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.
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:
More designs will soon follow!