And We’re Off!
Forming the team and laying the foundation for a strong capstone project
In the Marines’ boot camp, every recruit undergoes an intense grueling challenge called the Crucible. This 54-hour training marathon tests every recruit physically, mentally and morally and is the defining experience of recruit training. The Crucible event pits teams of recruits against a barrage of day and night events requiring every recruit to work together to solve problems, overcome obstacles, and help each other along the way.
Similar to the Marines’ Crucible challenge, Capstone serves as our defining rite of passage of the MHCI experience. Also similar to the Crucible, Capstone is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. Over the next 8 months, our team of young and hungry students will work with a designated client to develop an innovative product through a full rotation of the end-to-end design process in the product development lifecycle. During these months of user research, design, prototyping, and testing, we will be shaped into the future UX professionals of tomorrow. With that in mind, let’s introduce the team.
Introducing Team Panacea!
We are a young group of rising UX experts with a wide range of experiences, backgrounds, and dreams. Read on to find out a little bit about each of us.
Nur — I have a BA in Psychology, and I’ve done multilingual Operations for the past 5 years at companies like Apple, Google, & WhatsApp. In my free time, I love drawing, writing, and playing video games.
- Dream job as a child: Cartoonist → Dream job now: Interaction designer
Faye — I graduated with a B.S. in Cognitive Science, and I am inspired to study human thoughts, motivation and behaviors. I have a background in academic research, and I am currently working to improve my skills as a user experience designer. In my free time I like to dance and watch the Office!
- Dream job as a child: Mathematician → Dream job now: Product designer
Rayna — My background is in applied social science research and I studied Anthropology, French, and Biology in undergrad. I have 3 years of experience in healthcare market research and am currently transitioning to HCI and UX design. In my free time I like to travel and hang out with family.
- Dream job as a child: Author → Dream job now: Design strategist
Lisa — I’m a Pittsburgh native with a B.S. in Cognitive Science and a passion for people and technology. I’ve worked in a variety of domains including defense, virtual reality, and robotics, and I’m always looking to expand my horizons! As a side hustle, I work for a local production company that puts on arts and music festivals all across Pittsburgh.
- Dream job as a child: Astronaut / Dairy Queen owner → Dream job now: Hardware product designer
Lily — Having a background in Library & Info science and 4 years of UX professional experience across B2B and B2C digital products, I’m a designer that is passionate to connect people with technology! Aside from the working side, I love to read and design visual stuff!
- Dream job as a child: Art teacher → Dream job now: UX designer
You’ll hear more from each of us over the course of the project, but first things first, let’s talk about week 1.
Figuring Ourselves Out
For our first task as the newly minted Team Panacea, we were to figure out the terms of our team contract. Not only does this help us lay the groundwork for how we run things in room 229, it also gave us an opportunity to get an idea of who we were as individuals and what we wanted to get out of this capstone project by working as a team.
Role Definition
Since our backgrounds were so diverse and interests so broad, this task took a bit longer than other parts of the contract. We had to dig into each other’s backgrounds, skill sets, dreams, and expectations, and find a role that would not only suit a person’s skill set but also give them the opportunity to hone other skills through the process.
Good At, Want to Learn, End Goal Grid
Individually, we looked at our experiences and aspirations and answered three key questions:
1. What are you good at?
2. What do you want to learn?
3. What’s your end goal?
This helped build an understanding of what we were each bringing to the table and also what we wanted to take away from the project.
After much discussion, we decided on lead roles based primarily on individual strengths with the understanding that this person also would be responsible for managing certain tasks and deliverables. As different phases of the project come and go, the designated lead would serve as the task lead for that particular phase; when that phase is over, the lead remains the designated point person for any related follow-up tasks.
That’s enough about us for now. Let’s talk about the client!
Introducing our client, MedRespond!
We’re going to go into more detail about our client in the coming months, but here’s a quick debrief to get you started. MedRespond is an online healthcare communications company that combines artificial intelligence, search and streaming media to deliver interactive, personalized communication solutions to patients and clients. They’ve partnered with the HCII to explore opportunities envisioning a more affective, personalized healthcare experience for patients and doctors.
If that piqued your interest, don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from. Stay tuned in the next few days to hear more about our project kickoff and preparing for our client meeting. We’re excited to get started in designing the future of healthcare communication!
About this PublicationWe’re writing the MHCI 2019 Capstone: Team Panacea Publication for a couple of reasons.First, we want to give you an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of our capstone experience: the successes, failures, thoughts, insights, and innovations.Second, we would love to engage with you around the healthcare domain (Pittsburgh’s #1 industry!), so please follow / clap👏👏👏 / comment / share /reach out to us — we’d love to hear your thoughts!
