ExcuseMe

Changing the culture of the workplace

service provided: 

product design, interaction design, branding, user research

ExcuseMe is an app with the ambition to change the culture of the workplace. The app empowers employees to put themselves first, by reframing how they prioritize their free time.

Through extensive primary and secondary research it was discovered that the number one cause of health problems is stress. According to the World Health Organization, stress cost Americans $300 billion last year and is also the most common cause of long-term sickness and absence from work. 

ExcuseMe encourages stressed out people to say NO to others and YES to themselves. The app works by only showing free time slots on a calendar. When saving a personal event, ExcuseME generates an accompanying excuse that allows a user to politely decline a meeting invite.

Built into the app are incentives for committing to free time. At the end of every month, users accumulate points for every personal task they commit to. Through paid sponsorship, users can exchange the points that they earned for discounts to services like Seamless or earn Skymiles that they can use towards booking a vacation.

By rewarding users for committing to freetime, the ExcuseMe team believes they can change the culture of the workplace by changing the conversation around personal time.