HeyTeam is a behaviour-led productivity concept designed during the SUEDE x Atlassian Student Designation.

In 60 hours, I helped my team identify a core remote-work problem - invisible boundaries - and designed a system that encourages healthier team coordination and switching off.

Outcome: 2nd Place - Design Process & Creativity Award

HeyTeam - Designing for Behavioural Change in Remote Teams

CONTEXT: SUEDE X ATLASSIAN DESIGNATHON (60 HOURS)

MY Role: product UX/designer

MY Team: group of four

TOOLS USED: miro, FIGMA, CANVA

OUTCOME: 2nd place - winner of the “Design Process and Creativity Award”

The Problem 🧐

Remote work doesn’t fail because people aren’t productive - it fails because availability, focus, and boundaries are invisible.

Through early research, clear patterns emerged:

• Employees stayed online longer to signal commitment, not because work required it

• Managers interrupted deep work due to lack of visibility

• Switching off felt like a personal choice instead of a shared norm

This resulted in burnout, anxiety, and weakened trust across teams.

Problem statement - How might we help remote teams coordinate availability and disconnect in a way that feels shared, visible, and non-judgemental?

My Role 💼

I worked closely with my teammates throughout the designathon, while taking primary responsibility for:

• Framing the core problem and narrowing scope under tight time constraints

• Translating research insights into clear, actionable design principles

• Leading the structure and narrative of the final pitch deck

I also played a key role in grounding the team when discussions drifted, ensuring we stayed focused on solving one meaningful behavioural problem rather than diluting impact across multiple surface-level features.

How we worked 🤜🤛

Since we only had 60 hours, our design process prioritised speed, alignment, and decision-making over comprehensive exploration.

Rather than following a rigid framework, we worked in short, focused cycles:

• Rapid research to identify behavioural patterns

• Early synthesis to align on one core problem

• Fast concept evaluation

• Iteration driven by clarity, not completeness

This approach allowed us to stay grounded under time pressure, make confident trade-offs, and focus on behavioural impact rather than feature volume.

Research & Key Insight 🔬

We conducted a rapid questionnaire (35 responses) and desk research to understand how people interpret productivity and availability signals in remote teams.

Key insight - Coordination breaks down not because people don’t work - but because teams lack shared context around availability and boundaries.

This insight directly informed what we prioritised, and just as importantly, what we chose not to build.

User Needs (distilled from research) 👂

From our research insights, we accumulated a focused set of user needs that captured the underlying behaviours and tensions we observed. These needs helped us stay grounded in why we were designing, and acted as a filter for prioritisation under time pressure.

• I want to build stronger relationships with my team so that trust and vulnerability can develop naturally, even when working remotely.

• I want equal visibility whether I’m working remotely, in-person, or hybrid so I don’t feel anxious about how my productivity is perceived.

• I want fewer interruptions and better focus when working remotely so I can concentrate and complete my tasks efficiently.

• I want clearer signals around what my teammates are working on so work feels coordinated and I’m not overloaded with requests.

• I want a clear, shared signal for when the workday has ended so I can disconnect without guilt and avoid working overtime.

These needs directly informed the concept and the design decisions outlined below.

What we built (at a glance) 🚀

HeyTeam is a lightweight system that helps teams coordinate availability and disconnect through shared visibility, not additional communication. This overview highlights the three core features that directly address key user needs and informed our design decisions.

This overview provides context for the three design decisions outlined below.

Three design decisions I’m proud of:

1. Designing for shared behaviour, not individual discipline - Instead of reminding individuals to set boundaries, we designed Unplug Together - a collective clock-off experience that normalises switching off as a team behaviour.

• Reduced guilt around disconnecting

• Shifted responsibility from individuals to the system

• Reinforced healthier norms without managerial enforcement

2. Making work states explicit to reduce anxiety - Ambiguity around availability caused hesitation and over-communication. we prioritised clear, visible system states (focused, available, offline) with immediate feedback.

• Increased user confidence when switching states

• Reduced follow-up messages like “are you still online?”

• Strengthened trust through visibility

3. Choosing emotional tone over feature density - Rather than adding more productivity features, we deliberately pushed for a calm visual language.

• Participants described the product as “welcoming” and “non-judgemental”

• Supported adoption by reducing anxiety around visibility

Testing and Iteration 🎨

One round of user testing was conducted using the “think aloud protocol method” with five participants, who were given three set tasks to perform with our interactive Figma prototype. This helped validate the emotional tone of the product, but also revealed moments of ambiguity around state confirmation.

Based on feedback, I:

• Strengthened visual feedback for state changes

• Simplified onboarding explanations

• Reduced uncertainty in system responses

This reinforced the importance of testing for emotional clarity, not just usability.

Project Reflection 📚

This project reinforced my approach to design: being judgement-driven, behaviour-led, and outcome-focused.

Winning the Design Process & Creativity Award validated that impact doesn’t come from feature quantity - it comes from choosing the right problem, committing to it, ensuring it meets user needs, and executing with clarity.

What I learnt

• Behaviour change is more effective when reinforced by systems, not reminders

• Under tight constraints, clarity beats completeness

• Visual choices plays a critical role in trust and adoption

What I’d do differently

Considering the time constraints of the designathon, if I had more time, next steps would include:

1. More user testing to further refine our prototype

   1. Measure success using behavioural metrics (interruptions, after-hours activity)

   2. Internally test our design against the Ten Usability Heuristics

   3. Internally test our design with WCAG accessibility guidelines

   4. Testing with managers from Atlassian to get their perspective on our solution

2. Add onboarding features for new employees

3. Explore deeper integration with existing Atlassian tools

4. Create an Admin version of the app so that admins can create polls

Check out our interactive prototype here: