Rainmaker: A Tangible Work-Companion for the Personal Office Space

Abstract

Routines are an important element of day-to-day work life, supporting people in structuring their day around required tasks. Effectively managing these routines is, however, experienced as challenging by many - an issue further amplified by the current work from home lockdown measures. In this paper we present Rainmaker, a tangible device to support people in their working life in the context of their own homes. We evaluate and iterate on our prototype through two qualitative studies, spanning respectively three days (N = 11) and 15 days (N = 2). Our results highlight the perceived advantages of the use of a primarily physical rather than digital tool for work support, allowing users to stay focused on their tasks and reflect on their work achievements. We present lessons for future work in this area and publicly release the software and hardware used in the construction of Rainmaker.