Luke Iannone
Bizwise
Project range: September 2023- November 2023
Research range: September 2023
IxD Design project involving Americans and their income. In today’s economy, there are many issues concerning a person’s income and how they can afford necessities. We researched necessary purchases (food, homes, general income) affected by inflation, as well as pre-existing solutions to the issue. From there, we theorized a website entirely run by AI to aid in starting small businesses.
Team: Luke Iannone, Arthur Ibarra
Problem Statement
Between 1985-2023, income in the USA and Canada has only increased by about 45%, while prices for purchasing average housing increased by almost 800%. The average yearly income for a USA, Canadian resident was $24k, $41k, but is now $35k, $60k, but housing has changed from $47k, $75k, to $416k, $709k.
Significant of Study
Young people in Western cultures are expected to leave their birth home and purchase their own. But the studies conducted have shown that such a reality may not be a reality at all. The studies have shown that the cost of living has increased, while income hasn’t increased enough, leading to us calculating that after college, a young person will have to live with their parents for around 20 years before being able to afford the average house. Furthermore, the research shows that the advancements and improvements made to houses by “fixer-uppers” in the past have caused their prices to increase to what they are today, making living on your own an unrealistic fantasy unless you make 6 figures.
Research Sources
● Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the United States: The BLS provides extensive
data on occupational employment and wages, including information on entry-level
salaries for various professions.
● Government Statistics: Many other countries have their own government agencies
that collect and publish labor market data, including average
incomes for recent graduates.
● Higher Education Institutions: Many colleges and universities also collect and
publish data on the starting salaries of their graduates by major.
● Online Job Boards: Websites like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Indeed often provide
salary information for specific job titles and locations.
● Salary Surveys: Various organizations and consulting firms conduct annual salary
surveys and publish reports on salary trends, including those
for recent graduates.
● Economic News Outlets: News outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and
Bloomberg often cover labor market trends, including recent graduate incomes.
Persona
Conclusions from Research
Upon the completion of our research, we began to narrow our project down, considering instead how people could easily start their own businesses. We did this due to the fact that, in order to solve the inflation issues affecting housing, food, cars, rent, and more, we would have to reform the entire economy of the USA. Thus, instead of trying to solve how to decrease prices, we focused on how to increase income. We began to build a prototype for what would become our final idea: a website powered entirely by AI that helps educate people with an online class-by-class system to start their own business.
Initial Site Concepts
Small Business/Financial Literacy: Interactive videos allow people the option to choose whether they want to focus on, let's say, how to start their own small business (they follow a set of video scenarios) or if they want to learn how to be overall financially literate.
Specific algorithm (AI) that will guide and suggest user-specific learning content for the user based on what they are looking for/what choices they make.
What if the user is someone interested in becoming a small business owner? The video will change and evolve according to that. Now they’re watching a video of someone like them interested in becoming a small business owner and learning about their experience and decisions and overall becoming educated through their eyes.
After each video, the user is given either a set of options or “paths” to guide the scenario based on the user’s decisions, or a quiz to test the knowledge of the topic.
If the user gets a question wrong, they are brought back to a certain part of the video so they are repetitively learning.
The goal is for the user to follow through with the videos and quizzes, slowly learning more and more, eventually becoming more financially literate or starting their own small business.
They will also see how real-world current events issues may affect a small business such as COVID and see how the business owners can overcome those challenges in the best way possible.
Final Prototype
The final website concept can be viewed and interacted with at the link below.