Working against challenging briefs, budgets and timelines, our days are often focused on getting things done to the best of our ability. Giving someone the congratulations they deserve can get lost along the way.
The Challenge
At Cyber-Duck, our production process moves quickly – driven by dreams and deadlines for our internal and client projects. In our haste to submit (or develop) others’ work, giving thanks for their time and effort can be easily forgotten, or buried at the bottom of update emails.
Supporting and sharing successes from our close-knit, creative team of diverse people is important to us, especially as we’re often split between locations: two offices, clients and home. Although popular HR software try to promote giving thanks (or kudos) to team members, we believe that this functionality is barely visible. Hidden behind yet another login tool, the information was rarely checked, and not tailored for our milestones.
My team set out to tackle this challenge at this year’s Quack Hack. We wanted to create a way for our team to quickly thank each other for their efforts, in a visible and meaningful way. In turn, we hoped our project could become a motivating tool to improve everyone’s time and output.
Production Process
So, we decided to build a public space to cheer on your colleagues. Here, we wanted to go beyond recognising traditional ‘big moments’ like birthdays, launches and project signs; also noticing people who provide fresh ideas, share knowledge and jump in to help out where they can.
For maximum visibility and easy access, a drop-down Mac menu bar app was the best format for our tool. Automatically opened on login, the team could take seconds to write personalised messages thanking others for their time.
We created a web app in JavaScript, and compiled into a Mac app using Electron. With Sylvain handling the back-end and Tom managing our front-end development, we hacked through the night to integrate the multiple platforms needed. The main steps were:
- Building a Laravel back-end app database to store messages, syncing with PeopleHR for basic employee data
- Creating an API to retrieve the list of messages, and display inside the app with filters
- Setting up the hosting server
Sylvain testing the functionality of Clapfeed, just before our presentation on Sunday.
Meanwhile, I worked on the design and marketing with Sofia. For ‘Clapfeed’, we created a fun branded logic behind how the app would work: from defining categories to ‘cheer’ and how the process would work, to adding extra interactions (‘clap’, similarly to Facebook’s ‘Like’). A rewards system was developed, which would encourage hard work and incentivise using our app. By collecting cheers, you would earn prizes, such as lunch with your manager, leaving work early on a Friday, or a small bonus. We also considered how this product could be marketed towards organisations who are a similar size to us. With help from Tom, we created a marketing website to promote the product.
Final App: Clapfeed
In just 24 hours, we created a fully functioning web application, ready to promote with a marketing website. The main interface of Clapfeed shows live-updates of positive messages from across our agency, with filters to follow who you’re interested in. Cheering on a colleague is a quick, three-step process:
- Select individuals (or entire teams) who have impressed
- Choose a category of work completed
- Personalise the message attached
Here's the final process for cheering a colleague with Clapfeed.
We were delighted to take 3rd place, and will hopefully grab the change to polish up a version for use at Cyber-Duck. Next up is refining the design, and setting up the logic behind a notification system, for company and personal updates. Regardless, we loved exploring this idea during the Hack, experimenting with processes aside from our usual day’s work! Head back to find out more about our Quack Hack projects.
