Team:Ayse Buyuktur, David Hutchful, Cheng-Lun Li, Satyendra Nainwal, Natasha Sant
Background:
The Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference is one of the most prominent conferences in the field of Human Computer Interaction. Every year, they host a international student design competition. The theme for 2008 is designing to alleviate homelessness. My team and I thought designing for homelessness was a meaningful and challenging problem to tackle so we took a shot at it.
Design Process:
1. Performed literature review to better understand homeless problem and limitations of current solutions.
2 Conducted contextual inquiry and on-site observation (at homeless shelters) to identify the needs of homeless people and the efforts case workers put to alleviate homelessness.
3. Interviewed potential users to identify their internet usage patterns for leisure and level of commitment willing to contribute through internet.
4. Conducted a survey to validate findings from interview sessions.
5. Researched on incentive-centered design and defined system and user requirements.
6. Design prototypes and performed concept testing.
Key Findings
a. The limitation of current approaches: government policy (takes time and not flexible) and volunteering initiatives (require large chunks of time).
b. Case workers in public service organizations provide the most comprehensive attack on the problems of homelessness, but the shortage of human resources, especially access to domain specific knowledge such as financial advice, impedes their success.
c. The most significant barrier to volunteering is that current activities require large chunks of time and participants need to be at certain location.
d. 70% of our survey participants are willing to frequently volunteer through internet, if each session is 15 minutes or less.
e. Social recognition, fun, and sociability are most significant factors that affect engagement.
The Results:
My team and I designed a web-based system with game-like properties that utilizes crowdsourcing to facilitate the beneficial transfer-of-knowledge to case managers working with the homeless. The system promotes community of practice and sustaining participation through making individual's contribution salient. Please read the report for detailed design. Our design was accepted and we flew to Florence, Italy to present our design!
Responsibilities:
My responsibilities include planning the design research and process, conducting user and stakeholder interviews, the survey, and creating wireframes.