“One of our core values as UX designers is to make people’s lives better.” This is how Maria Fernandes, Marta Fernandez and Vanessa Oliveira, three of the finest Design Gurus, see their role not only in Critical TechWorks but also in society. Their motto was put into practice when Covid-19 started gaining ground in Portugal. After they were sent home to work remotely, the dynamic trio started wondering what they could do to tackle the spread of the virus. Challenged by Rui Cordeiro, aka Chief of Purpose, they were able to build a perfect solution in a short period of time. “We had a first idea that we presented to the Board of Directors. In one of his e-mails, Rui shared the idea of developing an app that was capable of counting the number of people that were present in the building.”
TIME RECORD That was enough for the trio. “The idea was shared on a Saturday and by the evening of the next day Rui had a design proposal of an app with high-fidelity mockups in his inbox.” Marta recalls.
smartphones: the Wally App. It was developed in a record time of three weeks to make sure it was online by 1st June. For now, the solution is used to save all spots in the office and the garage, just so everyone doesn’t have to use public The result is something transport to get to work. that everyone at Critical This is especially important TechWorks probably in a time when only 25% of already has installed in their our workplace can be used.
“We had plenty of other ideas for the app, but we had to make some decisions to build it as fast as possible.” says Vanessa. “The idea is to further develop and implement new features, such as an automatic check-in when someone connects to our office Wi-Fi or to be able to manage the transit between floors.”
The UX trio played a fundamental role in the process but they needed to gather CTW’s specialists from different areas to be able to deliver the Wally App. Back-end and front-end developers, product visionaries and software development specialists signed up as volunteers to help. A big thank you to Bruno Ribeiro, Carina Silva, João Chaves, João Veríssimo, Miguel Serra, Pedro Miguel Martins and Ricardo Melo.
Since social impact is in CTW’s DNA, the app was built in a way that makes it easy to customise new spaces, which means it can also be applied to other facilities without difficulty. The dynamic trio would like to remind us “not to be afraid of developing an idea, especially if it has a social impact. There’s no such thing as bad ideas; there are only ideas that can be worked on.”