Core 77 awarded project Nurtura is an AR experience designed for work-from-home. It helps remote workers balance work and life in their home environment by providing a wellness system. Only when the user strikes a balance between work and life, will the plants thrive in their AR workspace.
It's generally acknowledged that great work improves wellbeing, while low quality business are detrimental to wellbeing. Flexible working, that is laborer's command over when and where they work, has expanded significantly over the course of the years across most industrialized nations. This situation has become the norm rather than the exception in the context of Covid-19. Although remote work is considered to bring freedom, flexibility and comfort, along with which is longer working hours, loneliness, and the disappearing boundary of work and life. Individuals need to perceive and deal with the high pressure environment that work from home can make for some individuals.
Taking this scenario into account, it's noticeable that Augmented Reality (AR) is a promising technology concerning work and it has the potential to enhance engagement. Augmented reality simulation provide another layer that augments users' experience of reality by overlaying virtual graphic on physical environment. It is a calm technology that makes human-computer interaction become hidden and invisible. Through the contextual knowledge of the user, the user's attention is minimized and the computing device is functioning in the background.
We propose a work-life balance system based on augmented reality in the context of pandemic, aiming at assisting users to maintain healthy time management as well as wellbeing while working from home. It outlines the design research through a narrative of the development of Nurturally, an ambient, glasses-based augmented reality gamified simulation designed to support balanced work from home. Our goal is to understand the potential of augmented reality simulation system in the context of remote work while also proposing the idea of an application concept — a nature nurturing system which can be used for incentivizing work-life balance. This system includes growing plants that visualize the user's work-life regularity. Physical rewarding is also designed to motivate users in terms of balanced lifestyle. Nurturally is an AR-based system that transforms your work-from-home day into a balanced, productive and enjoyable experience. It aims to enhance remote workers' self-management and innovate a sustainable, beneficial and inspiring lifestyle.
