New beginnings —CMU MHCI Capstone with Gov AI.

That’s a lot of acronyms:

CMU ?— Carnegie Mellon University, top Computer Science School. Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

MHCI? — the “longest-running and most impactful Master of Human-Computer Interaction in the world.” Our team is composed of five Masters of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) students. As part of the curriculum, we apply user research and design through a seven-month Capstone course with an external industry client.

AI — Artificial Intelligence put simply is the ability of computer programs or machines to think like humans and learn to perform tasks that were not previously taught.

Gov AI — our Capstone sponsor and a Pittsburgh start-up. Their mission is to “promote and develop technology that enhances the quality of government services and changes how citizens interact with technology.”

Project Scope:

Adapted from Project Description:

Gov AI is looking into how designing conversational agents can increase access to government programs and deliver value to the policymakers that manage the programs.

Addressing how to improve access to benefits and exploring how technology might best play a role, will require a deep understanding of sociological and economic barriers that inhibit recipients from accessing services.

Our initial research will focus on how conversational agents might be used to help individuals and families with SNAP benefits. As we explore proof of concept (POC) designs, we understand that our design has the potential to also impact stakeholders who include federal agencies, state programs, and private service providers.

Team bios (we put the human in HCI):

Laura Beth Fulton — originally from Ocean City, NJ. Loves Pittsburgh and completed an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. I have worked in Product Management for gaming at EA, explored voice design at Apple and impacted hardware devices at Microsoft. My interests include conversation design, drinking tea, music (playing bagpipes!), and gaming.

Tommy Byler — I have a BA in Psychology from Westminster College and have lived in Pittsburgh for the last 4 years working for American Eagle. Originally from NW PA; I have interests in gaming, user research, true crime podcasts, and bar trivia!

Simran Jobanputra — Hi! I’m from Chicago, IL. I recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon with my bachelors in Business Administration and Human-Computer Interaction. I have worked across a variety of disciplines from being a trader on Wall Street to working as a UX Designer at NASA and am passionate about bringing my backgrounds in business and design together. Outside of the classroom, I’m very involved in the entrepreneurship scene at Carnegie Mellon and I’m an avid dancer!

Conlon Novak — a Pittsburgh native, I’ll be graduating from CMU with a BS in Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction in May, with extensive experience in software development, application design, and database development in both corporate and academic settings. When I’m not plugged into the matrix, I enjoy downhill skiing, amateur photography, and overly technical science-fiction novels.

Judy Chun — Hi there! I’m a recent graduate of Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science at UC San Diego and now a current graduate studying Human-Computer Interaction at CMU. I have worked as a UX Research intern at IBM and Qualcomm, and have served as a UX Design Lead for a non-profit startup that I’ve founded. I’m aiming to bring together my knowledge in user research, qualitative data analysis, and interaction design skills to solve your business needs.

What success looks like to our team:

Building an end to end product, defined by metrics and research that meets (and exceeds!) the needs of the stakeholders and assess how it’s situated in the ecosystem of governmental agencies.

Educating the client about design thinking and ways they can use design as a mechanism for future product development.

Growing team members towards their individual goals and allowing them to feel supported by other team members.

Creating and putting forth a product that adheres to the highest possible ethical standards, with specific attention to the application of AI.

Creating an impactful product that moves the start-up forward, helping solidify the business plan for long-term/short-term goals.

Diving into User Research:

We started researching as early as we could, beginning with secondary sources sent by our client. Reading through articles about the current state of some state benefits ecosystems gave us a better understanding of the field as it is now. Our client recommended I, Daniel Blake as a way for our team to build empathy with those who are left behind when applying for benefits. We utilized personas our client created to apply for state benefits through lenses representing our population, which gave us a clearer understanding of the end-to-end process of applying for benefits.

Also, we conducted informal interviews with those who have personal experiences of applying for assistance programs in regards to medical expenses and homeowner’s insurance. We gained some insight into what the process is like for someone taking over applications for their parents who now struggle with said applications. With this, we got a better understanding of the landscape and know where different points of entries occur when people are applying for state benefits.

Planning for our client kick-off:

Our team took this week to plan out activities for our kickoff with Gov AI! We were really excited to introduce them to design thinking and lead our kickoff as a workshop — one in which everyone is engaged and co-creating together.

Here are some of the activities we’re most excited about:

• The Perfect Present — a quick icebreaker to introduce design thinking and show our client that being creative is a process, not an act. Borrowed from Emmanuel Lançon
• Abstraction Laddering — diving deep into the “hows” and “whys” surrounding specific solutions
• Stakeholder Mapping -using lots of sticky notes to build out the relationships and value flows between stakeholders to uncover new opportunities
• Six Thinking Hats — quickly “putting on” a series of different perspectives in the form of real, colorful hats to help approach a topic from every angle
• Reversing Assumptions — intentionally flipping preconceptions you have about the problem space in order to brainstorm novel ideas and solutions

Up Next:

As we write this post it is Tuesday evening, January 28th, 2020. We are three days away from our client kick-off, Friday, January 30, 2020.

We are looking forward to meeting Gov AI and collaborating as our project evolves over the coming months. In our next post, we will reflect on our client kickoff, our approach to research and design, and more!

Thank you for joining us as we start our journey on our capstone project with Gov AI.

Chat with you next time, Humans!

— Laura, Tommy, Simran, Conlon, and Judy