in the app, and those with whom they have been in recent contact will be notified automatically to self-isolate pending a negative test. Simple integration with existing employee databases from Human Resources departments allows businesses to easily and quickly implement our service for their employees.
The goal of WorkSafe is to create a simple and intuitive way for employees to track their health and decrease their risk of exposure to COVID-19, but to do so in a way that is enjoyable and reassuring. This will be done by designing to inspire positivity, while at the same time being mindful of the gravity of the situation.
Unlike other contact tracing systems, confidentiality and security are the cornerstones of this app. All data collected will be encrypted for maximum security. Administrator access to data will be highly restricted and carefully monitored in order to offer confidentiality comparable to that required by healthcare providers. Administrators will never have access to personal health data not related to COVID-19 symptoms.
Business owners and employees should feel reassured by the fact that by using WorkSafe, they are doing their part to keep their friends, family members, and communities safe and informed. WorkSafe’s design will be highly intuitive so as not to add any stress to employee workload or emotional load during an already trying time. A focus on confidentiality and intuitive design will ensure that companies that adopt WorkSafe will be able to stop the spread of COVID-19 quickly and efficiently without compromising their employees’ right to privacy through restricted and monitored administrator data access. Business owners and employees can feel more secure about being back in the workplace and that businesses are putting their employees’ health first.
USER NEEDS
Interview Preparation
We planned all usage research data elicitation in accordance with COVID-19 social distancing procedures. For the safety of participants and designers alike, all interviews but one were conducted remotely via Zoom, and the one in-person interview was conducted after a screening questionnaire and temperature check. Social distancing protocols have led to increased security in most workplaces, which made it impossible to observe most participants in their workplaces.
In preparation for our interviews, we developed an interview protocol, which covered necessary administrative issues, such as confidentiality and voluntariness. It then outlined useful questions to ask in order to spur conversation, including some about work practices, others about COVID-19-related work protocol, and still others about individual COVID-19-related protocol.
We decided that the key data we needed to elicit from our usage research was regarding workplace protocols for dealing and managing the risk of COVID-19, so we determined that this should be the main focus of our interview questions. An understanding of the practices different workplaces have enforced would give us the best information for designing an application to aid automating these processes.
Interviewees
Total: 9 interviewees; 4 male, 4 female, 1 non-binary
We reached out to a convenience sample of ten participants, due to the time constraints of the project, and nine of them agreed to participate. Our initial contact and scheduling was carried out through email, and eight of the nine interviews were performed through Zoom. The final interview occurred at the interviewee’s workplace, after following all of the company’s COVID-19 protocols. Prior to the interviews, eight of nine participants completed a short pre-interview Qualtrics survey.
Interviews
We asked our interview participants about their work practices, work environment, any protocols set in place due to COVID-19, and any protocols they have placed upon themselves due to COVID-19. With this data, we created a Work Activity Affinity Diagram (WAAD).
WAAD
We began building our WAAD (in Miro) by identifying that our activity notes broadly were split into two categories: work practices and changes due to COVID-19. Both of these categories encompassed several sub categories, which became our next layer. For instance, our Work Practices category was broken into notes relating to the Workspace, the Jobs, and Contact with others. Similarly, the “COVID-19 changes” category was broken into protocols due to COVID-19, pros and cons of these protocols, and ideal envisioned solutions.
We then decided to split some of these subcategories to a further level of specification, such as the distinction of contact with others to between coworkers, and non-coworkers. Additionally, COVID-19 protocols in place within workplaces could be broken into three subcategories; Social Distance, Infection Potential, and Documentation.
We found splitting up these subcategories further helped with understanding the differences between various points of contact users might have, and the differences in the purpose behind protocols in place, so we can better understand the full picture of responses businesses have had to COVID-19.
Example work activity notes:
If we break cohort, we need to stay home and self-isolate for a week.
We’re encouraged to report if we see someone come in sick.
If someone gets a positive test result, the PI makes sure they don’t come in.
If an employee gets a positive test result, they stay home until they test negative.
We must report to a specific email or call in if we show symptoms.
There is a temperature check when anyone comes into the building.
I only need to wear my mask at work when I’m talking with others.
There’s a UT app we’re supposed to use, but nobody really does.
There’s no way to know who someone came into contact with previously unless they use the unwieldy app.
I have to notify HR who else I’ve come in contact with.
If you have no symptoms, contact information is taken for track and trace.
There’s a mandatory sign-in sheet for the office.
When an employee self-reports symptoms or a positive test, HR notifies others with whom they came into contact (self-reported by the infected individual).
Manual contact tracing is not strictly enforced, especially for informal meetings.
In the beginning, employees filled out paper contact tracing forms and gave to HR. They gave up on that quickly.
There is a check-in questionnaire and temperature check at the front door.
MODELS
Flow Model
With the help of these notes, we were able to create an initial flow model for our app in Miro. We created this flow model to help us visualize the different information flows and pathways which would be present with a contact tracing app, as well as any external systems and relationships within the workplace we would be utilizing:
User Work Role Model
From this flow model, we extracted our user work roles:
WorkSafe
WorkSafe Database
Employee
Classes
Tech-Savvy Employees
Employees with a high level of understanding of the use of technology
Employees with a high level of understanding of the use of technology
Tech-Challenged Employees
Employees with a low level of understanding of the use of technology
Employees with a low level of understanding of the use of technology
Forgetful Employees
Employees who need external reminders to remember to do tasks
Employees who need external reminders to remember to do tasks
Steel-Trap (Memory) Employees
Employees who do not require external reminders to remember to do tasks
Employees who do not require external reminders to remember to do tasks
Contacted Employee
Administrator/Manager
Classes
Tech-Savvy Administrator/Managers
Administrators with a high level of understanding of the use of technology
Administrators with a high level of understanding of the use of technology
Tech-Challenged Administrator/Managers
Administrators with a low level of understanding of the use of technology
Administrators with a low level of understanding of the use of technology
Third Party Employee
Third Party Administrator/Manager
Third Party Tracing Software
Member of the Public
Hierarchical Task Inventory
We then created a Hierarchical Task Inventory to allow us to make distinctions between tasks that would be specific for our primary user work roles which we had identified, and to allow us to group the task data notes we had created into their overarching goals and tasks:
Our HTI Miro board can be found here.
Task Sequence Models
Finally, we created various task sequence models in the form of Usage Scenarios, Step-By-Step Task Sequences and Essential Use Case Tasks to create a framework of specific situations we could design for. Although many of our interactions are relatively simple, we believed it would be beneficial to still create task sequences for some of them to better envision the design.
Usage Scenarios
Here is a scenario for Haruto, another of our personas:
Under the Weather
Haruto is feeling a bit under the weather this morning. He takes his temperature, and is unsurprised to see that he has a slight fever of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He takes out his phone, taps open his WorkSafe app, and proceeds to enter his temperature and symptom information. His head feels foggy, he has a headache, and his nose is a bit stuffy, so he makes sure to check those boxes on the symptom report. After he submits his symptom and temperature information, a notification pops up, telling him to stay home, pending review by his boss.
Soon, he receives an email from his boss that he needs to get a negative COVID-19 test before he can come back to work. So, Haruto heads out to the nearby RediMed for a test.
Two days later, Haruto is still feeling unwell, but not severely so. As soon as he receives news that his COVID-19 test came out negative, he reopens his WorkSafe app and enters the good news when prompted.
Step-By-Step Task Sequence Models
Here is an example of our Step-By-Step Task Sequence Models:
Task Name: Send messages to recent exposure risks
Task Goal: Notify recent contacts of exposure
Task Trigger: The administrator receives a message that one of her employees has tested positive for COVID-19.
Administrator
1. Open WorkSafe app.
Step Goal: Enter the WorkSafe contacts database
2. Go to WorkSafe’s contacts database.
3. Enter username and password for entry into database.
🌩 Always having to enter username and password to view the database may become tiresome to administrators
Response to barrier:
4. The administrator is using her personal cell phone, so her username and password are saved, and she enters automatically.
Step Goal: Find the infected employee’s recent contacts
5. Search for infected employee’s name.
6. Select infected employee’s name.
7. Filter employee’s contacts to show only the past two weeks.
Step Goal: Send notifications to company contacts
8. Select all contacts that are employees of her company.
9. Tap to begin a (personalized) mass email to each of them.
10. Tweak the message to tell only the bare minimum of the situation: An employee with whom they had recent contact has tested positive, so they need to isolate and get tested for COVID-19.
11. Check the box for CC’ing all contacted employees’ managers.
12. Tap to send the messages.
Step Goal: Send notifications to non-company contacts who also use WorkSafe
13. Select all contacts that are not her company’s employees, but who also use WorkSafe.
14. Tap to begin a (personalized) mass email to each of them.
15. Tweak the message to tell only the bare minimum of the situation: An employee with whom they had recent contact has tested positive, so they might want to isolate and get tested for COVID-19.
16. Check the box for CC’ing all contacted non-employees’ managers.
17. Tap to send the messages.
18. Select each remaining contact in turn and send them messages through WorkSafe if their contact information is available, otherwise message or call their places of work to notify them of their contact with COVID-19.
An Essential Use Case Task Interaction Model
Logging Personal Symptom Data
1) Express intention to input personal symptom data
3) Identify self
5) Input temperature value
7) Input any other relevant symptoms
10) Submit confirmation
2) Request user to identify self
4) Request user to input temperature value
6) Request user to select any other applicable symptoms
8) Summarize symptom data
9) Request confirmation for symptom data
DESIGN
Workspace & Materials
As our team is entirely remote, we each set up our own spaces. Each of these workspaces, however, included our previous work on WorkSafe, such as our reports, our models, and this week’s instructions. In this way, we immersed ourselves in a “WorkSafe environment” to aid in ideation.
We used pencil and paper for sketches and the storyboard and Balsamiq for our wireframes.
Personas
We created a few user personas to help us organize the design requirements and address specific concerns and opinions about contact tracing applications we observed when conducting usage research data elicitation. Here is our primary persona:
We used our primary persona, Mariana, to guide design in a number of contexts. We considered her to an extent even in the beginning while sketching, personalizing screens in a way that she might find most efficacious. We took Mariana’s level of comfort with technology into account when determining a mental model and conceptual design, and her situation drove the storyboard scenario entirely. We considered our many sketches and ideas from Mariana’s perspective when we finally got to the point of narrowing down design ideas, and only ideas that Mariana would find useful, simple, and enjoyable made it to the point of wireframes.
Ideation & Sketching
We essentially combined our ideation and sketching processes into one: we started with a number of individually generated sketches, then convened as a (Zoom) group to show each other and use them to brainstorm more ideas, then continued our individual sketches later.
We felt this was the best way to conduct an ideation session given that we are all remote, but we still wanted to have the opportunity to formulate ideas and refine our design choices as a group.
Here are a few of my many sketches from three different perspectives:
From the Ecological Perspective
From the Interaction Perspective
From the Emotional Perspective
MENTAL MODEL
The WorkSafe application can be used to monitor employee health and COVID-19-related medical information as well as to view recent contact between various employees and between employees and members of the public.
From the application, employees can log any symptoms they may be feeling each day as well as record any information pertaining to COVID-19 test results. Users can also review their own personal symptom and test data from previous entries. Administrative users can review employee symptom information to determine whether or not an employee may need to isolate or take steps to be tested.
The WorkSafe application also registers contact between other users of the application via Bluetooth connection, and contact with others can be manually logged with contact information. This information can then be used by administrative users to review who may have been at risk of exposure.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
Conceptual Design for the Ecological Perspective
Many of WorkSafe’s features are self-contained within the application, but administrators may choose to use e-mail, text messaging, or phone systems within their cell phones for communication with employees and other contacted individuals to tell them to isolate, undertake a COVID-19 test, or simply notify them that they were exposed. Also, after taking their temperature with a thermometer, employees can enter the number into WorkSafe, which will keep it for future perusal.
Overall, the WorkSafe system acts as a repository for COVID-19-related information--be it contacts, temperatures, or symptoms--as well as a communication facilitator.
Conceptual Design for Interaction
Users of WorkSafe can use the Symptom Tracker to log their temperature and any symptoms they might be feeling on a particular day. This information can then be reviewed by an administrator to determine whether a user needs to isolate or undertake a COVID-19 test.
Overall, WorkSafe acts as a very specific (group) health tracking system such as Apple Health or HealthView.
Conceptual Design from the Emotional Perspective
The intent behind our design of WorkSafe is to reassure users that they are doing their utmost to protect themselves and those around them. We will make use of color, font, and information placement to that end. For example, the home screen will prominently display the user’s status to remind them that, while COVID-19 might be a threat to their well-being, they are either currently safe or doing everything they can to mitigate spread.
These conceptualizations act as mappings from us (the designers) to the users by describing how the WorkSafe system works and can be used in a concise, easily understandable manner. While they may be over-simplifications of the actual processes that WorkSafe undertakes, they help the user intuitively grasp the fundamentals of what WorkSafe is and how it can be used.
Metaphor
WorkSafe uses Bluetooth contact tracing technology that works like car parking sensors that notify users when they are close to another object, or in this case, another device with WorkSafe installed.
Storyboard
Here is a storyboard we made to visualize one of our usage scenarios:
Wireframes
After all of our sketching and ideation, divergence and convergence, we were finally ready to begin low-fidelity wireframing. Here is a short sequence we created:
1
2
3
4
5
6
After inputting her login information, Mariana is taken to the administrator home screen (1). From here she moves to the Employees tab, which shows the list of employees that she manages (2). From the list of employees, Mariana selects Zenzi’s profile (3) and selects View Contacts.
A list of all of Zenzi’s recent contacts, which were logged through the WorkSafe application, are shown (4). There is an indicator of “I” or “E” to differentiate internal and external contacts, and so Mariana selects all the internal contacts (5).
Mariana chooses to text message all the selected contacts by tapping the “Text Selected Employees” button, and a popup notification shows to ask if she would like to move to the “Messages” application (6).
DESIGN
Design Scope
In this next project segment, we focused on six primary tasks which represent the core functionality of our design, both from the perspective of an administrator user and a normal user. Our design is a smartphone application and as such we elected not to create any physical models, but to focus on wireframes, navigation, and interaction between the frames to allow users to test the core functionality. Pilot tests were conducted in order to elicit feedback about the design and consider any alterations we could make at this time to improve the overall user experience.
Key Tasks
1. Admin: Create account
Description: Imagine that your name is Mariana Sanchez, and you work at a law firm in a management position. A WorkSafe account has just been purchased for your company, and now it is your job to create a manager’s profile for yourself. Remember to think out loud.
Description: Imagine that your name is Mariana Sanchez, and you work at a law firm in a management position. A WorkSafe account has just been purchased for your company, and now it is your job to create a manager’s profile for yourself. Remember to think out loud.
2. Admin: Sending a message
Description: Weeks have passed, and now let’s say that one of your direct reports, Zenzi, has tested positive for COVID-19. Initiate a text message through WorkSafe to the people with whom Zenzi has been in proximity over the past 14 days who work at Whitmore Law. Remember to think aloud.
Description: Weeks have passed, and now let’s say that one of your direct reports, Zenzi, has tested positive for COVID-19. Initiate a text message through WorkSafe to the people with whom Zenzi has been in proximity over the past 14 days who work at Whitmore Law. Remember to think aloud.
3. Admin: Switch to Employee account
Description: Now, even though you are a manager, you are also an employee, so you need to report your temperature and symptoms every day, too. So, switch from your manager profile to your regular profile. Remember to think aloud.
Description: Now, even though you are a manager, you are also an employee, so you need to report your temperature and symptoms every day, too. So, switch from your manager profile to your regular profile. Remember to think aloud.
4. Employee: Reporting daily temperature and symptoms
Description: Now, let’s say that you have a temperature of 99.8 degrees, a cough, and nausea today. Report this in WorkSafe, and remember to think aloud.
Description: Now, let’s say that you have a temperature of 99.8 degrees, a cough, and nausea today. Report this in WorkSafe, and remember to think aloud.
5. Employee: Change settings
Description: Now, imagine that WorkSafe is currently sending you notifications too often and too early for your liking. Change it so that WorkSafe tells you to log your symptoms at 5:30am during the week. Remember to think aloud.
Description: Now, imagine that WorkSafe is currently sending you notifications too often and too early for your liking. Change it so that WorkSafe tells you to log your symptoms at 5:30am during the week. Remember to think aloud.
6. Employee: Review past symptoms
Description: Now, imagine that you’re trying to remember exactly what day it was that you had a terrible headache, because that was the day that you were given the Marquis case. Take a look back at your recent symptoms and figure out what day it was. As always, remember to think aloud.
Description: Now, imagine that you’re trying to remember exactly what day it was that you had a terrible headache, because that was the day that you were given the Marquis case. Take a look back at your recent symptoms and figure out what day it was. As always, remember to think aloud.
Wireframes: Second Pass
Here is a link to our full prototype.
Pilot Tests
PROCEDURE
We took a convenience sample of three different people to be participants in our pilot testing of WorkSafe. We introduced WorkSafe and our project, then followed a protocol to keep everything as consistent as possible. After all six tasks, we debriefed the participants and asked them to fill out an SUS form.
RESULTS
Mean Task Times
Task 1: 1 minute 34 seconds
Task 2: 7 minutes 32 seconds
Task 3: 59 seconds
Task 4: 3 minutes 44 seconds
Task 5: 1 minute 38 seconds
Task 6: 1 minute 22 seconds
Mean SUS Score: 83.3
Accuracy
Task 1: 3/3 successes
Task 2: 3/3 successes
Task 3: 3/3 successes
Task 4: 3/3 successes
Task 5: 3/3 successes
Task 6: 2/3 successes
All participants completed all tasks successfully except one participant was unable to complete the last (Reviewing Symptoms) task without significant help.
Overall, WorkSafe was rated as quite usable, with a mean SUS score of 83.3. Task 2, messaging Zenzi’s recent contacts, took participants significantly longer to complete than the other tasks, indicating that some confusion might have arisen in the process. Indeed, at least one participant took a while to find the “employees” screen for Zenzi’s contacts. The final task – searching back through symptom history – was the only task that not all participants were able to complete; overall, the construction of the prototype was fairly good, but the symptom history section does need to be addressed for usability, understandability, and usefulness.
CHANGES
If we had time to go forward with a second version of WorkSafe, we would make a number of changes. First, we would make the quick changes that need to be done, such as using the word “text” instead of “Messages” to make the app universal to different brands of smartphones. We would also add highlighting to the icon in the taskbar for the screen the user is currently on to remind them where they are, make the settings gear larger in the top menu bar to make it more visible, reduce the number of exclamation points on the welcome screen to avoid too much cheerfulness in a somber subject, and make sure that every screen has a “back” button to allow users easy ways to undo mistakes. We would also adjust the “No Symptoms” option for symptom recording to “None of the Above,” to make it clearer that the person is only reporting about that particular section of potential symptoms.
Some more involved changes we would like to enact would include addressing the poor usability and understandability of the symptom history screen; perhaps by better labeling the temperature graph and using a list with filters and search function for the symptom history portion. We would also like to combine the two account types into one, simply giving administrators more privileges than regular employees, so that there is no need to log in and out of different accounts.
