Diana is an assembly line worker in Kassel Germany. She is 52 years old and have been working for 13 years at the factory.

Preliminary research has shown that the persona, Diligent Diana has several painful moments during her working day at a factory

assembly line.

Design a feature that will help Diana to have a better experience at work.

- Working 8 hour shifts, especially at night, doing the same repetitive task, with

only one big 30-min break, drains her energy and focus.

- She feels pressured from her managers to keep her error = 0

My idea is to design a dashboard with some features that make their working

experience less painful and alienating, but instead keeps the workers engaged,

motivated, healthy and happy. Therefore, I want to give them more control and

work satisfaction by:

- defining clear goals

- providing a view on their their work progress

- assisting them to keep track on their errors and success rates

- implementing a reward system and encouragement.

Diana, a 52 years old woman works as an assembly line worker in a factory where she put together PCBs. Generally, assembly line workers are not required to have specific education or experience. But it is a a physically and cognitively challenging job that requires to be patient and continuously focused and attentive.

Diana’s tasks can be simple but repetitive and can bring Repetitive Motion Disorders (RMDs)

Her task is to put together as many PCBs as possible per hour with making as less mistake possible.

Diana’s touch points are her screw drivers tool kit, glue and the display above the assembly line showing goal error rates.


She is wearing gloves, reducing easiness of movement.


The speed of line is fast and nonstop. Diana cannot stop to work whenever she wants.

Diana works in an assembly line factory in Germany.


These places are usually loud and warm and the workers have to stay standing or sitting in the same position for many hours.

She works 8 hours per day or night with one short 30 minute break.

Diana is trying to work as fast as possible to put together PCBs.

She is trying to find mistakes from previous steps in the production to avoid severe mistakes in the final product.

Doing a good job and spotting mistakes give Diana pride and satisfaction. She feels more in control and can prove she is not only doing a mechanical and brainless job but as well after 13 years at the factory, she became an expert with valuable and unique skills.

1. I assume that Diana and assembly line workers are limited in their movements because of the fast line and the gloves they are wearing so they cannot have many interactions with the computer screen.

2. I assume that Diana and assembly line workers are in general not experts in new technology. So it should be simple and intuitive with clear message and graphic elements.

3. I assume that assembly line workers have a very short time to allow to extra informations. The feature I am working on, has to be right away visible and understandable.

Constraints
​​​​​​​To go deeper and further into this concept, I would need to interview Diana or her manager/colleagues, and see how the display and their working place look like.

I started to brainstorm and draw many quick sketches to figure out how my feature should look like and what to show on the display to enhance Diana’s experience.

The most challenging was to keep it simple, not cluttered and with elements visible and big enough without close interactions.

After reviewing and testing this concept, I would like to improve it and maybe add different elements:

- Icons in the dashboard for more visual understanding.

- Another feature “Health” where the hours passed sitting or standing would be displayed thanks to a sensor on their chairs. This could help the workers to bear the hard working conditions in the factory. The feature would help the workers to stay fit and healthy with some advices saying when the worker should change positions.

This could help preventing the Repetitive Motion Disorders (RMDs).

- I did not implement the pain point “Some of the errors are not easy to see with the human eye”. This could be implemented as follows: Automatic or automated optical inspection(AOI) is a key technique used in the manufacture and test of electronics

printed circuit boards, PCBs. It enables fast and accurate inspection of electronics assemblies. We would have to check whether the factory is using a specific AOI. For instance, the AOI could send information on the type of error directly to Diane. This might help her to improve and to not repeat errors.

The feature explained in this challenge would be very positive for the assembly line workers and their managers. Giving clear goals, a measurable progress, a feeling of control and encouragement with a reward system would improve motivation, engagement and happiness of the workers. Managers would have healthier and more efficient employees with a better productivity and quality of products.