V-minder: A desktop app for movement breaks at work

Problem

Vimocity was built for field workers and the safety leaders who support them, but utility companies also employ desk-based workers: call centers and the office staff who support the field. They still face stiffness, soreness, and potential injuries from sitting all day. Our goal was to give them movement suggestions throughout the workday, on a schedule that works for them.

Design challenge: reaching desk workers on locked-down workstations. Call centers restrict which programs and websites people can use, so we built a Windows desktop app that IT departments could approve, which meant its notifications would show up on those restricted machines. Some workstations are also shared from day to day, so sign-in had to be quick, and V-minder had to keep working for whoever signed in.

What I did

• Reused the shared sign-in. On a shared workstation, each person signs in to their own schedule and preferences, through the same login as every other platform.
• Personalized the content. Our biggest feedback was that not everyone can stand, so users choose seated moves, standing moves, or both, and can leave out areas with past injuries. Videos on ergonomics and office safety sit alongside the moves.

• Put the schedule in the user’s hands. They pick the days, hours, and how often (8 moves a day, against a recommended 6 to 8), and can play a move early or swap one they don’t want.
• Connected moves to the Daily 5. Four V-minder moves now earn Daily 5 credit, which used to mean switching to the web portal or phone app. That credit counts toward any challenge the user has joined, and V-minder shows it.

Outcome

• Highest

  engagement of any Vimocity product

• 2 → 3

  user bases: desk-based workers joined field workers and safety leaders

Who did what: I led design and UI. Engineering built the Windows app.