Designing to create a sense of belonging
Dev, an employee of ABC has been in the company since the past 6 years and now wants to change. He is changing his job to another MNC however he thinks that fitting in the remote teams will be an issue and might not be the same and is stressing about the same
Problem: Due to the pandemic, many have stopped visiting to groups and communities where they would share their thoughts and ideas and opinions on various topics. These people were mostly Introverts and had this group as a social life which suddenly disappeared in the making. (Even though sometimes they met online, the talks got redundant).
To help the social life of introverts, an app can help them socialize on various different platforms and share their opinions and thoughts about the same
They will have an option of talking to XYZ people on topics like sports, art, design, music, tech animals etc. and chat with them, read peoples story etc.
A new family recently shifted to Delhi from South India and are having a hard time fitting in because of the difference in cultural background.
A new student joins a new school during the pandemic and is facing problems in getting to know different students from his own grade as interactions are limited to only his classmates.
To solve this problem, I introduce an APP or WEBSITE that would allow the student to know more about the school staff, and the school students with information about who is who and what they like and what are they famously known for. Every second day the new student gets to know a student and one staff member .
Problem: When someone moves to a foreign land, socializing and finding your people can often be difficult and may get lonely and living there seems more difficult.
A proposed solution can be to create an app that helps people from different cultural backgrounds and leisure interests to come together and conveniently find people with the same hobbies, background.
Due to the lockdown, the post-lunch or late afternoon chat near the common tea or coffee point has disappeared. Usually, before the COVID 19, employees working in business centers would have an informal meeting point where they would meet their friends, and often meet newer friends through common connections. This is lost due to the WFH situation and many employees have lost the touch with their office-gang and no longer meet new people.
To solve this problem, I propose an informal social open setting platform, where users need not create an account or anything, just enter their name. After that, they can find any group they wish to join such as "Chai Tapri, DLF phase 4", this name would identify as the common tea-coffee point where the people can go and chat with their friends, or meet newer friends and feel belonged in a community, the community of the tea drinkers and the community of the unknown.
In this era, stress and anxiety is becoming very common, and very disturbing especially for the younger generation. The stress in increasing and has to end to it. People have stopped talking about it which often turns into depression which is deadly. Finding someone to talk to, and feel okay soon and belonged again and very very important.
For such people, an app can help them. This app will let them talk to freelancers, psychologists, people in general or anyone from the world or their country. They can chat with them for sometime, be it anousymously or by sharing details. They can chat about anything, be it about their life, what is going on or anything.
DONUT OPVL
Origin
Created by Google on September 15 2009 and is made to pair coworkers and remind them to meet up
Purpose
Created to randomly pair coworkers and remind them to meet up for coffee, or just a Slack Call (a donut jargon)
it randomizes meetings between all employees in a company
Value
This app helps bring coworkers together, even during their busy schedule and lets them take a breezer and keep their socializing life intact.
Limitations
This app might just me limited to a company coworkers. Another option they could add is to pair coworkers who belong to different departments or have something in common or probably work in the same building or locality but different companies.
OPVL on Social eating connects communities
Origin
Before the COVID-19 came and disrupted and disturbed our lives, employees and customers, friends and family, people going on dates would often to go restaurants be it for a meeting, a socializing time, or a romantic evening. This has stopped! and now these meetings, or social friends time have turned into a small, boring zoom call sessions where people would just talk and end, no gossip, no other talk, just pressing the leave button. This is quite annoying for many as they have stopped that socializing and now they feel they do not have a sense of belonging and don't have a social meet up.
To solve this problem, an app where two or more people can add their personal details and their addresses and decide on a restaurant. Then, select a time and meal for each person. With the help of the local restaurants, the restaurants would deliver the foods to their doorstep just before the meeting, or the social time and now, the people can enjoy their meal and talk to their boss, colleague or friend for some gossip with food.
Published by University of Oxford on 16 march 2017, titled "Social eating connects communities", sub-topics: research, society, health and mental health.
Purpose
This is a research article that reveals how social eating habits helps people form communities. With the help of supporting data, statistics and research, the author backs their data up and surveys help them support their arguments.
The main purpose of this article is to explain the relationship and correlation between eating habits and how that can help in forming social communities. The author mentions that eating increases social bonding and feeling of wellbeing and enhances ones sense of contentedness and embedding within the community
Value
Limitations
Although the article covers all aspects, and has indirectly mentioned the connection between sense of belonging, however it could have been further MORE elaborated on and have provided a few more case studies and real life situations.
I had a word with the CEO of Ather Energy, one of the head of HR at Google, and another employee in an Australian Design firm to gather information and details about this topic and unit and get more insights around worklife and how the people are feeling belonged or what is being done for the same.
The author uses a plethora of external data like surveys, national statistics etc. which makes the arguments reliable and valuable and shows credibility.
Unit connection
GC: Identities and relationships
students will explore identity, beliefs, and value, personal physical, mental, social and spiritual health
human relationships, and what it means to be human
Exploration
Personal efficacy, and agency, attitudes, motivations, independence, happiness, and the good life.
This was chosen because the solution to the problem will help in personal success, and will surely motivate the coworkers in a company as they would feel a sense of belonging, and socializing can be a great stress buster and provide happiness for the coworkers during the WFH and remote teams, thereby creating a community and through synnergy, more coworkers are joining in and connecting.
RC: Collaboration
This is apt for my product my solution is providing a way for coworkers to collaborate through an open-social platform and helping them to feel a sense of belonging, and to help them get away from the WFH stress and overload and get to their friends, or meet new friends to achieve collaboration and sense of belonging.
SOI: Developing a sense of belonging
promotes synergy within a coommunity
This is apt for my product as my solution is in a way is promoting synergy as new coworkers or employees or different companies but similar localities are meetings and within the same community, the unknown are meeting and socializing, feeling a sense of belonging that yes, I know these people, they are from floor 3 and now I will get to know them better.