Box Party, a personalise birthday box for virtual surprise parties.
Case Study
In early 2020 we saw Lockdown restrictions impacting the ways workplace teams connect as they moved into remote and virtual workspaces. With this in mind, Box Party concept was designed to improve the human connection in the workplace, focusing on the celebration of virtual birthdays.
At the kick off of our sprint, the Box Party concept had been created although it had not been prototyped. Therefore we started at the beginning to understand how organisations are celebrating milestones in the workplace and how employees would like to celebrate with their teams.
How Might We design a cost-effective service for businesses that enable them to celebrate employees birthdays and increase employee engagement, retention and happiness?
Role: User Research, Blueprinting, Ideation, Storyboarding and Service Design
Team: 4 x Service Designers
Timeline: Two Weeks
Process: Stakeholder Interview - Synthesis - Lean Canvas - Contextual Interviews -Stakeholder Mapping - Personas- Theming - Business Model Canvas - Co-Creative Workshop - Developing Key Insights - Story Boarding - Ideation - Wire framing - Prototyping - Blueprinting
Discovery
To understand the current structure we started with a Lean Canvas
“I did want a little more personalisation in my messages from my direct bosses ”
“(Birthdays) in the office can feel so routine”
“I am happy to receive gifts [rewards] but don’t make me celebrate in front of others”
We looked who is already in the market for Gift Giving/Experiences, Recognition Platforms and Virtual Rewards
“I personally opted out [of the workplace birthday celebrations] because I didn’t want the attention”
“The best gifts I’ve received are from my direct project groups and not from the company”
“Organising cakes is a pain in the arse!”
Conducted 10 Contextual Interviews
“I don’t like a tacky gift bag of things I could buy myself”
“Sustainability is important to me”
“I am a big celebrating, we have a wall of success, every win is a big win.”
Define
Key Insights
Employees value receiving gifts that align with their interests and needs.
Employees cherish personalised affirmation from their immediate superiors and team.
Physical gift paired with strong connection to team makes more of an impact rather than just having a cake/routine birthday process in the workplace.
Need for a simpler process for tracking employee special events or preferences.
Organising special events or gifts can be cumbersome and time consuming.
Bringing our people front of stage
Stakeholder Check-in
We met with our Stakeholder and looked to narrow down the path he would like our team explore. With opportunity area in celebrating Milestones and or Birthdays, we were directed to focus on Birthdays.
After gaining insights from our users our focus was to make Box Party Personalised, Adaptable in a virtual environment and Exciting to receive.
With the added element of MYSTERY.
Under stakeholders advice, gifting content was to remain the same during creative direction.
HMW celebrate key employee Birthdays while reflecting individual values and building connections in the workplace?
Creative Direction
☑️ Element of Surprise ☑️ Virtual Card ☑️ Simple team contribution ☑️ Customisable message and affirmations
☑️ Option to send “A message awaits you card” independently ☑️ Scalable cost options
Putting Box Party at the doorstep of our people for prototyping
✉️ A message awaits you ✉️
We created a virtual Birthday card where leaders and colleges can contribute both video’s and written messages. Filled with Music, Well Wishes and Squishy Moments.
Watch Laura, a Nurse share her ideas on our prototype. Laura has a busy social calendar with work colleagues due to high number of milestones within the workplace. She shared the benefits of adapting the box to milestones but loved the virtual gift card due to its versatility and fun.
Our next two users shared their preference to a digital platform that gave the real FUZZY feelings that connected them to their colleagues.
The Butlers also identified an opportunity as business owners to utilise the virtual card as a way to put a face to a brand and build relationships.
Validation of findings
✲ High value in message and affirmations ✲ Preference for customisation of gifting ✲ Individual preferences on how to celebrate milestones
✲ Opportunity to extend offer to CRM and recognition ✲ Interest in scalable options ✲ Appreciation of element of surprise
Plan and Grow
Project Learnings
Prototyping became the pivot point in influencing change with our Stakeholder due to initially limitations on product offering. Giving our Stakeholder the visual experience of customers interacting with a low-fidelity mockup of new design concept, we were given greater buyin when delivering future horizons and recommendations for reiterations.
A valuable learning achieved with this project was: get out early and test with users. The presence of the prototype significantly accelerate the speed of stakeholder management and validated findings. But most importantly we were able to see first hand the joy this concept can spark in future iterations.