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Reduce stress levels and increase productivity

 

Fishualization is a new so-called ‘psychological intervention’ that shows human computer activity as fish behavior in a virtual fish tank on display at the coffee corner at work.

The goal of the virtual fish tank is to let employees get insights into their working habits and have a central place to discuss them with colleagues. These insights and discussions between employees about their differences in ways of working can help to reduce stress levels and increase productivity. 

After a successful trial at TNO in the first months of 2014, the virtual fish tank has been placed at Thales Research & Technology, Delft. The number of participants is 12 people and as an extra feature different teams have different fin colors. The system is placed right at the coffee corner for optimal discussion. Furthermore the display includes privacy-safe camera observation to measure activity at front of the display. The goal of the trial is to further enhance the technical readiness level of the Fishualization and assess its value as a future product.

Each fish in the virtual fish tank represents an individual employee. The vertical position of each fish represents the energy level of the employee and is asked every 30 minutes by means of a pop-up. The speed of the horizontal movement of a fish is calculated by how fast the employee is working on his/her computer: number of mouse clicks and keystrokes. A change in fish swimming direction means that the employee has switched applications. In this way you see different fish behavior: 

  1. fish (employees) that are in ‘the flow’: no application switches, high speed;
  2. employees that work fragmented: many application switches, low speed.

Fish that leave the fish tank at one side appear at the opposite side with the same swimming direction. ‘Plants’ at the bottom of the screen show the active applications: e-mail client, document editor, browser,  or presentation editor. The more employees work with a specific application, the larger the plant. In order to see your own fish behavior at the corner the fish tank works with a short delay.

Fishualization is a part of COMMIT/project SWELL

SWELL (Smart Reasoning Systems for Well-being at Work and at Home)
Ook dit is een COMMIT/project