2021-2025
Hollman Inc.
On-demand private workstation with unmatched personalization, ergonomics, and user-focused amenities.
Flat-packed, highly mobile, and easily configurable no-hassle purchasing and management.
Product Overview
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Highly Multifunctional
Experience designing for electronic components, physical hardware, in-house engineering, and with a wide variety of materials.
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Aesthetic Analysis
Brand language established. Designed aesthetically to synthesize with and enhance an architectural environment in a modern workspace.
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Designed for Manufacturing
Every prototype assembled was routed in-house with immediate manufacturing-focused feedback. In-house production. Design for flat-pack shipping and on-site assembly. .
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Environmental Design
Studied in-depth user journey as it relates to the greater community environment. Product exterior is designed to engage with and enhance its surroundings.
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External Impact
High focus on the wellbeing of the greater environment surrounding the product and how it directly affects the space it lives in. Every person in the vicinity is impacted by its presence and must be thought of as a user.
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Multilevel Ergonomics
Focus groups and user testing of every aspect of the product. Design for direct interactive elements and an in-depth passive experience. Includes materiality, acoustics, physical touch, ambient lighting, unit controls, storage spaces, visual landscape, and accessories.
Philosophy
Our research led us to recognize the massive spectrum that different human minds cover.
Each element of the unit is designed to be operated on a spectrum: undefined and adjustable. I did my best to avoid alienating the ‘in between’ by avoiding dichotomy where possible.
Features are linearly adjustable, enabling the user to ‘fine tune’ a unique experience to exactly what environment their unique mind is most comfortable in.
Process
Early research into the changing workplace post-pandemic indicated a significant oversight in the offerings of the workplace to the employee. Working from home highlighted for many the shortcomings of the office environment and provided for them the opportunity to create their perfect workspace. Returning to the office was to be without these comforts in an impersonal environment.
Genesis
I felt it was necessary to begin by building it around the user as a focal point. Features and hardware were to be worked and reworked to prioritize the user’s ability and preference. People of all sizes were used as reference, recording their size, reach, and many other aspects.
Ergonomics First
Armed with ergonomic constraints and a shortlist of priorities, prototyping focused heavily on utilizing in-house manufacturing advantages and adjusting utility to nudge and flow with the user experience. The internal test group validated spatial constraints, and many prototypes were used in the office to gather anecdote - and to be broken.
Early Prototyping
Testing internally and externally dramatically refined design elements and illuminated new paths on the user’s journey. Findings from internal validation tests, external trial runs, and anecdotal everyday experience put theory to the test. Feedback of all kinds not only shaped the design, but helped our team to formulate and refine a bulletproof philosophy behind our actions.
Field Testing
As a user journey was established and the product showed signs of successfully meeting its design goals, repetitive construction allowed for refined tolerance, design for manufacturing efficiency, further analysis of flat-packing scenarios. Admittedly, it was difficult to stop implementing ideas. Feedback was genuine, and seemingly limitless. Our team felt surrounded by potential - but we could not forget our duty to finish and launch the final product.
Product Refinement
Inspired by a design exercise, our team was tasked with seizing an opportunity: to use lessons learned from the Office product to integrate it into a Warehouse environment, creating a sister-product for a different market. We pivoted rapidly, using as many existing components as possible to create our prototype and to prove the foundation for the product could be scaled across multiple verticals.
Scalable Verticals
At last, product Version 8 became the first production-ready unit. Every element of the unit was optimized, refined, and streamlined in anticipation of production and assembly. This was the final chance to iron out details and work towards the most efficient manufacturing.
Final Product
Not all features explored made it into the final design. Sifting through user wants to find user needs is an iterative process, and certainly taught me how to let go!
Some aspects of design were tested and engineered to completion: only for us to find irreconcilable drawbacks in user testing that ultimately led us to scrap the part altogether.