CO-Coffee: A Technology Probe Study to Facilitate Coffee Breaks in Open Offices

Coffee breaks serve as a good opportunity for workers to break up sedentary work and socialize with their colleagues. In this paper, we present a technology probe study using CO-Coffee, a sociotechnical system designed to encourage mutual invitation between coworkers for drinking coffee and visualize the process of each social break in an open office. The one-week probe study was conducted in three workplaces with 28 office workers to gain some qualitative insights into usage patterns and user experiences with CO-Coffee. Our results revealed how this probe facilitated coffee breaks in different working contexts and how participants established rituals around CO-Coffee to engage in break times. We emphasized the importance of positive workplace norms on breaktaking behaviors and discussed design implications for reshaping workplace ambiance to encourage active and equal participations in break times.