January-March 2017

In the spring of 2017, I spent a semester working on a user-centered research project in the class User-Centered Research and Evaluation, with a small group of my classmates. During this project, I and the rest of Team Deep Blue researched affordable housing in Pittsburgh. We interviewed displaced citizens in a neighborhood of Pittsburgh undergoing rapid gentrification, to identify the primary problems affecting them.

In addition to conducting contextual inquiries with displaced citizens in their homes, we conducted domain research on existing affordable housing organizations and interviewed experts in the field to find the niche where we could best provide solutions. We then created contextual models and journey maps based on our contextual inquiries, and personas based on those models.

Deep Blue Razing and Raising final presentation

From our user-centered research, we storyboarded solutions to aid displaced citizens in moving into permanent housing. We also discussed next steps to improve displaced citizens’ situations beyond user-designed solutions, such as passing improved housing legislation. Finally, we presented our findings to professionals in the field as well as government representatives. You can view the presentation above.

For more details on our research process and our findings, you can read the final report below.

Deep Blue Razing and Raising final report