Fixing the news (through service design)

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette came to the Carnegie Mellon School of Design for help creating something new and innovative to help bolster revenue. Since this project was for a service design class, we took a very close look at all aspects of the newspaper.

We decided to leave print alone (something which still worked well for the Post-Gazette audience), and instead focused on how we could attract the younger internet generation. Through new interactive features and tailored services, we imagined the future of local news consumption. We created a vision video as well as mockups and prototypes of our final design.

View the process book (PDF)

A long, winding road

We took a deep dive into the Newspaper industry, and specifically into the business model of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. What we learned undoubtedly shaped our thought processes and design decisions. Here's an abbreviated overview of our process.

Exploratory research

We began by exploring our problem space. We started this process by reading relevant books and articles. We then constructed a territory map intended to map out everything we knew (and didn't know) about the space. We continued by performing surveys and interviews and by ultimately crafting our Hunt statement.

Generative research

Our next step was to move into generative research. In this stage, we engaged potential users in activities to collect emotive data based on their experience with news media. We wanted to both confirm our insights from the exploratory phase, and to understand the goals and desires of our potential customers. By generating design documents with actual users, we could gather various perspectives and keep our design user-centered. We then formed typologies from the information gathered to represent our user base and understand for whom we were designing.

Design synthesis and directions

Taking what we learned from our generative research and three user typologies, we were able to synthesize core details regarding user behavior.

We wanted our design to address our research insights of relevancy, immediacy and the push and pull of information. Therefore, we envisioned a future where people are connected and a part of the news experience.

Ideation and realization

We took our research and crafted our designs to meet the challenges that we found. In addition to design mock ups, we also created an emotional video piece showing how our new solutions could fit in a reader's lifestyle. We then vetted our design solutions with members of the Post-Gazette staff and provided a proposal for them to implement our solutions.

Responsibilities

• Research and synthesis
• Persona and scenario development
• Product visioning
• Shared design responsibilities
• Client contact

Meet HERB! (the Home Exploring Robotic Butler)

This project focused on the human-robot interaction methods for an elderly user. Our test robot, HERB, was an advanced robot with moveable arms, advanced visioning, and a Segway base. In collaboration with other teams across Carnegie Mellon University, we worked for a semester to help vision how one might control HERB in the year 2020.

As the population of elders continues to rise, so does their wish for prolonged independent living. Accordingly, there is a growing interest and need for technology to provide some level of assistance for in-home care. Using contextual design techniques, we visited and met with many different elders and care providers to help come up with the best possible solution.

Download the paper (PDF)

Responsibilities

• Contextual research & design
• Visioning
• Paper prototyping
• Usability testing

A better way to cook

Spatula is a rapidly prototyped concept for a cooking website that uses technology to enhance a user's cooking experience. Spatula improves meal planning by enabling users to easily find recipes, gather the requisite ingredients, and most importantly, by guiding the cooking process itself.

With Spatula, users no longer have to worry about making their computer messy while cooking in the kitchen. Spatula features not only voice commands for navigation, but also novel keyboard "gestures" to facilitate hands-free use (we lovingly call this interaction the "chicken dance"). As a complement to the website, Spatula offers a mobile app for on-the-go use while out shopping for ingredients.

What we came up with

Keeping in line with our focus areas and design directions, we designed our web application to have a clean and organized look. Our prototype includes functionality that allows for searching recipes based on keywords, planning a meal by adding one or more recipes, and cooking with an interactive dashboard.

Recipe search includes an efficient keyword based search and also allows the user to filter the search based on pre-existing options. The search results display standard information about the recipe, including difficulty level, cooking duration and rating. The user can also click on a recipe to view it in detail and then optionally add it to the meal. While viewing a recipe, the user is also given complementary dish suggestions.

The "My Meal" panel shows the recipes selected by the user and dynamically calculates the total time required to cook the entire meal. Furthermore, the interactive dashboard takes the user through the steps for all recipes in the meal, interleaved to optimize the total cooking time. The user can progress through the steps by either clicking through them, using verbal input or by keyboard gestures.

Responsibilities

• Contextual research & design
• Visioning
• Persona development
• HTML and JavaScript prototype

Homemade time-lapse photography tool

An intervalometer is a tool used to help create time-lapse photography. I decided to create my own using an Arduino and some other low-cost parts.

The device works by triggering the shutter (through the remote shutter interface of a camera) on a given interval. The user has the ability to set their desired interval between each photo. In my implementation, the user is also able to set the desired maximum number of photos to take. Additionally, there is an overview screen that shows the current settings and how many shots have been taken.

The user interacts with the device using the dial (shaft encoder) to set values and a push button to toggle through the different modes. The LCD screen provides feedback to the user of the configured settings. As an energy-saving measure, the LCD backlight will automatically turn off after 15 seconds of no user input. Any input thereafter will awaken the screen. There is also a tri-color LED which shows status of the intervalometer.

Download the documentation (PDF)

Responsibilities

• Circuit layout
• User interface design
• Soldering and other messy hardware stuff
• Arduino code development (in C)

A classic in 64 pixels

Arduino Copter replicates the classic game of electronic helicopter using only 64 pixels. This version of the side scroller features a dead-simple one button UI to move the helicopter higher in the sky. The side-scrolling happens automatically and the game will continue to speed up indefinitely.

This game was rapidly designed and developed in under a week. Next steps would be to include sound, and some nicer animations. It would also be fun to think about what alternative input methods could be used instead of a button (e.g. sound input, or gestural).

Responsibilities

• Circuit layout
• Game design and playability testing
• Arduino code development (in C)

Over-the-phone voice activated dictionary

IDiOM uses creative design and an efficient interface to allow users to access a dictionary definition in seconds without even knowing how to spell the entire word. Using our own algorithm, IDiOM is able to recognize more than 200,000 English words, with better than 95% accuracy.

The design takes into account the like-sounding nature of certain letters (e.g. 'b' 'd' 'e' 'g', etc.) and filters out "nonsense" words. The result is a full-fledged dictionary, complete with synonyms and usage examples, easy enough for a five-year-old to use.

Download IDiOM literature (PDF)

Download audio clip 1 | Download audio clip 2

Responsibilities

• User research and synthesis
• Product visioning
• Backend implementation of UI
• Communication artifacts