Our Clients
numo.
numo is a technology incubator in the financial services industry. They are a team of designers, technologists, business thinkers, and academics building innovative software and data science products for a diverse portfolio of clients.
Allegheny Conference
Allegheny Conference is a non-profit focusing on community development — bridging both public and private sector leaders in the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania region to improve the area’s economic future and quality of life. The conference works across research and analysis, advocacy, and marketing to move the Pittsburgh region forward.
Our Team
Alexis China
A designer with an interest in technology and human psychology. She’s originally from small-town south-central PA but lived in Philadelphia for undergrad before entering the MHCI program. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, spending time with family, watching movies, and playing piano.
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Emily Deng
A technologist with a knack for coding, gadgets, and design. She has a special place in her heart for typography. She’s from the SF Bay Area where she traveled as an IT consultant for a data management software company. When she’s not in the MHCI lab, she’s cooking up yummy Instant Pot recipes and singing badly at karaoke.
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Jordan Jackson
Formerly a product manager and a sucker for great aesthetics & experiences, design inclusivity, and strategy. He settled in the SF Bay Area for a brief period after finishing his undergrad in 2016 and before joining MHCI. In addition to being a tennis fanatic, he enjoys photography and distance running.
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Nathan LeBlanc
A researcher hoping to connect design with anthropology. He’s from the Boston area with stints in Iowa and SF, and he was previously a UX Strategist at an agency with experience in global development and non-profits. In his free time, he plays Overwatch and enjoys drag shows.
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Radha Nath
A UX Strategist coming from agency-side with a background in project management and QA. Although she's a Florida-native who loves the water, part of her heart lives in the mountains of Colorado. She's a lover of many things, among those things: jigsaw puzzles, coffee shops, her precious pup, and all of the hiking things.
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Our Program
MHCI
Carnegie Mellon University’s Masters of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) is a three-semester professional degree preparing students for careers in interaction design, design research, and adjacent fields like product management and prototyping.
The program follows a human-centered approach to design: exploratory research to define needs, research through design, design to meet holistic needs, and evaluation of effectiveness.
The design approach to research is more exploratory and flexible than many research disciplines. This includes a foundation in exploratory qualitative research where the unexpected emerges. Research questions shift as project and design directions ebb and flow. Methodology is more fluid than many disciplines, including the use of design artifacts to understand human behaviors.
The culmination of the MHCI program is Capstone, where interdisciplinary student groups of four to six tackle a problem for a client.
In Spring semester, students conduct original research to define and investigate the issue at hand using a variety of methods. They begin narrowing their design scope and concepting solutions.
In Summer, the team iterates on designs and builds-out functioning prototypes and working products.