SWAY — tailored software for a hybrid work environment
Our switch back to a hybrid work model faces a critical challenge: low office attendance negatively affects team collaboration and company culture. Initial company-wide data revealed some concerning patterns.
My Role — Lead Product Designer and Manager
Team:
- 2 Developers (frontend and backend)
- 1 UX Analyst (user research and testing)
Timeline: 6-month part-time improvement project building on existing basic booking system.
Task
Reach 60% overall office attendance while maintaining flexibility for different work styles.
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Before SWAY existed, our offices around the world faced a fundamental issue with workspace coordination. We needed to create a service that would make office visits feel motivating rather than mandatory.
The existing coworking solutions were bloated with unnecessary features and required extensive customization. Our own software solution wasn’t ideal either. My team needed to design something lean and focused that was built specifically for internal corporate use.
When younger employees skip offline teamwork and projects, progress slows down.
Poor coordination meant that when people came to the office, they couldn’t collaborate effectively.
Managers spent too much time booking meeting rooms and were unable to book desks spaces that seated everyone together.
Increase overall attendance to 60% while accommodating different work styles across teams.
Give managers more time to focus on other priorities by reducing the workload on them.
We started with a simple assumption: build a basic desk booking tool, and “please, improve some UX” request.
This was wrong.
Our guerrilla research approach revealed the real problem. We immersed ourselves in daily operations and observed managers struggling with meeting coordination.
A pivotal insight came from observing a manager spend about 20 minutes manually selecting individual team members for a weekly project review and booking desks across the office space, often forgetting people.
On the regular employee side, according to the survey results, more than a third of employees preferred minimal office presence. Booking a desk required logging into the system, searching for an available desk, and reviewing their preferred locations by moving the office map. It was not possible to plan regular visits ahead of time.
Managers needed to orchestrate team presence, not just book individual desks
This insight transformed our approach from individual booking to team coordination.
Research Methods Used:
- Intercept interviews (hallway testing)
- Rapid usability testing with paper prototypes
- Think-aloud protocols
- One-on-one task completion observations
Transitioning from linear individual booking to cluster-based team coordination with smart proximity features
Key Innovation Implemented
Automatic nearby seat selection that highlights available desk clusters on specific days and enables managers to book multiple adjacent workspaces with one action.
Template System:
We solved the biggest pain point for managers.
Instead of selecting employees one by one, managers can create reusable templates, which reduces meeting planning time by 68%. Any meeting can be saved as a template with one click.
A smart clustering algorithm seats all employees next to each other when planning a day of teamwork.
with customizable repeatability
with office location & visual desk mapping
for automatic team seating
separate project initiated after desktop success
Embedded observation revealed real problems vs. assumed problems
Rapid prototyping allowed quick iteration based on user feedback
Simple design with limited functionality prevented feature bloat
Regulatory oneven an enterprises such she and the got the did attributing and pushed.
We currently have 36 active media campaigns across 24 projects.
Spaces of each debt in the digital world can help you with overall simplest authentic;
Get an utilized of structure to tackle complex issues and changes.
A higher spacing and movements through an impactful email campaigns;
Creating a portfolio budgeting in a real time planning and phasing.
Making a shor time up to date email campaings to achieve a real impact.
I don’t just take briefs—I help you figure out what you should be building in the first place. I make your team more effective, your products more successful, and your users happier.