Welcome to our MHCI 2022 Capstone Project!
Introducing the MHCI Program
Carnegie Mellon’s Master of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) is an intensive year-long (three semester) program focused on preparing students for successful careers in user experience and human-computer interaction. During our first semester, we developed a strong set of foundational skills in design, research, and front-end development through core classes and exploring different areas of HCI through electives. We have now reached the flagship course of the program … Capstone!
Capstone will span over the course of eight months during the spring and summer semesters. The capstone course is a research and design project where students work with an industry client and have a period of explosive growth by leading a thorough research and design process for the given problem.
Our Capstone Project
For our team’s capstone project, we will be working with Progressive Insurance, an insurance company that offers over 30 types of insurance products including vehicle, property, and commercial insurance. Currently, their customers’ purchases are primarily facilitated by service agents that anticipate customer needs and assist them both short term and long term to develop a strong relationship with their customers and facilitate an overall positive experience. Progressive is now looking to explore how automated systems using AI can assist customers and help build trust in an industry where trust is typically low. There is so much for the team to explore in this space and we are excited to take on the challenge!
Meet our team!
We are a team of five students who are honored to work with Progressive Insurance for our capstone project. Here’s a quick introduction of the member’s of our team:
John Chae | Product Designer
John has 4 years of work experience as a UX designer and majored in design for his bachelor’s degree. One favorite thing that he does every week is going out for a run and enjoying the sunshine.
Sreya Cherukuri | Product Designer
Sreya graduated from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She has worked as a User Experience designer for two years and enjoys bringing in her consulting and project management experience to every project. When she’s not working, Sreya spends time traveling around the US, dancing and browsing sneakers.
Salonee Gupta| Project Manager
Salonee has a background in computer science and previously worked as an experience designer for a UX consulting firm. She enjoys practicing yoga, naming her plants, and drinking an unwarranted amount of tea.
Yvonne Hou | UX Researcher
Yvonne has a background in cognitive science, graduated from UC San Diego in 2020. Her niche is in user experience design and research. She had past intern experience as 3D user interaction & UX designer at Nanome Inc. and UX Designer at ByteDance Meta Enterprise Design team. Besides work, Yvonne loves running, hiking, and grocery shopping.
Stephanie Tseng | Product Designer
Stephanie is a designer focused on building empathy with users to create inclusive and accessible solutions. She is currently completing her bachelor’s in Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon. Throughout her undergrad, Stephanie has worked on a wide range of projects through research projects and internships at startups, non-profits, and large-tech companies. In her free time, you can find her ice skating or taking pictures.
In addition, we will be working closely with our amazing faculty advisors, Jonathan Brown, an MHCI alumni and capstone adjunct instructor, and Megan Guidi, a Principal at Open and HCI adjunct instructor. We are so excited to work with everyone!
Sprint 1: Preliminary Research and Client Kickoff
Our project is split into two-week sprints and for our first sprint, we focused on conducting research to understand the problem space, planning, and holding our first meeting with our clients.
Research
Our clients also shared background material on the company and problem space. We reviewed the material and learned about the broad range of insurance products Progressive offers as well as concepts and technologies specific to Progressive. Given this broad problem space, our team decided to conduct further background research into the domain and the organization. We broke our research focus into five key categories: operation model, competitors, key technologies, company goals, and company marketing.
We each researched on category and shared our key findings with each other to establish common ground in preparation for our meeting with the client.
Planning our Kickoff
Having developed a strong understanding of the background through our research, we were super excited to start planning on our kickoff meeting. As it would be the first time meeting our clients, our goals were to build rapport, develop a shared understanding of the domain and project, and understand the client’s hopes and fears for the project.
To facilitate a conversation between us and the client we leveraged our design and researching thinking to curate several activities for us to gain insight from the client. We started with a series of questions which were then narrowed down into three main categories: Project Logistics, Project Background, and Project Definition. Our activities included stakeholder mapping, 5 Why’s, and mapping out user and stakeholder interactions. We individually contributed to these activities by adding sticky notes to showcase what our understanding was. We believed this would help encourage the client to be more engaged and collaborative during the meeting.
Kickoff Meetings
Our kickoff meeting was split into two meetings and on the first day, we started with introductions and shared our research and design process and understanding how our client’s team works. We then presented a few questions to gain a stronger understanding of the company, its products, problems, technology, etc. Using a collaborative online tool helped spur conversation with the group and allowed everyone present at the meeting to share their thoughts.
Due to time constraints, we faced in the first meeting, we pivoted our second meeting to include more activities and a more strict time limit for each. Hearing our client’s hopes and fears for the project helped us understand what a successful project would look like and helped us align on the project goals. Engaging in the 5 Why’s and Stakeholder Mapping activity showcased further insight into the project itself and create a shared understanding with the client.
Armed with all this knowledge, we are so excited as we start shifting gears to research planning.
Thanks for reading!
