01.29.2018 | Stage 2 | Exploratory Research
Process documentation for Interaction Design Studio II, taught by Peter Scupelli at Carnegie Mellon University. Team comprises of Zach Bachiri, Devika Khowala,Hajira Qazi, and Shengzhi Wu.
Now that our team has defined our territory, we are moving into exploratory research. In this phase we hope to gain critical insights to that will inform us as we generate concepts and prototypes.
We began by thinking about the groups of people and organizations that would be helpful to contact. There are many organizations in the Pittsburgh area that help immigrants and refugees settle, both culturally and logistically. We created an index of these resources and began reaching out to people for interviews. With these interviews, we aimed to get an understanding of the landscape of resources currently available to immigrants and refugees.
This past week had conversations with two people: Nadya Kessler (director of development at GlobalPittsburgh) and Rebecca Johnson (Director of Community Assistance and Refugee Resettlement at NAMS). GlobalPittsburgh helps connect people through events, activities, and immigrant hosting. NAMS, through their Community Assistance and Refugee Resettlement program and with the support of the U.S. Department of State’s Reception and Placement (R&P) Program and the United State Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), help provide refugees with basic necessities when they arrive.
We also created a survey to gather some initial information about student immigrants. The questions focused around the learning of cultural norms. In what environments did they learn them, which environments did they prefer, how long did it take to feel acclimated, etc. We received responses from 12 people and hope that these will lead to in-person research sessions where we can use some more creative research methods to gather information.
Going into next week, we are planning on having a research synthesis session to identify some key insights from our interviews and survey. We are also going to design our research methods for use with the student respondents we talk to in person.
