By From campus halls to lecture walls and the systems California State Universities use, discussions of Artificial Intelligence remain abundant, fueled by speculations of power and fear.
For nearly two years, one senior-level user experience design course at Long Beach State has harnessed this conversation, to further the development of “technology for good.”
According to Department of Design Chair Debra Satterfield, a designer in UX seeks to support users intuitively in their use of virtual spaces.
The work of UX designers is evident in all online design, ranging from the structure of digital applications to everyday uses of social media and even the visual presentation of this article.
In an effort to further this study, Satterfield established a research partnership in August of 2023 called “AI COLLAB” between the course, Designing for User Experience (Design 481) and the International Society for Service Innovation Professionals.
ISSIP is a non-profit, global community of over 1,800 that partners with academic institutions on a global scale to evaluate the benefits and harms of innovative technologies. AI COLLAB and the ISSIP’s focus is on artificial intelligence
To Shelby Trainor, a fourth-year design student and participant of the first Design 481 cohort that collaborated with ISSIP in the fall of 2023, her time in the AI COLLAB study furthered her interest in the field and provided her with professional experience.
During her time there, Trainor said she proposed design solutions to the ISSIP website, worked alongside established professionals and conducted research studies that analyzed the harms and benefits of AI for its users.
“At first, my whole class, we looked at the website, researched it, trying to understand their mission. That wasn’t inherently clear at first – what is this society, what do they do?” Trainor said. “Then, [we] connected them to proposed solutions.”
Trainor and her cohort developed what are called “personas” in the world of design: a curated, fictional user of the ISSIP website that could benefit from a more streamlined user experience.
One “persona” Trainor created was Claire Beam, a 20-year-old software engineering student at the University of Chicago who is aspiring to work for a company in Silicon Valley.
“I was shooting [that the website] should add a student section, so that younger professionals can be less intimidated to join, showing that everyone can join,” Trainor said. “They have implemented some of these changes, making it clear for the membership – what are the benefits.”
Trainor and other students shared the connection between their suggestions for the website and the benefit their created personas would get if the suggestions were made to ISSIP executives like Co-Founder Jim Spohrer, in efforts to help the company empathize with its users.
Now, the website lives on with student suggested changes, like Trainor’s student section and the search bar’s placement in the top right corner.
“I wouldn’t say companies come in and ask students to do work for them. I think it’s good because it’s young, fresh eyes, the next generation,” Trainor said. “It was great to see your work being listened to, and then actually shown.”
Once Trainor and her class completed the course, they received a certificate titled “ISSIP Knowledge Sharing – Eminence Badge” to display on their LinkedIn.
According to Satterfield, experiences like Trainor’s are what AI COLLAB was meant to foster.
As the ISSIP AI COLLAB Lead and Partnership Organizer, Satterfield said the collaboration’s purpose is to provide students with opportunities to engage with industry professionals and to gain experience within the multidisciplinary field of UX.
She said her students get the benefit of getting to doing research, presenting it and then discussing their findings.
“As designers, we work with different industries,” Satterfield said. “We might work in financial tech, we might be working in non-profit spaces – working with a different organization like ISSIP that has different working professionals, from healthcare to financial to high tech, it gives my students a chance to learn and be mentored.
This screen capture from the YouTube video, “20240730 Jim Spohrer OpenSource AI Digital Twin Project Video” displays an AI generated likeness of ISSIP Co-Founder Jim Spohrer speaking on how a digital twin allows a version of him to persist into the future. The project, completed by ISSIP 2024 summer intern Arnay Bhatia, is one of many from AI COLLAB. Photo Courtesy: Jim Spohrer
Since Trainor’s cohort, semester-long partnership trials have spanned from a pilot project using AI to creating short videos to the curation of guidebooks for ISSIP volunteers and service roles.
Now, according to ISSIP Executive Director Michele Caroll, Long Beach State students are currently underway this spring to create a Service Innovation course using AI.
Former documentations, and future projects for the AI COLLAB study can be found on ISSIP’s website.
