Study Inquiry
How can a design intervention,
structured as a role playing activity, aid
our understanding of the factors that
contribute to how landlords choose to
accept or deny low-income tenants?
Study Structure
Our research tool will engage Pittsburgh
landlords in a series of scenarios in which
they choose a hypothetical new tenant to
accept. For this class, users will be our
peers in the School of Design who will
roleplay as landlords. In each round we’ll
add to or change the scenario, observe how
the user’s choice of tenant changes if it
does, and ask for an explanation.
Value of Study
Through our study we would hope to
uncover biases surrounding the topic
of Section 8. We will test the scenarios,
personas and questions we prepared
for real landlords, currently about
socioeconomic status, the design of the
Section 8 voucher, our Section 8+ redesign,
and community culture and values. With
what we learn from our peers, we hope
to have a better grasp of what kinds of
decision-driving factors we can test in
future interventions.