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Workspaces 2020 Japan

Team

Evelien Al
UX Designer, Creative Technologist
The Netherlands
evelien_al@hotmail.com
Nakagawa Marina
Art and Information
Kyushu University, Japan
mari10172003@gmail.com
Nour Tanak
Photographer & Communication and Multimedia Designer
The Netherlands
nour.tanak@gmail.com
Yoshiyuki Marugata
Product & Service Designer Kyushu University, Japan
marugatayoshiyuki@gmail.com

Commissioner:

Description

Our first user-test

We conducted our first small user-test at the office where we work part-time, Bulanco. We used this test mainly to observe the effect of different social actions on office atmosphere, and what the employees thought of these social actions.

During our test we used two social actions: the high-five and discussing personal interests. We chose the high-five as it came up during the expert interview with professor Hirai, where he discussed its successful implementation in a Japanese company. It being a rather informal act with skin contact makes it an unusual social act in the Japanese workspace, and one that can change the interaction patterns. Discussing personal interests was a social action we came up with after reading ‘The Best Place to Work’ by Ron Friedman. In chapter 5 he explains that sharing personal information and discovering shared interests can increase bonding between people.

We started out encouraging everyone to give high-fives, and after that we placed them in couples and gave them questions to talk about with each other. After these tests they were asked to fill out a questionnaire, and we had an informal discussion about what they thought of the test and the prototype we have in mind.

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During the high-fives we saw everyone loosen up a bit, and the atmosphere becoming more relaxed. People started to laugh and smile more. This also came out of the results of the questionnaire, which showed that they enjoyed doing the high-fives, and felt happier and more relaxed afterwards. As sharing the personal information was done immediately after the high-fives it’s hard to say whether they changed the atmosphere a lot, but the results from the questionnaire indicated that the participants favoured performing the high-fives as something easy and fun to do. However, we also observed the effect of hierarchy here, as the new employee was much more hesitant to high-five others than the other employees, and was also less open while conversing. Hopefully performing these social actions over time will lessen this.

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All in all the feedback on the test was positive and gave us more confidence about our concept. We also received valuable feedback on when to schedule the behaviours, as they told us that especially during the morning and the evening there is little communication, and a more ‘tired’ mood in the office. One of the participants also mentioned she would really enjoy to exercise more, and asked whether we might be able to incorporate it in our concept. These are all findings we will definitely take into account when developing our prototype further.

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Our concept: Nico-chan!

Since our last blog post we have made quite some progress on the project, and we can now proudly present our concept: Nico-chan! I’ll explain to you the findings that inspired our concept, and what it exactly entails.

Hierarchy in the Japanese workspace

As explained in our last blog post, we had to make a bit of a switch in the way we looked at the working situation in Japan. To us it seemed clear as day that the main problem in the Japanese work office is working overtime, leaving little time for socialising, hobbies, and spending time with one’s family. But it turned out this was not regarded as the biggest problem by Japanese employees themselves.

Instead, they pointed out the identification with one’s job title as being problematic, and the hierarchical structure present in many Japanese companies. While in the Netherlands it is the norm that everyone is treated equally regardless of their job title, in Japan there are still many rules on how people of different ‘ranks’ should act towards each other. When going out for dinner for example people are seated according to their ‘status’.

In companies this means that there is little open communication between employees of different ranks, which in practice often means older and younger employees. This can be problematic as there is much younger employees can learn from older employees, as they have often gained much experience in their working field over the years. But older employees could certainly also learn a lot from younger employees, who can give them a fresh perspective on issues, and teach them about how to use new technologies. Encouraging this flow of knowledge became one of the core goals of our concept.

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The concept

We defined our concept as following:

‘Nico-chan is a digital companion that facilitates open & friendly communication in the Japanese workspace and a flow of knowledge between younger & older employees, via creating bonding moments by giving suggestions for social interaction.’

The prototype we based upon this concept features a tamagotchi-like app, called Nico-chan, with the tamagotchi reacting to social actions performed by employees. If employees perform enough social interactions they will earn points with which they can buy items, and make Nico-chan happy. We are planning on using a wearable to detect whether the social actions have been performed, linked to an app on a smartphone that shows the tamagotchi. And here you can see the first design of our Nico-chan:

ノーマル

 

More designs will soon follow!

Taking an insider’s perspective

What is one of the most interesting aspects of our project is of course the fact that we have a team working on the same topic in the Netherlands as well as in Japan. This allows us the compare the findings and see the differences between the two cultures, as well as what design methods work the best for which culture.

Last week we had our first Skype meeting with the Amsterdam team after arriving in Fukuoka. After many interviews, literature research, and personal observations we noticed that the Japanese work culture is very much characterised by employees putting in many hours. The Japanese often do this to show their loyalty to the company, and to contribute more to society. However, it leaves little time for exercising, hobbies and spending time with family and friends. As such many Japanese employees, especially men, end up having organ failures.

It is often impossible for Japanese employees to keep working after retiring, especially as their contracts are altered after a certain age, giving them less challenging work and a much lower salary. For these reasons many Japanese people stop working, but as the long working days during their employment kept them from developing hobbies and a rich social life, they often end up spending most of their days alone in their homes.

From the Amsterdam side we heard a very different story. Having weekends off is considered sacred by many Dutch employees, and having time to recharge is seen by Dutch employees as well as employers as vital towards staying productive. Therefore, the Dutch are often only at the office for the hours that are specified in their contracts, with extra work often being taken home instead of finished at the office. There are also several companies that force their employees to take a minimum number of days off per year so they can recharge.

To us, as outsiders, working many hours seems one of the biggest problems the Japanese workforce is facing. However, as professor Hirai made us aware of, Japanese people might not regard working much as a big problem. This was confirmed by our interviews, where none of the interviewees spoke negatively about the long working days. On the contrary, they all stated they would have loved to keep on working, instead of retiring. Therefore, professor Hirai advised us to look at what the aspirations of many elderly people in Japan are, and how we could help them reaching these goals.

 

 

INSPIRE workshop & more

The last couple of weeks we have attended many events and activities related to our project, which helped us with planning out the project, giving more insights on our subject, and getting experience with various design methods.

INSPIRE workshop

The weekend of 14 and 15 March we attended the INSPIRE workshop, organised by Innovation Studio Fukuoka. Here the other teams participating in the ‘Innovation of Life Course’ project presented their findings till now, with the second day being focused on creating ideas of concrete prototypes and pitching these. As we had not yet finished our research we decided to focus on planning our project instead, writing down what we wanted to do in the weeks ahead.

INSPIRE workshop - planning

Interview Yamashita-san

The next week we had another interview, this time with Yamashita-san. Yamashita-san is 65 years old, and worked for many years as an English teacher before retiring. She told us that she took great pleasure in her work and would have loved to continue working, but being of retirement age forced her to quit her job. The days after her retirement she would be walking around her neighbourhood, not knowing what to do with her time. However, she soon started many other activities like joining a storytelling group and volunteering as a translator. This was not surprising to us as she seemed like a very optimistic and sociable person. But she told us many other elderly people stop going outside after retiring and stay inside most of the time. As we had picked up from previous interviews, this could be caused by people working so much during employment that they have little time to develop hobbies and relationships, and end up with little left after retirement.

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Business Origami session

The week thereafter we attended a Business Origami session. Business Origami is a design method created by the Hitachi Design Center. Paper cut-outs are being used to represent different players and parts in the design of a service, with arrows indicating the relationship between these. As we did not have a concrete idea for a prototype yet we attended the Business Origami session of another participant in the Innovation Studio Fukuoka program. However, as it looked like a very useful method we will definitely try using it when we start prototyping (and of course update you on our results).

business origami

Next to the INSPIRE workshop, the interview and the Business Origami session, we also had a meeting with professor Hirai who is guiding our project. Professor Hirai told us that a lack of innovation currently seems to be a big problem in Japanese companies. According to him this is mostly due to the conservative work culture in many of these companies. He therefore suggested us to also look at how we could foster a culture of innovation at companies here.

Meeting 11/03/2015

Today we had a meeting with Takeshi-san and Maru-san to talk about what we would like to get out of this project and what our goals are.  Since the process varies slightly in the way it is executed from the process in Amsterdam, and since our ‘Insight‘ presentation is scheduled for this coming Saturday, we had some choices to make.

Takeshi-san, Nour and Maru-kun
f.l.t.r.: Takeshi-san, Nour, Maru-kun

Maru-kun, Evelien and Takeshi-san
f.l.t.r.: Maru-kun, Evelien, Takeshi-kun

The Insight workshop, is a 2 day event at Kyushu University where we will have to present the research we have conducted, our current insights/ hypotheses and what our next steps are going to be.
With this presentation teams will be able to attract potential team members that are interested in the project and would like help us research and develop this idea further.

To prepare ourselves some more, we tried to establish a few  goals we would like to achieve with this project and look at target groups to whom these goals might be applicable and target groups that we  found interesting.

Goals and target groups

Goals everyone on the team had in common regarding the work environment:

  • Preventing future health issues
  •  Increasing the happiness of the employees / people
  •  Increasing the time spent outside of work, with family/friends/self.
  •  Changing the minds of both the employees as well as the higher up’s regarding the work environment.
  •   Redesigning the work mentality space / custom / LIFE*.
  •  Mutual understanding between the older and the younger generation.
  •  Eliminating prejudice; Giving the older generation the opportunity to work with/coach the younger generation.
  •  Keeping the older generation updated when it comes to technological developments.
*With redesigning life we are targeting the employees that have devoted so much of their time and energy to their jobs, that once they retire, they have to rediscover themselves again.
Potential target groups*:
  • Employees in traditional companies
  • Older female population**
  • Retired workforce
  • Employees soon to retire
  • Low paid employees in their 50’s ~ 70’s
  • Teachers
  • Families
*The target groups written out are based on preliminary research we have conducted.
**From research we have conducted, we have noticed that the female population in Japan outlives the male by at least 10 years. That being said, they also are the ones that need the most care regarding nursing.

 

Field research, interviews, and reframing

The last month we have of course conducted desk research by reviewing online articles, and talked informally with people about the topic of our research. But it felt like the project only really started last week as we had several interviews, followed by a reframing session on Saturday. Takeshi Okahashi from Re:public Inc. helped us out a great deal with these interviews by arranging them, and acting as a translator during the interviews. On top of that we also got to see more of Fukuoka as we travelled to various places for the interviews.

Interview 1: Mr. Masao Saito, architect

Our first interview was with Saito-san, a 66-year old architect. After a very successful career he is now self-employed, running an architecture company along with his sons. One of his slogans is “A way of life”, and he always tries to design a building according to the lifestyle and needs of his customers. To get an idea of this he conducts interviews and hands out questionnaires. As he is not only an ageing employee himself, but has also designed several buildings for elderly people, he could tell us very well about their needs. He mentioned that first of all mobility is very important, and elderly people should be able to easily get from one point to another. There should also be many resting points such as benches or chairs. The reason for this is that there is a significant decline in physical energy when ageing. He told us that making the environment stimulating is also important, by adding colours and drawings, and adding directional cues signalling where to go, as spatial skills tend to decrease when ageing.

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Participant observation: Fitness for the elderly

The next day we went to a fitness club for elderly people to see what effect exercise had on them, and hear stories that might be interesting. The exercise routine was focused on being fun and social, and combined physical as well as mental exercise. The volunteers who organised it clearly emphasised a relaxed and fun atmosphere, by encouraging the giving of compliments and clapping for each other. Next to that they also asked the participants about their daily lives, troubles and thought, something that can help elderly people a lot as they often have to deal with more losses around them as they grow older. We noted that the exercise definitely had a positive effect on the participants, and it made many more cheerful and energetic.

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Interview 2: Ms. Moriyama, fitness instructor

On Friday we interviewed Moriyama-san, a fitness instructor who has devised a special workout for keeping elderly people fit. She told us about the importance of keeping fit as we’re ageing, as it can keep us out of that stage were we need consistent assistance to do tasks like getting out of bed and dressed. This is the care that puts most pressure on society and finances. She tries to make older people move again by adapting traditional aerobics to make a less intensive, more social and more fun workout. She is also encouraging companies to integrate it in a working week, but unfortunately it turns out that they often find work more important than exercise, and still have to be convinced of the long-term effects of exercise on employees’ health, well-being and functioning.

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First reframing session

Last Saturday we reviewed our findings with various people from Re:public Inc. during a reframing session, to see what conclusions we could draw from our research till now. Our main conclusion was that exercise is very important for people to stay healthy, especially as they grow older. This could not only make them function better in the workplace, but improve their overall well-being and quality of life. However, as was noted by the people from Re:public these are the results of only a small number of interviews, and not including any people who are working in a traditional office. Saito-san was self-employed and Moriyama-san a fitness instructor. Designing solutions based on the findings of our research till now could lead to solutions that will eventually prove ineffective in many workplaces, as there are rules and customs of which we are not aware. Hiroshi Tamura informed us for example about the fact that in many traditional Japanese offices it becomes significantly harder for elderly people to keep on working as they age. Their contracts change, earning them progressively less, and they often cannot continue working at a company after the age of 65. Therefore Hiroshi’s advice was to first interview people who work at traditional offices and find out more about the culture  and customs there. After that we can make a more informed decision about what solution might work in the Japanese company culture.

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Konnichiwa!

Last semester we, Nour and Evelien, worked on a MediaLAB project in Amsterdam. When we were asked whether we wanted to go to Japan for another project we of course couldn’t say no! So 3 weeks ago we arrived in Fukuoka, Japan, where we are slowly starting to settle down.

About a week ago we finally started to get into the project. The topic is redesigning the workspace for ageing employees, and it is a joint collaboration between Kyushu University and Re:public Inc. in Japan, and MediaLAB in Amsterdam. Our team consists of Nour and I, who are both from the Netherlands, and Maru and Marina, two Japanese students from Kyushu University. At MediaLAB Amsterdam there is another team working on the same topic, with who we are exchanging information. This is very interesting as we can compare our findings and see differences between the Dutch and Japanese culture regarding this topic. It’ll also be very interesting to see the different solutions we will come up with.

Here in Japan the topic of ageing employees is very relevant, as the society here is quickly “greying out”. If you think there are many older people in the Netherlands, look at Japan. Last year it was reported by The Japan Times that 25 percent of Japanese people are aged 65 or over! At the same time women are getting fewer and fewer children, which means that the proportion of people of employable age vs. people of retirement age is quickly decreasing. This is the reason why the topic of the ageing employee might be even more relevant here than in Europe, as there will quickly not be enough working people to provide the pensions for the elderly ones.

At the same time Japan has a very particular working culture, and you might have heard scary stories about people who are working themselves to death. Although we haven’t seen this happening in practice yet, we have heard of locals that the quantity of work someone delivers (number of hours) is often regarded as more important than the quality of work. It is one of the main reasons people work insane hours here. And although this attitude is starting to change, it does so only slowly. At the same time there is a culture of having a drink after work with your colleagues and boss, often till late, and it is seen as very important for career advancement. It already sounds tiring to me, and it must sound even more tiring to a 70-year old. These are all things we are trying to take into account when conducting research and interviews.

Apart from the project going to Japan has already been very interesting in itself, as the culture here is in many ways very different from the Dutch one. As this is our project blog, Nour and I have started (separate) blogs / vlogs of our life here. Here you can find my (Evelien’s) blog: https://fukuokahereicome.wordpress.com/ , and we will soon be updating you on Nour’s vlog too. So if you’re interested in knowing more about our experiences here and impressions of Japan feel free to check it out!