And so it begins! MHCI Capstone 2020 with the A-Team
First, an Introduction
The Master’s of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) is an intensive one-year Master’s program at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) that teaches its graduates the necessary skills to become awesome UX and design professionals.
The program is divided into three semesters: fall, spring, and summer. In the fall, students learn foundational skills in design (visual, interaction, design thinking, etc.), user research, and frontend programming (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). The spring and summer semesters are dedicated to honing students’ interests through electives and applying their skills in Capstone.
Capstone takes place over the spring and summer: broadly speaking, it’s a project in which students solve a real-world problem with a real-world client. The project is student-driven, from research to testing to the final design. Constraints are minimal, the design process is thorough, and individual growth is achieved (at least, that’s the plan!). For the class of 2020, Capstone projects spanned industries as diverse as automotive, music, banking, and addiction recovery.
The A-Team
At the start of the spring semester, five stellar individuals (if we do say so ourselves) were alerted that they would be working with Highmark, a health insurance company headquartered here in Pittsburgh. These individuals are:
Celine Chang // www.linkedin.com/in/celinechang97
Celine is a UX Designer who aims to design for individuals with empathy by fully understanding their world first. Celine completed her bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science with the Segal Design Certificate at Northwestern University in 2019. Her interests include health, fitness, dance, fashion, and ice cream.
Corey Emery // linkedin.com/in/corey-emery
Corey is a Software Engineer who focuses on the boundary between people and technology, how to best serve users’ needs, and understanding users’ expectations to improve interactions. Corey is an accelerated student in the MHCI, meaning he is currently completing his undergraduate studies in Statistics & Machine Learning and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon while embarking on Capstone. His interests include musical theatre, fitness, and tennis.
Griffin Mori-Tornheim // griffintornheim.design
Griffin is a UX Designer that seeks to understand and apply new technologies to create convenient experiences for individuals and sustainable solutions for society. Griffin completed a B.S. in Business Administration with a minor in Creative Writing from UC Berkeley in 2016. His interests include fashion, health, and being interested.
Ekta Verma // ektaverma.com
Ekta likes to research and design engaging and transformative interactions between people and technology. She completed her B.Tech Computer Science Engineering in 2016 from India, followed by an M.A in Interaction Design in 2019 from CMU School of Design. Her interests include traveling, baking and going on long walks.
Stephanie Wang // hellostephwang.com
Stephanie is a Product Designer who has a passion for people and data. She studied psychology and statistics at Cornell University and worked in the financial services industry. In addition, she worked at an EdTech startup where she developed an interest in product strategy and innovation. Stephanie grew up in Colorado and will forever talk about the gorgeous Rocky Mountains. She enjoys snowboarding, hiking, doing yoga and anything outdoors.
The A-Team was assigned to create a service to help Highmark customers obtain and understand financial health information. It’s a broad space, sure, but thankfully we love the ambiguity of the problem, so we got right down to work. First, we decided on our team name: we’re the A-Team because we get high marks… get it? We’ll be here all semester.
Sprint 1: Preliminary Research & Kickoff
Our capstone project is divided into sprints: two-week segments in which teams deliver tangible value to the project. For the A-Team, Sprint 1 was dedicated to getting a summary understanding of the problem space and planning our kickoff meeting with Highmark.
Research
Ekta headed up our research efforts in Sprint 1. Each team member was tasked with looking into a specific area of the problem space: What does Highmark do? What is financial health literacy? What have competitors already tried? Why didn’t these solutions work? And who are the experts in the field?
After concluding our individual research, we came together and presented our findings to each other. The team created a common understanding of our research with a “Walk the Wall” exercise.
Kickoff Planning
Once we developed a preliminary understanding of the problem space, we pivoted to planning our Kickoff meeting. This meeting will be our first face-to-face interaction with the client and an opportunity to come to a shared understanding of the problem space, what Highmark envisions for a successful project, and give our team a clear direction forward.
To best create value between our design process and the clients’ expertise, we created several artifacts that would spur a conversation: these include a Service Blueprint, a Stakeholder Map, and a poster with questions that we hoped to answer over the course of the meeting and over the course of the project. We created these artifacts with Post-its to give the impression that these artifacts are a work in progress and to encouraged our clients to collaborate and add ideas of their own.
And so concludes Sprint 1! We’ve got to get back to work, but we’ll keep you updated with our progress in future posts.
Pax,
The A-Team
