Sprint 2: What is traveling? What is learning?
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.
Catch up on Sprint 1 here!
Revisiting our Problem Space
We were given this prompt:
“In this project, [we] would like to reframe the vehicle as an intelligent mobile learning environment that enables [Gen Z] to transform travel time into learning time.”
To align our mental models, we mapped the current and future states of travel technology and experience, and formal and informal education.
Research through Design: We broke down the factors related to the travel journey. These factors impact the current travel journey, and will also inform our future solutions.
Reframe
From Kees Dorst’s “The Core Of Design Thinking And Its Application Download The Core Of Design Thinking And Its Application,” we realized that our reasoning has some gaps that we must fill in order to really understand our problem space. We thought we should go further than Abductive-2, which assumes that you fully understand the value you’d like to achieve. Our prompt outlines a potential future value, but we need to ensure we’re solving the right problem before we can solve the problem right. Thus, we used several research methods to inform our intuition.
Research
Intercept Interviews
We conducted 17 intercept interviews with people (mostly Gen Z) walking to their next class or in transit and answered 3 questions:
- What triggers their curiosity for informal learning?
- Does the trigger pass the curiosity threshold, where the user takes an action to resolve their curiosity and pass from ignorance to knowledge?
- What method do they use to resolve this curiosity?
After running several sessions, we realized that conversations were also a large part of informal learning.
This finding pointed us more toward an ethnographic, hands-off style of research.
SME Interviews
We conducted 6 SME (subject matter expert) interviews to understand ‘what is’ and envision ‘what could be’. The SMEs we talked to specialize in areas including but not limited to education, transportation, AI, and VR.
Visiting Dealerships
We visited several dealerships to understand the current state of car design and technology. Visiting dealerships and talking to product specialists has been fruitful in two ways:
- We learned about cutting-edge technology like heads-up displays and autonomous safety systems, and we were able to experience it ourselves.
- We learned about different types of customer reactions to this technology. What do car dealers think of their customers? Who is seeking out this technology, and why?
Experiential Research
We also conducted experiential research to observe people on public transit and learn how they spend their time on short and long commutes.
Secondary research
Inspired by our prompt, we conducted secondary domain research in Education, Car technology, Human Machine Teaming, Human AI Interaction, Gen Z, and in-car subscriptions.
Key Research Takeaways So Far
- There has been a shift from standardized and inflexible approaches to products and services to personalized and customizable ones.
- There is always going to be uncertainty about how to use AI
- Current in-car systems are device-dependent, and the capabilities of a phone-connected infotainment system are different from an integrated, independent system.
Synthesis
We created several models to synthesize our learning so far. We dove deeper by exploring a conceptual model of connectivity. Through our exploration, we created a more unified conceptual model of our problem space. We also spent some time pushing our thinking by incorporating insights from our interviews with SMEs and domain research into our conceptual model.
We discussed the concept of liminal space and then mapped our understanding of how a car can be a liminal space. We will continue to refine this concept in future sprints.
Next Steps
- We’ll synthesize what we have so far for domain research, SMEs, and intercept interviews to develop hypotheses. We’ll figure out the different research methodologies to conduct to test our hypotheses.
- Meet in person with our client (Ohio 99p Labs visit!)
- Continue reframing the problem statement through techniques like abstraction laddering.
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.
