Positive user-experience is one of the most important aspects of good design. From UX through to product design, positive user experience plays a huge role in successful design. Nonetheless, despite this and the development of ever more systematic and effective approaches of involving users, their engagement around the design and build out of workspaces is still minimal.

Some examples of reasons for this include:

concerns about the extra time it might take to consult users;
liability of owner and managers if information from users is collected and not used;
cost issues if users, when questioned for information, profit from the opportunity to demand a long list of special features not included in the project budget,
project teams having trouble identifying future users, and
projects having other priorities, such as building speculatively for maximum profit, so that user participation is a non-starter. (ref)

While this lack of user-engagement is an issue for a range of reasons – particularly given it’s highly detrimental impact on the effectiveness of those spaces for productive work – it becomes even more problematic when we realize the importance of workspaces in change management processes.

Almost every change management process includes a reconfiguration of workspaces. To not include users in the design and build out of these processes and related organizational changes is to needlessly exclude a ‘positive impact factor’ in the change process and, in doing so, negatively impact on the long-term success of the change process.

Simple ways of including users in this process include:

managed surveys of occupants with a specific set of reliable questions whose answers can be applied to design decision-making;
focus groups in which users are encouraged to identify environmental elements they find both supportive and not supportive to their work; and
ideas sessions – oral, written or on-line – where members of the target user group are invited to suggest solutions to problems identified by designers and planners as part of the process. (ref)

In addition to the very tangible positive impacts that this user-input may play in the long team value of the change process ie more effectively and efficiently designing workspaces for users – we must not forget the intangible (yet possibly even more important) impacts that including users in these processes might promote such as increased ownership and buy-in to the overall change project.

Easily included, yet often overlooked, user-input on space requirements in change management processes has the capacity to positively impact on the success of both the change management process and the effectiveness of the organization at the conclusion of the process. The more we involve users in any change management process the greater the opportunities for long-term success due to the positive impacts that their engagement and involvement in the process are likely to bring about. Considerations of the use and build out of space out to always be considered in any change management process- and, in doing so, user input is a must-have factor to optimize the chances for successful and effective change processes.

Images courtesy of: Pixabay

Technological innovation is transforming the way that we work and the most radical transformation is occurring as a result of advances in digital technologies. Just as ‘personal computing’ (second wave computing) – a computer for every worker – transformed the ways in which companies were organized, and radically transformed entire industries as new ways of working emerged, so too ‘ubiquitous computing’ (third wave computing) is beginning to transform the workplace.

Ubiquitous computing is where computer sensors (including personal wearable technology such as watches) connect with computing devices (Smart Phones, tablets etc) in our physical environments to provide a space of continual and ongoing computing. In this new domain, the pervasive nature of ubiquitous computing is working to unify physical and digital spaces. The world of ubiquitous computing is:

one that is hyperconnected and data saturated, a world where an Internet of everyone is linked to an Internet of everything. (ref)

In a recent review on the impact of technology on work and organizations Wayne Cascio and Ramiro Montealegre discuss four important ways in which ubiquitous computing is impacting on the world of work.

Electronic Monitoring Systems

Increasing numbers of organizations are equipping their devices, machinery, infrastructure, and even their employees with networked sensors which enable the organization to monitor their environment in real time and take action in response to this data.

Robots

While robots are not new (they have been used on the shop floor in automative manufacturing for decades now) improvements in computing – particularly advances in artificial intelligence and sensor technology – mean that the new generation of robots are able to learn how to execute tasks on their own and so work in increasingly complex environments and in close settings with humans.

Teleconferencing

Advances in communications technology are facilitating the ongoing unification of physical and electronic spaces. The most explicit example of this is the dramatic rise in recent years of virtual teams – teams working together but not co-located in the same physical space.

Wearable Computing Devices

Combining many aspects of the other shifts discussed above, the adoption of wearable computing devices is promoting three main shifts: ‘quantified self’ products which work to allow individuals to measure the activities that they engage in such as walking (eg FitBit); enhancement technologies (eg Google Glass); and virtual reality devices (eg Oculus Rift). All three shifts are already impacting on the way we engage with others and our environment in the world of work. (ref)

In addressing these shifts we need to remember that ubiquitous computing is not by itself either good or bad – it’s merely a new inter-related set of technological advances – but it will definitely have both positives and negative consequences for all involved.

As an example, recent research has shown that attitudes toward electronic monitoring systems are more positive when organizations monitor their employees within supportive organizational cultures which value employee input on monitoring system’s design, and place the focus on groups of employees rather than singling out separate individuals (ref). Similarly, in the field of robotics there is probably going to be a growing need for managers to deal with (well-founded) concerns by employees that robots are competitors for jobs whereby employees may very well fight against their installation.

We also need to be acutely aware of the general impact of all of this extra data on work in general. More data does not necessarily mean better work. In fact, more data has been correlated with lower levels of productivity. The Information Overload Research Group has estimated, for example, that information overload wastes up to 25 percent of information workers’ time and costs the U.S. economy up to $997 billion annually.

Ubiquitous computing is here. While we can’t predict exactly what impact it will have on our societies, how we work, and on the way our organizations function we do know it will impact things. We ought to be proactive in how we respond to these changes. For, while ubiquitous computing itself is neither good nor bad – how we utilize it in our lives can, and definitely will, lead to both positive and negative outcomes. What we really need to be aware of, as we ought to be aware with the introduction of any new technology, as Adrian Wooldridge has recently noted is that:

some clever businesspeople are beginning to realize that technology is not always the answer—and indeed may well be the problem. (ref)

Let’s work to ensure that ubiquitous computing is at least more salve than problem.

Images courtesy of: Pixabay