Tired of showing up to the "perfect" café only to find no Wi-Fi and nowhere to sit?
It's hard to find relevant information about public workspaces online. Discover workspaces that actually work for you.
ROLE
Product Designer
PROJECT
End-to-end Mobile App
DURATION
5 weeks
YEAR
2025
CHALLENGE
Create a product that can gather reliable information on public workspaces and showcase whether or not they are suitable for a user's specific workstyle
SOLUTION
Introducing "Remo,"
An App for Workspace Discovery
Helping users discover public workspaces optimized for their productivity, either at a quiet café, a sunlit library, or a lounge with reliable Wi-Fi.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Why Existing Review Platforms Frustrate Remote Workers
People who work remotely or study in public spaces often struggle to find reliable recommendations for work-friendly locations. Online reviews do not focus on key factors like noise levels, seating availability, or Wi-Fi quality, making it difficult to choose the right spot for productivity.
Moreover, current rating platforms don’t offer a way to filter and personalize workspace recommendations based on individual preferences, forcing people to resort to trial-and-error and getting frustrated when a workspace does not meet their expectations.
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
Remote Workers Need a New Solution
To truly understand the problem, I needed to learn more about the kinds of experiences remote workers have when finding and working in workspaces outside their home or office and what they value.
I invited a small diverse group of participants, including remote workers and café hoppers, to help understand their habits, pain points, and workstyles when looking for public workspaces.
The session included three activities (plus warm-up and wrap-up), each targeting a key research objective:
Hosting this workshop taught me how to approach user research creatively in a way that actively engages those involved. By setting up activities that built collaborative, constructive discussions, I was able to capture additional insights from participants' overall reactions and candid remarks.
So how do people work in public spaces? Some people only go out occasionally for a breath of fresh air, while for others, the foreign environment makes them more productive.
Everyone had vastly different workstyles and motivations, so to organize the data gathered, I sorted the notes into an affinity map and a priority chart to find what patterns were emerging the most frequently among the six participants.
I found out that people only really go out to work for a workspace's environment. The majority prefer to work in their usual, comfortable offices. They go out predominately for a change in scenery.
Their biggest pain points are when their basic needs required for remote working are not met. People expect to find fast Wi-Fi and food options in public workspaces but have poor experiences if a place is lacking these necessities.
Prioritizing Environment
People primarily go out to work for a workspace’s environment, then for its services.
A Sense of Exploration
People tend to choose their public workspaces based on a sense of exploration and whatever is reliable and nearby.
Workspace Expectations
People expect to find certain amenities and services in public workspaces. Falling short of these expectations creates a very disappointing experience.
Many Needs, Few Wants
Big table space, quiet music, and comfortable seating are great features that people like with varying degrees of necessity.
Thus, the target users would include two types of remote workers: those who work outside to maximize productivity and those who work outside to enjoy exploring local workspaces.
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Reducing Search Frustration with an Efficient Discovery Tool
Business Goal
User Goal
Technical Limitations
Project Goal
IDEATION & INFO ARCHITECTURE
Bringing Remo to Life
With research insights and project goals in mind, I began mapping out user flows and brainstorming feature ideas for the product. To provide reliably sourced real-time and personalized data about a workspace, the app would be comprised of two primary flows:
Onboarding
Review a Workspace
DESIGN SYSTEM
UI Consistency & Scalability with an Atomic Design System
Building a comprehensive detailed design system is tedious work but worth it. By organizing and labeling components from the atomic level up, I was able to speed up my workflow and ensure consistency and scalability throughout my designs.
BRAND AND VISUAL DESIGN
Balancing Focus and Personality Through Minimalist Design
Earlier research findings emphasized that visual components like maps and photos improve information clarity and support faster decision-making. Yet, maps and photos are visually dense elements that can add complexity to the layout. Hence, a minimalist and clean design is necessary to balance focus and clarity while adding room for personality.
This works in Remo's favor as a minimalist and clean aesthetic can also evoke a sense of modernity and elegance along with self-expression and clarity. As an app used to find focus and productivity, Remo is designed to balance professionalism with approachability.
THE PRODUCT MVP
Helping users discover public workspaces optimized for their productivity, either at a quiet café, a sunlit library, or a lounge with reliable Wi-Fi.
Usability Test Results
7 participants
4 task flows
Overall, users found the main task flows, such as discovering and reviewing workspaces, intuitive and easy to follow.
However, some confusion arose around the points system in the review flow, which prompted a need for clearer onboarding and contextual explanation.
Key Iterations:
Added a brief info pop-up to clarify the purpose and function of the points system
Adjusted color contrast and palette choices to meet accessibility standards
Included a shortcut for quickly checking a location’s opening hours
Streamlined fast filter suggestions to reduce cognitive load
Replaced food-centric sample reviews with examples more relevant to work/productivity
Lessons Learned
01
Design Systems
Building a full design system from the ground up taught me how critical consistency and structure are to a scalable product and pushed me to become much more fluent with components, variants, and atomic design principles.
02
Design Thinking Workshop
Hosting the workshop taught me how to cultivate a collaborative learning environment that leveraged the perfect balance of sticking to a structured, thought-out itinerary but also leaving room for open, candid discussions.
03
Scope Management
There were endless features I wanted to add to the product, but I learned that a strong product is built through focusing on solving a core user need exceptionally well before expanding further.
Beyond the MVP
Phase 2
Student Focus + Community Feed
For Phase 2, I would introduce 2 primary features:
Targeted expansions for students that would include campus recommendations and study group collaborations
A private community feed that would allow users to view and interact with reviews from friends and favorite reviewers
Phase 3
Live Seating and Floor Plans
For Phase 3, I would introduce additional features:
Live seating availability or workspace occupancy through partner integrations or crowd-sourced updates
Interactive 3D floor plans showing table sizes and outlet locations
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