Solar Research Check-In Week 4
We are in our fourth week of our capstone project. This blog post is an update on where we are, insights we have found, and where we are going next.
Focus Statement
What have Central Texas homeowners learned in the process of transitioning to solar energy, and what were the gaps in their expectations versus the realities of their lived experience?
Initial Findings
Below are some initial findings from our interviews with the following three participants/households:
Scott, a retired man from Wimberly who installed solar panels on his home very recently.
Peter and Nancy, a couple with one son who installed solar on their home after their experience living through the 2021 winter storm.
Pedro and Lily, a couple with three daughters who installed solar on their home after a salesperson came to their house.
1. Information about climate change is learned passively throughout their lifetime.
The participants that we have interviewed struggle to think of the specific times they first encountered and learned about the problem of climate change. But when they dig deep, they recall the points in time at which they saw a show, read a newspaper article, or had a conversation with a friend that framed their understanding of climate change. These points in time occur all throughout their lives, passively informing their opinions and the choices they make.
For example, Pedro tried to recall what influenced his early perspectives on climate change, and struggled to come up with one defining moment.
“I mean, I grew up with Captain Planet and stuff [...] I remember one conversation I was having with my roommate. In college, we were talking about climate change. [...] but I can't think of when I was convinced that climate change is bad?” - Pedro
In contrast, Nina had some experience learning about climate change from her job,
“[As a marketing researcher] I get to listen to podcasts about solar. Amazing! I think [installing residential solar] was one of the key things that instantly made sense to me because I had that background.” - Nina
When asked if there was a specific climate event is evident in his mind.
“Oh, no, this has been gradual [...] It's just been on my mind forever.” - Scott
2. A catalyst event can trigger someone who is passively learning about solar energy into being actively committed to installing solar panels on their home.
Peter and Nina experienced living through the winter storm of 2021 for four days without electricity. In our conversation with them, Nina recounted staying at their friend’s house in close quarters:
“It was the two of us with our son, and our two dogs, in a two bedroom apartment, with a man who has his own cat. And it was a lot! I'm glad we're still friends.” - Nina
Overall, they were primarily concerned for their young son, who was frightened due to the uncertainty of the situation.
While they were in their friend’s living room, they googled solar companies and started making calls, knowing it could provide them a backup system should their house ever lose electricity from the grid again. Their desire to avoid another power-less situation led them to committing to and installing solar less than a year later.
“I think our bottom line was, we never want what happened last February to happen again." - Nina
Recruiting & Next Steps
We plan to interview 12 participants by April 22. We have used a variety of recruiting methods such as:
Emailing solar businesses for referrals.
Posting on online forums.
Leaving flyers at houses with solar panels.
To date, we have:
Completed 4 interviews.
Scheduled 5 interviews.
Engaged with 3 other participants who are in the process of booking an interview.
Met with a Subject Matter expert.
Our next steps will be to continue recruiting participants, and secure interviews with the 5 participants pending booking. As we gather data from our interviews, we will continue to expand and develop our growing list of themes.
Work produced by Olivia Posner, Jacob Pfeifer, & Patricia Nuñez
Solar Research Check-In Week 3
Focus Statement
What have Central Texas homeowners learned in the process of transitioning to solar energy, and what were the gaps in their expectations versus the realities of their lived experience?
Initial Findings
Below are some initial findings from our first interview with Scott, a retired man from Wimberly who installed solar panels on his home very recently.
1. Trust is valuable when buying into solar power.
When Scott was looking into the logistics of installing solar panels on his house, he reached out to several contractors. From then on, he started receiving a large number of emails from salespeople. Scott didn't like that the conversations were more about financing than solar. Scott eventually found a contractor that he liked, and to his surprise, the contractor said that Scott's home was not fit for solar energy. After that, Scott put off solar for five years - convinced it wouldn’t work for his home.
One day, he went to visit a friend, who had installed solar on her home, which convinced him again that it could work for him. Because he received a recommendation from a friend - he was all in, and decided to re-start his solar journey. The company she recommended almost received the status of extended friend - he trusted them completely and did not do any additional research as they were guiding him through the process.
“It is very hard to trust these people that are advertising. […] You can’t hardly trust anything that comes across your phone [...] so actual human conversation is much nicer.”
2. Seeing the visual representation of energy use made him more aware of his impact.
Scott is OBSESSED with his solar tracking app, Enphase. As a retired man, he has a lot of free time, and looks at the app all throughout the day. Because he is constantly checking the app to learn about how his home produces energy, he has gamified his home’s efficiency. One time, he became bewildered when he realized how much energy his dryer uses.
Overall, the app has really expanded his understanding of energy use; and being able to see that information visually has put everything into perspective. While it is not the reason why he became invested in solar, the app has become a useful side effect of the installation.
“So notice that right now we're producing 2.2 kilowatts. We're consuming only .6. We love that. That’s very little…I've never I've never gotten it down to zero. What the hell is it looking for?”
Recruiting & Next Steps
We plan to interview 12 participants by April 22. We have used a variety of recruiting methods such as:
Emailing solar businesses for referrals.
Posting on online forums.
Leaving flyers at houses with solar panels.
To date, we have:
Completed 1 interview.
Scheduled 2 interviews.
Engaged with 5 other participants who are in the process of booking an interview.
Our next steps will be to continue recruiting participants, and secure interviews with the 5 participants pending booking. As we gather data from our interviews, we will continue to expand and develop our growing list of themes.
Work produced by Olivia Posner, Jacob Pfeifer, & Patricia Nuñez
A Little Bit of Zine All of the Time
This zine asks the reader to take a macro dose of “Modern Medicine” and head into the power driven narrative of the internet (as inspired by Jonathan Harris’s article by the same name). The zine reflects on how our collective behavior has shifted when users feel safe and untouchable behind their platforms of choice. The zine suggest that users can demand companies create positive behavioral change, and software engineers can demonstrate their influence to yield positive change.
Other articles and videos referenced include George Aye’s talk at SXSW 2018, “The Designers Weakness” and “Toward a conversation on digital resistance” by Black Quantum Futurism.
What is Design Thinking… the zine!?
Image to be read left to right, row by row.
Welcome! Please feel free to take a look at my very first AC4D creative deliverable…a zine that explores the topic, what is design thinking? In the first two weeks of our Theory class, we have been engaging with readings from authors that theorize human centered design, its capability to solve through co-creation, and its downfalls of unintended consequences and exclusivity.
My intended audience is anyone new to design thinking (hi!). I tried to capture the essence of some of the key theories we touched on in our initial reading, and best practices for inclusive design we learned about in modern readings. I wanted the reader to see the diversity in theory by seeing diversity in the ways the ideas were displayed (collage, word art, etc.) Let me know if you happen to think, “wow, design thinking looks like a field with a lot of diverse ways of communicating, and I want to learn more about it!” That’s what I was going for.
Design Research 101
If there was one aspect of the AC4D program I was looking forward to most, it was getting a chance to implement the design research process. What is design research? It is learning from people in the context of their lives to obtain emotional insight, build narrative, and create value. In our AC4D orientation week, we focused on bite sized lessons followed by hours long working group sessions to build our own “fast and furious” attempt at design research. Here’s my understanding of the process paired with some insights gained from our directive: explore the topic of mental and physical health of frontline workers.
Step 1: Identify participants and develop a focus
In our respective groups, we gathered a list of frontline workers we know and love to talk with about their experiences. Our group consisted of healthcare workers (doctors, residency students, a dentist, a physician, a pharmaceutical worker, and a physical therapist) as well as a vaccine manufacturer. Our group brainstormed open-ended questions to develop a focus, which became we are researching how the relationships that frontline workers have (both in and outside of work) influence their physical and mental health.
Step 2: Create questions to gain insight on the research focus
Timed brainstorming sessions became the method of choice for our group this week. Developing a list of open-ended questions was a step that frankly deserved more time than we had to give. But when the theme of orientation is “fast and furious” – deliberation falls by the wayside. We decided to ask three key basic questions and developed a series of follow up questions in response. We wanted to understand a little about the following:
How healthcare workers spend their time (and wish they could spend their time) between shifts.
Who is important in their lives, and how work impacts their relationships with those people.
Who they work most closely with and how that relationship has changed with covid.
Step 3: Interview the research participants
In one afternoon, we interviewed eight participants back to back, pushing the limits of what a Sunday afternoon typically looks like. With one interviewer and one notetaker, we held short but meaningful conversations with these frontline workers. Our follow up questions managed to dig a little deeper, however we ran into a few instances where interviewees were asking us to clarify what we were looking for. However, I’m learning that designers are really working from a mindset of “no right answers,” so in order to get genuine “nuggets” of information from their participants, it is necessary to reassure them that whatever comes to mind is most helpful. Another trick we learned was to ask someone to tell us about a time when. For example, after asking “who is most important in their lives,” we asked the follow up, “tell me about the last time you spent time with them”. Overall, the value they provided helped us gain some valuable insights that we took to the next stage of our process.
Step 4: Synthesize insights based on interview “nuggets”
After reflecting on main themes from each interview and transcribing all interviews, we had a very large stack of printed “utterances” (or statements from our interviews). We learned a bit about pairing off statements with an “inferred likeness” and how to develop a connection statement - or what bonds those two statements. After separating many of our utterances, we were able to see several main themes develop. Some of ours included:
Participants long to be with family
Shared experiences sustain the healthcare workers we talked to
The toll of work can cause loss in relationships
Coworker relationships have become integral to their daily survival
From these insights, we could see some of the joyful and difficult aspects of the relationships that our healthcare workers sustained. We understood that in all cases, they relied heavily on several key people in their lives; and in some, that their co-workers had a shared understanding of working on the frontlines that was irreplaceable.
Step 5: Develop provocative insights based on your insights
The first piece of developing provocative statements was asking “why” following each insight. Then, zeroing in on a potential answer to that question, which can serve as a jumping off point for the next step in the process. The following questions were leveraged into (semi) provocative statements that allow us to begin to understand why our interviewees felt a certain way.
Why do participants long to be with family? They can be themselves and feel comfortable around family.
Why do shared experiences sustain the healthcare workers we talked to? They see some shit that the rest of us don’t understand because we don’t live and breathe it like they do.
Why does the toll of work cause loss in relationships? It is painful to lose a piece of yourself when giving an inordinate amount to your job.
Why have coworker relationships have become integral to their daily survival? Coworkers are a part of the team and help shoulder the burden.
Step 6: Develop many ideas that can address your provocative statements
At this stage, we had a lot of great insight, a few provocative statements, and a long way left to go. We used timed brainstorming once again to come up with nearly 300 ideas that we liked to act as solutions to our provocative statement. Here’s the secret: not all of them were good. In the “fast and furious” spirit, we developed many really bad ideas such as a petting zoo to help boost the morale of healthcare workers. With our few (potentially) good ideas, we placed them in a grouping as top choices that could be developed as actionable prototypes.
Step 7: Prototype your top idea and user test
After we finally narrowed down our top idea - a quick and easy way for healthcare workers to thank their colleagues. With the amount of time we had left in our orientation, we opted to keep our solution simple - an interface on healthcare worker computer systems that would allow e-card thank you notes to be sent between colleagues and an icon on the computer/system to display a thumbs up so healthcare workers could be reminded throughout their day of the positive notes they have received from colleagues. Ultimately, I know we will experience a much fuller scale iteration of future projects at AC4D, and I really look forward to understanding how prototypes are developed and refined in that process.
Overall, this initial orientation week has left me with a lot to look forward to throughout my time at AC4D. I am really interested in diving into this process with multiple iterations, and in all its messiness, retaining some valuable insights that can carry us forward to positive solutions.