Intuitive technology from Sony for the people-centred workplace

If you work in a larger office environment, the chances are your favourite aspect of work isn’t wandering around in search of a place to sit. Booking meetings probably doesn’t rank that highly either. Or locating colleagues. Sony believe in using intuitive technology to make everyday tasks as straightforward and stress-free as possible. Hence the development of the Nimway smart office solution, with an intuitively and elegantly designed app.

The Nimway app is like a personal digital assistant for every employee in the company, with a neat user interface that’s easy and enjoyable to handle. It helps users find their way around larger buildings, locating rooms and employees, and booking desks or other workspaces. The app works together with other elements of the Nimway solution, the precise configuration of which is adapted to individual company needs. The result is always a more streamlined workplace experience; one that frees up time and energy to focus on creative and productive tasks, thereby creating a more positive working environment.

Elegant design and playful UI

Because Nimway aims to alleviate the frustration of everyday tasks, its core design principle is ease of use. It combines a deliberately economical design with a limited colour palette. And this style is consistent with Nimway’s other features, such as the digital floorplans that provide a graphical overview of the office layout, and the room panels which are mounted outside meeting rooms. There are playful elements too, such as the navigation bubbles which pop up on digital floorplans to tell users where their next meeting is. According to Nimway Account Manager, Sakis Theodoridis, “Features like this are hard for people to imagine, but when we demonstrate the app in real life their eyes light up. It’s even cooler than they expect!”

Good navigation starts at home

Nimway was initially developed as an internal tool to help Sony’s own employees find their way around the Sony campus in Lund, Sweden. Lars Gunnar Lundgren, who heads up the Nimway team explains, “We were having a hard time locating meeting rooms and colleagues, and we soon realised we weren’t the only ones. Lots of other companies had similar problems, which is why we decided to turn Nimway into a commercial solution.” Did this have any bearing on the design of the app? “Absolutely!” confirms Lundgren, “It strengthened our resolve to offer a simple solution with a user-friendly interface, regardless of the complexity of the backend.”

No training needed

When getting employees to use any new intuitive technology for the office, success depends on keeping training needs down to a minimum. Nimway actually requires no training at all. Users just download the app to their smartphones and start using it right away. One customer gave very clear feedback on this point saying, “The Nimway mobile app is all about user friendliness!” Indeed, our research has shown that more than 90% of employees download the Nimway app; an excellent result which can – at least in part – be attributed to the intuitiveness of the user interface.