What is iLab?
I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to study abroad in Austria for my last semester of school during Fall 2022. The semester starts in August and finishes at end of January 2023. Prior to starting my study abroad, I met with professors and coordinators at St. Polten University of Applied Sciences in Austria to discuss what course plan would be the best for my background and strengths. I was ultimately recommended to join the Interdisciplinary Lab (iLab). The iLab is a very unique process of learning and is defined as: an innovative elective semester in which students in cross-program teams intensively engage in a project from the idea to its concrete implementation. They learn from an interdisciplinary perspective to grapple with real-world challenges or problems and attempt to find solutions. In the process, they acquire a broader perspective of the specialized discipline underlying their studies.
Here is a link to learn more about the iLab program:
Discover
We started off the semester with five different real world problems within the European Union that researchers are currently trying to solve. At the end of the semester, the topics had been reduced to just two (these were determined by which topics judges within the university seemed most viable and backed up by research). Thankfully I was able to work on my same project throughout most of the semester.
My team, consisting of students from different disciplines and countries around Europe, were asked to solve one specific question posed by researchers within the St, Polten UAS,
"How might we reduce the car-traffic to and from the University in a way the is beneficial for the employees?
The Why
From the start, we relied heavily on the design thinking process to help guide us through the project. Once we received our problem question, we started the DISCOVER phase of the process. In order to understand the issue at hand more, we conducted lots of research regarding sustainable mobility and the root of why so many people use their cars instead of public transportation. We also sent out a survey to the FHSTP employees to learn more about their habits. According to the survey results, we discovered that most employees who took their car to work consistently did so because it was more convenient, flexible and saved time or because they did not live near any public transportation options due to living in a 40-70 kilometer radius around the university. Although there are many benefits of taking a personal car to work everyday, a majority of the survey takers said that they were concerned about the price of gas for their car and the negative impact it had on the environment.
During this phase, it was important to establish the "why" for our project. In the end, we concluded that it is important to solve this problem because by reducing the car-traffic, the CO2 emissions will be reduced as well. By coming up with a solution to the problem, employees could potentially benefit from the cost reduction of gas and they will feel the satisfaction of personally contributing positively to the environment.
After spending a lot of time in the discover phase and being able to connect with the target user group and understand their needs and habits more clearly, it was time to move on the next phase of the design thinking process- define.
Define
We used many different methods during the define phase of the design thinking process such as creating a persona, empathy maps, user journeys and storyboards. By focusing on these aspects of the process, we were able to fully understand the user, problem and the features of both on a deeper level. Creating a persona was essential and a key part of the define phase, especially since it is something we have utilized throughout the entirety of the project.
We created Wendy, an employee at the university that uses her car for commute reasons but wants to improve her habits when it comes to sustainable mobility.
We mapped out her problems, thoughts, feelings and everything under the moon in order to fully understand her needs.
Project Timeline
Ideate
Once we were comfortable with our results from the define phase, we moved on to the IDEATE phase of the design thinking process. Our goal was to approach this stage with open minds and to produce as many ideas as we could to address our given problem statement in a facilitated, judgment-free environment. We utilized brainstorm sessions and card sorting for a majority of the phase. We challenged ourselves to come up with 100 different solutions in 30 minutes and to list every solution we could think of on a post-it note, whether it was realistic or not. This was to help spark creativity and innovativeness within the team. We clustered the post-its at the end of the thirty minutes into different categories. We then each took three sticker dots and placed them on our top three solutions. The top three solutions with the most dots would be the ones we would focus on, form a general idea of the logistics behind the solution, and then present them to a panel of research experts across different disciplines. My team and I would then have a discussion about the solutions with this group of people and get insight on to which of the three solutions could potentially be the most viable. After the Solution Discussion, we narrowed down the top three solutions to just one final solution, which we would eventually create a prototype for.
Our brainstorming methods led us to our top three solutions which were university sponsored shuttle buses that could pick up employees at their homes, an app that helped employees find rides and people who wanted to carpool near them, and finally, an awareness campaign at the university that would utilize a competition among employees to encourage the use of public transportation in order to reduce their carbon emissions.
At the Solution Discussion, the panel was a fan of the carpooling application as well as the sustainable mobility campaign idea. They suggested we try and combine the two into one, so we ended up taking their advice and creating an app that logs your carbon emissions according to the transportation mode you take as well as give you carpooling options and contacts.
After attempting to make the combined solutions work properly, we decided to get rid of the carpooling aspect of the application and focus on the competition and carbon emissions tracking features. We were encouraged to define a minimal viable product for the project which helped us come to this decision.
Prototype
I was in charge of the UX design aspect of the project and utilized many different methods to assist me with this phase of the design thinking process. I started with sketches of the app, creating a design system/mood board and then moved on to creating grey comps and wireframes in Adobe XD. After the framework of the app was finished, I worked on transforming the existing prototype into a high fidelity design as well as adding interactive capabilities to prepare it for user testing. I had creative control of the user experience part of the project, which was a very new thing for me. I feel like because of this I gained leadership skills and the ability to share knowledge and reasoning behind decisions more easily.
Testing
For testing, I focused on using usability testing, desirability evaluations, and A/B testing. I was able to test the high fidelity prototype on 9 members of the target group using these types of testing methods. The results from the user testing were consistent across the board and helped us make valuable improvements within the prototype. One of the main pieces of feedback from testing was that the competition aspect of the carbon dioxide emissions was not obvious enough, so we ended up adding a leaderboard of the competition results on the home page of the app. This change made the app much more desirable and clear for the target group. Once the testing was complete and the necessary changes were made in the prototype, I handed it off to the part of my team in charge of coding it. Once they finished coding the pages I designed, we completed our MVP (minimum viable product).
Conclusion
This semester studying abroad and participating in the iLab program at St. Polten UAS has been the most rewarding and paramount experience I have had in my education so far. The set up of the program was unique and nothing like I have experienced before. Throughout the semester, I sharpened my analytic and innovative thinking skills. Working in an interdisciplinary and intercultural team and using design research methods to get to know the users and their needs allowed me the opportunity to improve my communication and collaboration competences in many different ways. I gained confidence in my abilities, professionalism and self-directed responsibility due to the fact my team and I didn't have lectures but were tasked with individual project work instead. I really appreciate the style of this program and the freedom it gives students- it helped me develop in many ways that normal lectures do not.
