WorkSafe
Providing employees with a simple, confidential way to trace their contact with others
University of Texas at Austin | Human-Computer Interaction | Fall 2020
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 as confidential as possible.
Scope
Small to medium businesses: the hierarchical structure of a business lends itself especially well to contact tracing, as its boundaries are well-defined and usage can be monitored and enforced.
TOOLS
TEAM
Balsamiq
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Miro
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Zoom
Linnéa Marks
Apurva Shah
Jordan Longoria
DETERMINING USER NEEDS
User Interviews
Work Practices​
COVID-19 Protocols
Personal Protocols
Male
Female
Non-Binary
4
4
1
Manager
Non-Manager
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5
Work Activity Affinity Diagram
MODELS
Flow Model
Information flows and pathways with a contact tracing app, as well as any external systems and relationships within the workplace.
User Work Role Model
WorkSafe
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WorkSafe Database
Employee
CLASSES
Tech-Savvy Employees
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
Forgetful Employees
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
Contacted Employee
Administrator/Manager
CLASSES
Tech-Savvy Administrator/Managers
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
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Third Party Employee
Third Party Administrator/Manager
Third Party Tracing Software
Member of the Public
Hierarchical Task Inventory
Determining distinctions between tasks specific to our primary user work roles and overarching goals/tasks
Task Sequence Models
Usage Scenarios
Step-By-Step Task Sequences
Essential Use Case Tasks
Usage Scenarios
Here is an example of the usage scenarios we created for our personas:
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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.
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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.
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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.
Task Sequence Models
Here is an example of our Step-By-Step Task Sequence Models:
Name: Send messages to recent exposure risks
Goal: Notify recent contacts of exposure
Trigger: 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.
🌩Barrier: 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.
Essential Use Case Task Interaction Models
Here is one of our essential use case models:​​​​​​​
Logging Personal Symptom Data
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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
After requirements and modeling, we were finally ready to begin working toward a design.
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
Here are a few of my many sketches from three different perspectives:
Ecological Perspective
Interaction Perspective
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Storyboard
Here is a storyboard I created 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:
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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.
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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).
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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).
Key Tasks
1. Admin: Create account
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.
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2. Admin: Sending a message
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.
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3. Admin: Switch to Employee account
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.
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4. Employee: Reporting daily temperature and symptoms
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.
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5. Employee: Change settings
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.
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6. Employee: Review past symptoms
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.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Testing & Iteration
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.
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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.