Designing for Workplace Equity: Building Transparent and Proactive Communication Solutions with Emprint Lab

Project Details
The TEL MVP Communication Facilitation Software is designed to improve workplace dynamics by providing a structured, safe, and efficient conversation platform. Aimed at employees, managers, and HR administrators, the system integrates emotional intelligence (EQ) principles with meeting scheduling, conflict resolution, and collaboration features. Through a color-coded system, users can easily initiate meetings that are tailored to their needs—whether it’s a performance review, problem resolution, or idea generation. This case study highlights the research, design, and testing phases that led to the creation of the TEL MVP, with a focus on enhancing workplace communication and productivity.

Roles and Responsibilities
As part of a design team for Springboard’s Industry Design Project, I worked with Emprint Lab (Boston, MA) in both UI and UX design roles. My focus was on improving the platform’s visual design—enhancing color schemes, typography, and overall aesthetics for a more polished, professional look.

I also optimized user flows by designing intuitive, color-coded meeting workflows and integrating feedback loops. Throughout the project, I collaborated closely with stakeholders to ensure that our designs addressed real-world communication challenges and met their expectations, delivering a functional and user-friendly MVP.

Duration
4 Weeks

Role
Product Designer, UX/UI Designer

Tools
Figma, Riipen

Demo/Prototype
Live Prototype

The Problem

Workplace communication is often hampered by misunderstandings, interpersonal conflicts, and a lack of structured feedback systems. Organizations struggle to balance employee autonomy with managerial oversight, and without proper tools, HR departments can become overwhelmed with mediating issues that could have been resolved independently. The Emprint Lab (TEL) aims to resolve these pain points by providing a digital platform that facilitates transparent communication while minimizing biases and encouraging proactive conflict resolution.

Understanding Workplace Communication

The research phase involved gathering data through surveys, focus groups, and existing workplace communication studies. This data revealed key insights:

  • Employee Engagement: 50% of survey respondents ranked employee engagement, communication gaps, and remote work challenges as their top concerns.

  • Performance Feedback: 42.2% wanted better systems for performance reviews and career progression.

  • Conflict Management: 27.8% saw interpersonal conflicts and policy adherence as pressing issues.

Additional feedback showed that users desired a system that could provide real-time feedback, avoid escalation of minor issues to HR, and maintain transparency in scheduling meetings.

“I believe that handshake agreements promote trust and goodwill between myself and my employer, which can provide a sense of commitment and accountability for both parties involved, ensuring that we fulfill our respective obligations.” 



- QA Engineer

• Many users identified communication gaps as a top workplace challenge.

• Respondents expressed a need for better systems for performance feedback and career progression.

• Conflict resolution was highlighted as a critical area needing support.

Key Research Insights


Getting to Know the Workforce

Personas: 

To design a platform that catered to the diverse needs of the users, we developed three primary personas, each representing a key stakeholder in workplace communication:

Pauline Finch (Upper Management, Asheville, NC):

Pauline is a decision-maker at a large healthcare corporation. She actively seeks ways to improve employee engagement and feedback processes.

Goals: Enhancing employee engagement and optimizing feedback for performance reviews.

Frustrations: Maintaining a high-workload while fostering a trusting and unbiased work environment. Pauline also finds it challenging to navigate conversations and agreements effectively.

Challenges: Encouraging employees to give honest feedback, promoting a culture of appreciation, and managing recognition processes efficiently.

Lisa Monroe (HR Manager, New York, NY):

Lisa has over a decade of experience in HR, managing employee relations and resolving conflicts.

Goals: Fostering a positive work environment by addressing employee concerns and promoting continuous feedback.

Frustrations: Inability to address every employee issue in a timely manner and difficulty resolving conflicts efficiently.

Challenges: Monitoring workplace conflicts, mitigating office politics, and efficiently gathering employee feedback.

Sam Richards (Software Developer, San Francisco, CA):

Sam is a soon-to-be father working at a large consulting firm, who is concerned with maintaining work-life balance. He wants a transparent and professional relationship with his manager.

Goals: Improving transparency between himself and his manager, and maintaining clear communication channels.

Frustrations: Difficulty in reaching senior staff members for discussions about personal concerns.

Challenges: Balancing a heavy workload while navigating office politics and addressing personal concerns without fear of repercussions.

During the research phase, our focus was on understanding the core challenges faced by Emprint Lab’s users in workplace communication. By gathering and categorizing user insights, we were able to identify recurring themes such as scheduling difficulties, concerns around anonymity, and the need for clearer communication channels. This deeper understanding of user pain points helped us design solutions that addressed these challenges directly. Features like flexible scheduling options, private messaging, and transparent feedback systems were developed to create a supportive and efficient environment that fosters open, productive communication and empowers users in their professional interactions.

Affinity mapping helped us identify key pain points and patterns in user feedback, enabling us to prioritize solutions that address the most critical communication challenges.

Designing for Equity at Work

Conceptualizing employee/employer user flows:
The design team mapped out user workflows for various meeting types, including performance reviews, problem discussions, and brainstorming sessions  . Each workflow was color-coded:

Green: Ideas & Innovation

Yellow: Suggestions or Improvements

Purple: Performance Reviews

Red: Problems & Resolution

Wireframe Prototyping:
Early iterations of the wireframes emphasized user-friendly navigation and anonymous meeting requests. The system allows employees to submit meeting requests without revealing their identity until the meeting is confirmed, reducing potential biases. Wireframes were designed for both desktop and mobile applications, ensuring accessibility across platforms .

Key Features:

Color-Coded Meeting Requests: Each meeting type is associated with a specific color to indicate its nature, ensuring clarity and easy navigation.

AI-Powered Feedback & Escalations: The system includes an AI feature that detects inappropriate language and escalates issues when necessary  .

Neutral Third-Party Involvement: For sensitive meetings (Red and Purple), a third-party representative is automatically involved to monitor discussions and provide mediation when needed  .

Integrated Calendar & E-Signature: All meetings are seamlessly integrated into existing work calendars (Google/Outlook), and post-meeting agreements are finalized with electronic signatures.

Elevating the Platform’s Usability through Improved Visual Language

After completing wireframes, my focus shifted to elevating the design for Emprint Lab to be more user-centered and visually cohesive. The previous UI had strong functionality but lacked the polish needed to create a truly intuitive experience.

One of the first changes I made was unifying the color palette, transitioning from a disjointed scheme to one that was modern and professional. This created a cleaner and more welcoming interface, helping users navigate the platform without visual clutter or distraction.

I also focused on improving spacing and layout. In the earlier design, inconsistent spacing made the screens feel cramped, affecting usability. By increasing margins and realigning key elements, I ensured users could easily read and interact with the interface, reducing cognitive load.

Key functional updates included refining the control icons and video previews, as well as a Waiting Room redesign. The original design made it difficult for users to interact with chat features during video meetings, and the new Waiting Room reflects the update to a fresher, more inviting visual language in the UI. These adjustments created a more streamlined experience, enabling users to feel confident and in control during their interactions.

These visual and functional improvements, from updating the style guide to enhancing text hierarchy, were all aimed at making the interface feel effortless, allowing users to engage with the platform smoothly and focus on productive communication.

Employee Dashboard V 1.0

Employee Dashboard V 2.0

Meeting Details Card (Green Type) V 1.0

Meeting Details Card (Green Type) V 2.0

Selection Menus V 1.0

Selection Menus V 2.0

Video Chat Waiting Room V 1.0

Video Chat Waiting Room V 2.0

Testing Features with Real Employees

Usability Testing Round One:


The usability testing process for Emprint Lab was conducted in multiple rounds to identify issues within the user interface and streamline the meeting scheduling flow. During the first round of testing, the following key issues were identified and addressed:

Key Findings:

  • Homepage Verbiage Confusion (Minor): The wording on the homepage was unclear, especially for users attempting to start scheduling meetings. This was resolved by replacing the copy with clearer action-oriented language.

  • Waiting Room Presence (Minor): Testers were unsure whether being in the waiting room indicated they had joined a meeting. A design update was made to differentiate between users in the waiting room versus those in the actual meeting.

  • Spacing and Consistency (Minor): Inconsistent spacing in text within the yellow meeting container on the homepage was noted, which was corrected to create visual uniformity.

  • Label Visibility for Chat Features (Major): The chat transcript features lacked clear labels, making it difficult for users to identify options like voice or text chat. The fix involved darkening font color to increase readability.

  • Date Display in Meeting Scheduling Flow (Minor): Confusion arose regarding the placement of the date and agenda in the scheduling flow. To enhance clarity, the screens were reorganized, placing the agenda and date together in the appropriate context.

These updates were implemented, and subsequent rounds of testing confirmed significant improvements in both user experience and task efficiency.

Usability Testing Key Findings

• Homepage wording and meeting status indicators were clarified to reduce confusion and enhance user navigation.
• Spacing issues and label visibility in chat features were addressed to ensure visual consistency and improve accessibility.
• Adjusted the placement of date and agenda elements in the meeting scheduling process for clearer and more intuitive user interactions.

Optimizing Features Based on User Feedback

Based on insights from the initial round of testing, the high-fidelity screens for Emprint Lab were refined with targeted updates to optimize the platform. Key user concerns, such as clarifying meeting status and improving chat feature visibility, were directly addressed to create a more intuitive and accessible experience, aligning with Emprint Lab’s mission to foster transparent and equitable workplace communication.

During testing, users expressed a need for clearer visibility of meetings awaiting acceptance, alongside their upcoming and past meetings. This feedback highlighted a gap in the existing layout and a desire for more streamlined access to meeting statuses.

In response, a ‘Pending’ category was added to the sidebar, differentiated with a grayed-out color. This update allows users to quickly view all meeting statuses at a glance, improving clarity and navigation efficiency.

Users expressed confusion about whether being present in the waiting room indicated they had successfully joined the meeting. This issue highlighted the need for clearer differentiation on the waiting room screen.

To resolve this, profile images were updated to clearly differentiate users in the waiting room from those who have joined the meeting, providing immediate visual clarity and reducing confusion.

Users noted that the chat text in the video chat interface was too faint, causing difficulty in identifying transcript items such as ‘Voice’ and ‘Chat.’ This feedback underscored the need for improved label visibility to enhance accessibility.

To address this, the font color for chat labels was darkened, increasing visibility and ensuring users could easily identify and interact with transcript options, enhancing overall accessibility and clarity.

Outcome & Impact

The MVP successfully addresses the primary pain points of workplace communication by providing a structured, easy-to-use system that integrates emotional intelligence and proactive conflict management:

Increased Employee Engagement: The color-coded meeting request system empowers employees to take control of their communication without fear of bias or misinterpretation  .

Reduced HR Workload: With AI-powered conflict resolution and automatic meeting prompts, minor issues are resolved independently, freeing HR to focus on more critical tasks  .

Positive User Feedback: Testers reported increased confidence in using the platform for difficult conversations, thanks to the anonymity feature and third-party mediation.

Next Steps

Future iterations of the TEL software may include:

Mobile App Enhancements: Improving the mobile app’s functionality to match the desktop experience.

Expanded AI Features: Further development of AI capabilities to analyze conversation patterns and provide more nuanced feedback during meetings.

User Personalization: Implementing personalized EQ profiles to help managers better understand their team members and foster stronger communication.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned

The Emprint Lab project was a powerful exploration into how design can drive equity in the workplace through effective communication tools. One of the most significant insights I gained was the impact that transparent, unbiased communication systems can have on employee empowerment. By developing features like anonymous meeting requests and third-party involvement for conflict resolution, I saw how design could break down barriers that often prevent employees from expressing themselves openly. It reinforced my understanding that thoughtful design isn’t just about functionality; it’s about creating safe spaces where every voice is heard and valued.

Another discovery was the importance of flexibility in addressing diverse user needs. The color-coded meeting system, for instance, highlighted how a tailored approach could provide users with the confidence to initiate conversations, knowing their concerns would be taken seriously and appropriately managed. It became clear that designing for equity means offering users multiple pathways to engage—whether that’s through private performance reviews or open channels for innovation—ensuring that communication is accessible and fair for all.

Ultimately, the Emprint Lab project deepened my commitment to designing with empathy and intentionality. It showed me that creating tools that promote equity isn’t just about solving problems; it’s about building systems that uplift individuals and foster a culture of inclusion. It’s a reminder that, as designers, we have the opportunity to create products that not only meet practical needs but also champion the well-being and growth of users.

Thank you for reading my case study! ☺️ Would you like to get in touch? 👇

kevinscottdavis.gw
@gmail.com

Kevin Scott Davis,
Product Designer