Context

Date: November 2019 - Present
Position: Human-Centered Design Researcher

I am working with the CMU Smart Cities Institute with two other Human-Centered Design researchers, tackling the domain of workforce development and job training in the greater Pittsburgh region. This research seeks to bridge the gap in pre-existing workforce development research through analyzing the current trends of industry, work, and career options and discovering what the “future of work” means to both training providers and job-seekers.

Process

We are primarily in the exploratory research phase of our project, conducting research with local workforce development organizations to help connect job seekers with job skills training programs in their area that are right for them. So far we have conducted multiple semi-structured interviews, literature reviews, and previous research covering a similar domain. After our initial interpretation session, we will be moving on to bulls-eye diagramming, storyboarding, and other design probes to ideate and gauge reception to potential futures. We are also looking into developing protocols for ethnographic research, contextual inquiries, and co-design sessions.

Insights & Outcomes

Some insights we have uncovered thus far include:

  • Training providers struggle with partnering employers to work together to tackle industry-wide, not company-specific, problems

  • Training providers face a compassion fatigue in their own workforce and have difficulty scaling their personable solutions

  • Job-seekers find temporary relief in gig economy work but seasonal unemployment is a big issue

  • Outside of merely job qualifications, the accessibility of resources, transportation, and child care are often cited as blockers to maintaining a desired job

  • Many career service providers cite redundancies in the programs available to job-seekers, creating inefficiencies for program efficacy, difficulties with funding, and unnecessary competition between service providers

With our research, we hope to author a paper some time in Fall 2020 and continue working towards sustainable research strategies, design workshops for training providers, and a potential prototype of our solution.