Sprint 1: Revving up a New Era for In-Car Education
Written by the 2023 99P Labs x CMU MHCI Capstone Team
Edited by 99P Labs
The 99P Labs x CMU MHCI Capstone Team is part of the Master of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) program at Carnegie Mellon University.
Intro
Back in the day, cars were just cars. Any entertainment had to come from others in the car. Then came the basic radio. Today, cars are multifunction information platforms that seamlessly link with phones and cloud-based service providers. Of course, they can’t fly or drive themselves (yet), but modern vehicles still have sensing and advanced input and output methods, remarkable context awareness, and system intelligence.
Our Prompt: Speeding into the Unknown
Our Capstone team will spend the next eight months working with 99P Labs, exploring how we can leverage advances in interaction modalities to transform travel time into learning time for Gen Z. How can we create an in-vehicle environment that facilitates education and productivity by 2030?
We’re designing for Gen Z, who will be 18–33 years old in 2030.
The Team
Our team consists of five students in Carnegie Mellon’s Master of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) program.
- Background — product management, UX design, and experiential marketing
- Why I’m excited about this project — I love the idea of helping to build the future of mobile education and productivity.
- Fun fact — I’ve traveled to 56 countries and all 50 states with my wife, Erin. We’re more settled nowadays and have a goldendoodle named Bruce.
- Background — Journalism, Podcasting
- Why I’m excited about this project — This project touches on several of my interests. There are various factors that influence the automotive market — I’m interested in the impact of social and health factors like COVID-19. I’m also looking forward to learning about the preferences and pain points of Gen Z on the road as they relate to technology and entertainment.
- Fun fact — My mom used to drive my sisters and me around in a Odyssey!
- Background — UX Design, PM, Social Media Marketing, Film Production
- Why I’m excited about this project — I have done internships/independent study projects related to EdTech and I am excited to work on this topic in a car-related setting.
- Fun fact — I am a content creator outside of school. I have my own dance team and teach at some dance studios in LA!
- Background — Visual Design, Accounting
- Why I’m excited about this project — I have an interest in educational game design and am excited to integrate those skills into this project. I also come from a family of gearheads and car enthusiasts, so I have an appreciation for car design. I drive a 2004 Accord and like how the brand is safe and reliable. I would like to learn more in depth about their design.
- Fun fact — I published a children’s alphabet book that also teaches alliteration, animals and different foods around the world.
- Background — Computer Science, UX Design
- Why I’m excited about this project — I’ve always been passionate about building fun digital experiences, so the project background and goals aligned with me. I’m excited to see what we can do to help improve the experience of riding in a car.
- Fun fact — My family owns two identical 2018 CRVs, same color, year, model, and interior.
Picking up Speed
We’re nearing the end of our first two-week sprint. Over the past two weeks, our team has:
Created a team charter. We define our goals for this project, our expectations of one another, and other logistics. The purpose of the team charter is to function as a guideline for proving our commitment and dedication to this project — a way to support a healthy team relationship throughout our project.
Met with last year’s 99P-sponsored MHCI team. They shared their high-level experience and offered some sage advice:
- Make decisions quickly. It’s easy to feel paralyzed. If we find ourselves spinning around, choose something, and move forward. We can always pivot later.
- Draw things out. Models, models, models. Use visuals to communicate our findings. Utilize “design through research.”
- Have fun. Getting opportunities to craft creative research protocols and design experiments in the industry is rare.
Conducted a literature review. We reviewed literature across various areas that intersect with our project, including human-machine teaming, human-AI interaction, existing in-car infotainment systems, the impending transition from Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) Dominance, adjacent fields (education and entertainment on yachts and planes), and how Gen Z currently engages with in-car education.
Identified Subject-Matter Experts and scheduled initial interviews. We’re lucky to have a wide range of brilliant experts to consult at CMU.
Practiced research through design: Research through Design (RtD) is a way of using design to conduct research. Our team created a set of 6 storyboards and speed-dated them with a dozen Gen Z’ers. We wanted to get people’s reactions and feedback to various futuristic scenarios to learn what members of Gen Z find compelling. One participant noted that whatever we come up with has to pass a certain value threshold to warrant her putting her phone down. Overall, this exercise gave us early insights into future-oriented issues in the design field and uncovered new questions about our project scope.
Ran our first of two kickoff meetings. Our sponsors from 99P Labs presented a brief history of their organization and their motivations for our project. While most of their revenue comes from Internal Combustion Engines (ICE), ICE revenue will be eclipsed by Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) in the coming decades. Further, by 2030, we may assume we’ll be designing partially autonomous vehicles.
We planned a couple of activities for this first kickoff meeting to help us better understand our client’s goals for this project and get everyone on the same page. What does success look like? What challenges do we anticipate? Erin Clepper, our project sponsor from 99P Labs, noted, “The typical challenge of conveying to users an experience or technology that does not yet exist — but I know MHCI is up for the challenge!”
Reflection
Our team began this first sprint thinking about cars and wondering what kind of cars we’ll be researching. We thought we were restricted to the automotive industry. We wondered, “what will this OEM need for their next car?” However, in our kickoff conversations, we learned that we have much more freedom and space for creativity. 99P Labs already have plenty of people working on improving cars, and we’ll leave that to them. Cars have something of an interconnected space on wheels with their own energy storage and computing capabilities. With that, how can we foster informal learning interactions in this new space?
Full-Speed Ahead: What’s to Come
In our second kickoff meeting, we plan to run our exploratory ideas by our sponsors and further define our project scope. Then, we’ll create our research plan, continually refining it as we progress through the spring. We’re excited to cruise onto the road ahead.
The work and knowledge gained from this project are only intended to be applicable to the company and context involved and there is no suggestion or indication that it may be useful or applicable to others. This project was conducted for educational purposes and is not intended to contribute to generalizable knowledge.
