Design an app that encourages people to take breaks to increase productivity and prevent RSI

As part of their productivity software suite, Ergodirect developed an application to encourage, and if necessary enforce, taking breaks during computer work. I was involved in detailing the daily use scenarios for the different target groups, and detailing the resulting interaction flow and interface design.

The breaks were designed to be as unobtrusive as possible; they could be easily dismissed, and any time recorded as ‘not working’ or ‘away from computer’ was counted as a break; this prevented breaks being presented when not necessary.

CtrlWORK break types — CtrlWORK had several break types defined with their own behavior, that corresponded to the needs of several user personas

A console window was displayed after startup, showing your overall status and compliance. It would recommend you change your profile when it detected that too many breaks were being ignored.

A popup console was available to check your compliance with the break policy and allowed you to change and personalize settings

The comprehensive web-based interface offered a lot of detailed insight in your application usage, not just time spend, but also keyboard or mouse used,

A more extensive web-based administrative interface was also made available

Credits
ABDC was responsible for the naming of the application and logo design, and developed the persona profiles, daily use scenarios, interaction design, and screen designs.