Qualitative acceptance and co-design of an app aimed at improving emotional intelligence for precarious workers

In the discussion on the work competences, the emotional competences are acquiring only in the last years a concrete popularity, although its importance is demonstrated. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the effect on works and on workers uncertainly, enlarging the needs of emotional competence tools, accessible to all category of users with a special focus on those with social or economic fragilities. Based on this background the project called EMOTION.exe aims to develop and assess an "Emotional Training Gym", a safe environment, designed for the acquisition of new socio-emotional competences. It is freely browsable that leaves a high degree of autonomy using digital tools, tailored for the users with a high risk of social exclusion or job insecurity. The article describes a study performed with focus groups for the qualitative acceptance of the EMOTION.exe software and the consequent co-design with the potential user for further improvement. The results show that the tool is highly accepted by the user groups, with some concrete proposals for improvement based on the needs of the participants that includes the centrality of the artificial tutors, the inclusion of gamification aspects, the redesign of the graphical layout and proposals of videos to be added in the multimedia library.