Fall 2024
Design research project completed in a group as a part of CS247A - Design for AI with Prof. Julie Stanford.
Developed grounded theory of problem space after synthesizing interviews from eight new graduate students about their current food habits and usage of AI and then created a product concept. Generally, our project thinks about how to reimagine the tasks we find dull or annoying but have to do anyways - like grocery shopping, cooking, doing dishes, taxes with generative AI.
Needfinding, User Interviewing, User Research, Rapid Experimentation and Prototyping
Our group of four started with only three requirements - we picked an audience (new graduate students), a domain (food), and we knew we needed to incorporate generative AI.
From here, we conducted eight interviews (two each) and transcribed the data into a Miro board. We then took the data and created buckets of similar themes we noticed across people.
Data coding and synthesis in Miro
This synthesis led to a grounded theory for the rest of our project:
Grounded theory with quotes from data
We wrote 20+ How Might We questions aimed at addressing this theory and others we drew from the data, and then moved into solutions brainstorming to answer these HMWs. Our group used a Miro board for this, and used bodystorming as a tactic to build energy and ideas. We heatmap voted on which ones we liked the best to down-select to three concepts to take into rapid experimentation.
heatmap voting on solution space
For each concept, we wrote an experiment plan aimed at testing one basic and fundamental aspect of each design. For the grocery shopping experiment, we recruited three participants for a study asking if storytelling even made grocery shopping more fun - luckily, it did!
Post-experiment summary slide
The final deliverable for this project was aimed at understanding and predicting design futures for this concept. Our design fiction uses humor and low-budget video production as a vehicle for understanding the joyful intent of the project experience but also perhaps unintended downsides to the product.
We also created an ethical review document to capture ethical risks and mitigation strategies to build into development in the imagined case that this product make it to market and widespread adoption.
Partial excerpt from ethical review document
Design fiction video
Acknowledgements
My team in CS247A was my introduction to group work at Stanford, and it was such a lucky experience. Thanks to my wonderful groupmates - Melanie, Ecy, and Nick!
kalinais@stanford.edu
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