The first part part of the design process involved interviews. The goal was to answer below questions:

• To find out if employees share their feelings on meetings today and if they are comfortable in doing so?
• What do employees feel about sharing their emotions even though it is anonymous?
• Can employees really share their true emotion?

I interviewed until I felt like I started to get recurring answers. A total of four people were interviewed, 2 women and 2 men, and I really got some interesting information where similar thoughts were reported. My mindset has already changed a lot in regards of the design. Nevertheless, below I will summarize the interview insights. I will bring these summaries to a ”finding theme”-process where I try to boil down the different expressions to themes (or categories, problems/needs).

Summary 1

• Not really comfortable in sharing anonymously
• Scared people are gonna find out even though it is anonymous. If that happens, people might judge
• Senses the “professional persona” instead of the true self
• “I’m fine”
• Don’t want to be the unhappy one if everyone is happy
• Red flag emotions sparks curiosity in other people who try to figure out who answered
• Won’t share intense feelings

Summary 2

• Public sharings has barriers in what you want to share, not too comfortable
• Domino effect if people start sharing
• Hard to show vulnerability
• Sharing = Trust
• Easier to share happy feelings
• Difference in small teams (easier) vs big teams (difficult)
• Hard to know why the emotion arrives, not what the emotion is
• “I feel good”
• Who answered what in anonymous sharing (“I wonder who is scared in here? That person is very quiet, it must be that person?”)
• Uncomfortable in sharing
• Tries to be 100% hem/herself, but senses the professional environment

Summary 3

• Would not share if extra intense feelings
• Would be able to share most feelings
• Would be comfortable in sharing regardless
• Hard to know the emotions

Summary 4

• Quite comfortable in sharing
• Won’t share “negative” feelings like frustration
• Won’t go against the stream in small team anonymous- or public sharings
• Can share everything anonymously in big team 15+
• Small group sparks curiosity if someone is against the stream
• Needs time to find out the actual emotion