Project Overview

Current Remote Working Experience

This is my capstone project focuses on exploring the future state of remote work through speculative design. My design goals are

1. Identify existing challenges in adopting remote work

2. Envision the future state of remote work

3. Outline design criteria for future technology supporting remote working experience.

Remote workers are experiencing an increasing sense of digital overload

With the spread of COVID-19, people have greatly changed their working style from offline to online. As we embrace more tools, working professionals experience greater stress as a result of multitasking and constant connectivity as compared to working in-person (Tarafdar, 2014 ). The second annual Workplace Productivity Report (released in Sept 2020) finds that 73% of U.S. workers who currently work from home are experiencing an increasing sense of digital overload. A research article ( hemp, 2019; Riley, 2018) also suggests that digital overload creates a lack of focus and productivity, on the basis that “ projects will take longer to complete, more errors and poor decisions might occur”. Moreover, as Gen Z enters the workplace by 2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30% . Thus, there is an urgent need to investigate means to manage digital overload for future remote working professionals who might struggle to track, organize and locate incoming information while trying to manage multiple teams and projects at hand.