Virtual Personal Assistant in the Digital Workplace. User Research and Requirements. Discussion
A Study on the Impact of Virtual Personal Assistant in Unified Communication Software on Motivation, Satisfaction, Communication, and Collaboration of Remote Employees.
Interpretation of qualitative data
Employees attitude towards VPAs
The qualitative research on employees’ attitude towards VPAs in the digital workplace and their impact on communication and collaboration revealed several key findings:
1. Personalized Interaction — Participants expressed a desire for personalized interactions with the VPA, with expectations varying among individuals. Some participants expected the VPA to have AI capabilities and engage in open dialogue. Others preferred casual conversations and even asked non-job-related questions.
2. Simplicity of Conversational Design — Participants generally found the conversational design with VPAs to be simple and easy to use. Some participants shared positive experiences, and many appreciated the option to choose predefined options instead of asking questions. However, there were suggestions for improvements, such as voice interface options and better UI design.
3. VPA’s Role in Motivation — Participants had mixed opinions about the motivation option in the UC software. Some participants did not understand its purpose, while others were delighted by its inclusion. This suggests that there is a need for clearer communication and explanation regarding the motivation feature of the VPA.
4. Time Efficiency and Responsiveness — The biggest challenge highlighted by participants was the time spent interacting with the VPA, including waiting times and slow responses. This indicates the importance of optimizing the VPA’s performance to enhance efficiency and responsiveness.
5. Onboarding Option — Participants who had no previous experience with VPAs expressed a desire for an onboarding option to familiarize themselves with the VPA’s features and functionalities. This highlights the importance of providing adequate training and guidance for users who are new to VPAs.
6. VPA’s Personality — Participants had different views on the VPA’s personality. Some desired the VPA to be a friendly companion when working alone and remotely, while others appreciated a more formal and professional language used by the VPA.
Overall, the introduction of the VPA in UC software generated discussion and interest among participants. The findings emphasize the importance of considering users’ preferences for personalized interactions, optimizing the VPA’s performance for time efficiency, providing clear explanations of features like motivation, and designing a suitable personality that aligns with users’ expectations and work environment.
Communication and collaboration
The participants in the research recognize the benefits of using VPAs in UC software in the digital workplace. They believe that incorporating VPAs can enhance the effectiveness of communication and collaboration. Furthermore, participants perceive that using a task-oriented VPA has a greater impact on the effectiveness of communication and makes communication and collaboration easier.
These findings suggest that participants acknowledge the value of task-oriented VPAs in facilitating and streamlining their communication and collaboration processes. The task-oriented approach likely aligns with their work requirements and helps them manage their tasks more efficiently. By leveraging a VPA with task-oriented capabilities, participants may experience improved coordination, task prioritization, and overall collaboration with colleagues.
These insights emphasize the potential of incorporating VPAs with task-oriented features in UC software to enhance communication and collaboration in the digital workplace. Organizations can consider these findings when designing and implementing VPA functionalities, focusing on empowering employees with effective task management and streamlined communication channels.
In qualitative research, categorical data obtained from participant responses provides valuable insights that help characterize and contextualize the quantitative results. While qualitative data may not have the statistical significance of quantitative data, it plays a crucial role in understanding participants’ attitudes, perceptions, and experiences.
The qualitative findings can be used to provide a deeper understanding of the quantitative results, offering explanations and insights into why certain patterns or trends may have emerged. By examining participants’ attitudes, expectations, and preferences expressed in their qualitative responses, researchers can enrich the discussion and interpretation of the quantitative findings.
Additionally, qualitative data allows for the exploration of nuanced factors that may not be captured by quantitative measures alone. It helps to uncover new insights, identify potential areas for improvement, and generate hypotheses for further research.
Therefore, while qualitative data may not possess the same scientific rigor as quantitative data, it contributes valuable context and depth to the overall research findings, enabling a more comprehensive understanding and discussion of the results.
Interpretation of quantitative data
Based on the results of the independent t-tests and Spearman rank-order correlations, the findings suggest that the presence of a task-oriented VPA or a motivator VPA in UC software does not significantly affect employees’ motivation or satisfaction. This indicates that the addition of a motivational tool to the VPA did not lead to an increase in motivation or satisfaction, as initially hypothesized.
However, the results do confirm a significant relationship between VPA usability and both employees’ motivation and satisfaction. This highlights the importance of designing VPAs with a focus on usability, as it plays a crucial role in influencing user motivation and satisfaction. The findings suggest that a well-designed VPA that effectively assists users in their daily tasks can have a positive impact on motivation and satisfaction, without the need for specific motivational tools or techniques.
Therefore, the study concludes that when developing VPAs for the digital workplace, the emphasis should be on creating a user-friendly and intuitive interface, rather than solely relying on motivational features. By prioritizing usability, developers can enhance the overall user experience and potentially increase motivation and satisfaction levels.
These findings contribute to the existing literature by providing insights into the relationship between VPAs, usability, motivation, and satisfaction in the context of the digital workplace. It highlights the importance of considering usability as a critical factor in VPA design and suggests that usability should be a primary focus when aiming to improve user experiences and outcomes.
Summary
The research conducted in this study aimed to investigate the impact of VPAs in UC software on the motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration of remote employees. The focus was on comparing the differences in employee motivation and satisfaction when using UC software with two different VPAs: task-oriented and motivator.
Additionally, the study explored the relationship between usability and satisfaction, which was identified as a significant factor during the literature review. By examining these aspects, the research sought to provide valuable insights into users’ attitudes towards VPAs as an added tool in UC software, as well as their impact on motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration within the digital workplace.
The analysis of the research data confirmed the importance of system usability as a fundamental factor in user satisfaction. The results emphasized that the usability of the VPA played a significant role in influencing employee motivation and satisfaction. This highlights the need to prioritize and focus on designing VPAs with a user-friendly and intuitive interface to enhance overall usability and improve user experiences.
The findings of this research contribute to our understanding of the relationship between VPAs, usability, and user satisfaction in the context of the digital workplace. By recognizing the significance of usability, organizations and developers can make informed decisions when designing and implementing VPAs to ensure optimal user experiences and positive outcomes.
Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the attitudes of UC software users towards VPAs and their impact on motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration. It underscores the importance of prioritizing usability to enhance user satisfaction and highlights the need for further research and development in this area.
Key contribution
The key contribution of this research lies in its exploration of a previously unaddressed area. According to the author’s knowledge and the findings of the literature review, no previous research has been conducted on the specific topic of the impact of VPAs in UC software on the motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration of remote employees. Therefore, this study fills a significant gap in the existing knowledge base.
The research findings shed light on the potential benefits of integrating VPAs into UC software. Specifically, the study suggests that VPAs can contribute to more effective communication and collaboration within the digital workplace. This insight is valuable for organizations seeking to enhance their communication and collaboration processes and improve overall productivity.
Furthermore, the study provides detailed design documentation in the field of conversational design. By analyzing and categorizing participants’ responses to the VPA’s personality and interaction, the research offers practical guidance for designing VPAs that align with users’ expectations and preferences. This information can inform the development of more user-centric VPAs and ultimately improve user experiences and satisfaction.
Overall, the key contribution of this research is twofold. Firstly, it addresses a significant research gap by exploring the impact of VPAs in UC software on remote employees’ motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration. Secondly, it provides valuable insights and design recommendations in the field of conversational design, enabling the development of more effective and user-friendly VPAs.
Strengths
The strengths of this research are evident in the following aspects:
1. User-centered focus — The research placed a strong emphasis on the user throughout the entire study. By prioritizing the user perspective, the research aimed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of VPAs on motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration. This user-centered approach enhances the relevance and applicability of the findings.
2. Iterative design process — The research employed an iterative design process, which involved testing several prototype options in both low-fidelity and high-fidelity versions. This iterative approach allows for refinement and improvement of the VPA design, ensuring that the final experiment is based on a well-developed and optimized design.
3. Mixed-methods approach — The utilization of a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, provides a comprehensive and holistic view of the research topic. This approach allows for a deeper understanding of the participants’ experiences, attitudes, and perceptions, enriching the analysis and interpretation of the results.
4. Implementation of conversational design process — The research incorporated a conversational design process, which resulted in comprehensive project documentation. This documentation provides valuable insights into the design decisions, considerations, and recommendations related to the conversational aspects of the VPA. It contributes to the field of conversational design and serves as a valuable resource for future design endeavors.
5. Use of established scales — The research utilized well-established scales such as UMI (User Motivation Inventory), SUS (System Usability Scale), and ASQ (After Scenario Questionnaire) to measure and analyze the collected data. The use of these scales adds credibility to the research findings, as they are widely recognized and validated instruments for assessing user motivation, usability, and satisfaction.
These strengths collectively enhance the rigor, validity, and relevance of the research, providing a solid foundation for drawing meaningful conclusions and practical implications.
Limitations and Future Work
The limitations of this research and suggestions for future work are as follows:
1. Platform limitations — The choice of using Botsociety as the platform to create the VPA had certain limitations. The slow interaction and the inability to design and test AI capabilities hindered the full representation of a VPA’s actual experience, particularly within the MS Teams environment. Future research could explore alternative platforms or technologies that better align with the desired VPA functionality and provide a more realistic user experience.
2. Limited sample size and target group — The number and characteristics of the respondents were limited in this study. Some participants had no previous experience with VPAs or UC software, while others lacked an understanding of conversational design. Increasing the sample size and targeting participants who are familiar with VPAs and regularly use UC software would provide more robust and representative results.
3. Task and functionality scope — Due to technical and time constraints, only a few tasks for the VPA were researched and tested. Expanding the range of tasks and functionalities and involving users who rely on these tasks in their daily remote work would enhance the applicability and relevance of the findings. This would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the VPA on motivation, satisfaction, communication, and collaboration.
4. Measurement of communication and collaboration — The study did not directly measure communication and collaboration but focused on motivation, satisfaction, and usability. Future research could incorporate specific metrics or indicators to assess the effectiveness of communication and collaboration facilitated by the VPA. Longitudinal studies with analytics and the implementation of a functional VPA would be beneficial in capturing these aspects more accurately.
5. Broader VPA solutions — Further research could explore the design and testing of broader VPA solutions within UC software. This could involve addressing specific user needs and challenges in remote work settings. Developing guidelines and best practices for implementing VPAs in UC software would also provide valuable insights for organizations seeking to leverage this technology effectively.
6. Larger sample sizes — The current research had a relatively small sample size, which may have limited the statistical power and generalizability of the findings. Conducting studies with larger sample sizes would strengthen the quantitative results and provide more reliable conclusions.
In conclusion, addressing the limitations highlighted above and pursuing further research in these areas would contribute to the advancement of understanding the impact of VPAs in UC software, enable more personalized and effective user experiences, and provide practical guidelines for VPA implementation in the context of remote work.
The articles were written based on a master’s thesis in user experience design titled “Virtual Personal Assistant in the Digital Workplace.” authored by Iwona Gonciarz.
