Co-mine
Autonomous but not anonymous
Co-mine for Komatsu
Approach
The project aimed to educate us in the field of traditional interaction design however we as a team revolutionize “traditional” part : ) During this project, we had an emphasis on HCD/UCD which we conducted interviews, participant observations, field and desktop research, and co-creation workshops/activities. We’ve been working in a human-centered method to enhance well being of future operators and redefine the mining profession itself to make it more accessible for all. We speculated the future for the industry base on qualitative and quantitative research materials.
Project Info
10 weeks
Partners: Umeå Institute of Design, Komatsu
Team: Katharia, Soh Huem, Emil, Mehmet
Focus: Professional use, Interaction Design, User Experience, User Centered Design, Design Ethnography, UX Research
Main roles in the project: UX Researcher, Industrial - TUI Designer
Solution
Our concept has ambition and purpose to explore how we can adapt technological development in the industry and still manage to put the human operators in the center of the action. We desired to develop a system that adaptable for the various regions in the globe without excluding any profile or community. We wanted to develop a system that support gender equality and challenges the framework of the industry. While doing so, our solution is putting emphasis on collaboration, teamwork, co decision-making this we aim to contribute multiple notions of human well-being for future operators. We are aimed to raise affection in the workplace by nurturing and protecting operators by exploring the newer way of connectivity and communication giving them the opportunity to able stay close to their colleagues. We have created an office environment where you can engage with your colleges and collaborate to control and plan the operation while observing mine side with tangible shape-shifting artifacts.
Problem
Improving everyday life professionals who is working in the mine zone and interacting with complicated HCI systems. Our customer Komatsu request us to develop a remote mining solution for 2030 which reduces the cognitive stress operators existing in the current model of the mining ecosystem + solution would enhance the level of affection to the work. Providing a platform allows implementing soft skills to overcome daily task base challenges. While keeping the operator part of the system in the automated future world - Autonomous but not anonymous-
”How might we design and develop a control system and interface proposal that reduces the attention required for operators to run and supervise the mining machines so that more focus can be directed towards core tasks? ”
Discover our concept.
How we created our comine project ?
MISSION
Development of new ways of communication between various professions and solving problems discovered during the UCD process. Obtain affection towards the workplace to change the mining industry thereby attracting a bigger workforce. Additionally, by nurturing participation diverse workforce we enhance the affection towards a workplace that leads into sharing responsibility, developing connections thus creating an open work environment culture.
VISION
Our vision is to empower operators to be part of a proactive environment where they have close social connection and good working conditions. Create emotional affection towards the work space and the colleagues to improve efficiency. Detection of best solution with iterative design process. Obtaining our moto in the design solution - Autonomous But Not Anonymous
VALUES
DIVERSITY
NORM CRITICISM
CONTRIBUTION TO UN
SUSTAINABILITY GOALS
KEEPING HUMANS IN THE LOOP
INCLUSIVE
Co-mine
We speculated future remote operations in a mining context. We are trying to develop new concepts and future scenarios of potential ways of working in the mining industry. Therefore, we aim to question current working conditions but also future challenges.
Our focus lies especially in creating a social work environment and to change the current perception of the mining environment and the work itself.
To achieve this core idea, we aimed adapting the technological developments but still put the human operator into center of attention.
During our design ethnography research, we find it especially important to not only prioritize human-machine-interactions but also human to human interactions which is crucial factor effecting team productivity.
Shown especially in interpersonal communication, speculating on an inclusive work space that comes in the gestalt of a table that is divided into two parts. By doing so we create environment where people learn and grow together, which we considered as a health contrast’ into profit driven work environment.During this project we aimed to challenge system itself and provide alternative solution current era.
One of the side dedicated for the planning and the other side of the mining table dedicated to micro-planning. On the micro planning section operators able to observe and work on more defined part of the extraction zone. As operator tune into different vehicle mining zone will change shape.
Within this project we faced big design challenges as we are constantly confronted with the question if we rather develop a virtual reality-based remote control option. According to our research material we decided to develop more tangible and social solution for future operators. Including a more physical experience in automatized world turned out to be characteristic in our design purposal.
3 Pillar of Co-mine
TACTILE SENSATION
The tactile sensation was one of the most obvious problems we realized. Whatever technological advancement we have, we might never achieve the tele-presence there for we involve a level of abstraction and experimentation with various haptic feedback to influence the outcome of interactions.
One of the most significant problems, was the lack of depth-perception, that the operators experienced. The stunning story we had came from Richard his experience about the remote operation. In Kiruna mines, he was part of the blasting team during his time there. He and his teammate use to make fun of how remote operators can hit the vehicle to the wall and cause various accidents. They were thinking it must be accessible and undemanding to control high technology vehicles. Later on, he had the chance to work remote operator for a short while and he quickly detected the problem it is impossible to control this machine perfectly just really on information from the screen. He had mentioned, he lost his embodiment feeling/sensation towards being in the space understating his environments. He suffered to determine distance/dept perception between various objects while controlling vehicle remotely. Moreover, he mentioned that he couldn’t really on his observation skills as well as his rock sense. We wanted to create a warm and sensual feeling to obtain this goal. We directed our solution towards tangible user interface to create dynamic interaction by providing variety of feedforward and feedback which operator can sense and touch.
Level of Abstraction
Another challenge in the project focuses on how remote control could change in the future. Is it necessary to develop a virtual reality with glasses, screens and similar options or does new technology allow us to discover new forms of information transmission? No we have to reduce cognitive stress of operators.
In this very specific case would it make sense to rethink the concept of an excavator cabin that could then be operated remotely? The other question is what this level of abstraction could look like especially when we must deal with more complex information. Here we are facing two problems. One from the dispatcher’s perspective and one from the operator’s perspective. As observed in the ethnographic research, the dispatcher had to deal with a high number of screens monitoring different information of the mine which was defined as problematic by the worker as a holistic observation is not possible. This cause immersive amount of cognitive stress for the operator. We were facing the problems in a different way within the development of our idea as remote-control causes confusion with depth of perception. Furthermore, rock sense is not simple to simulate, so relying solely on the visual perception seemed to be an unsuitable solution as it caused unnecessary machine crashes according to our interviewee who used to work in a mine. Therefore, we decided to focus on creating abstract representation of the artifact to reduce down cognitive stress operator experiences nowadays.
Social Interaction
All the interviewees mentioned their relationship within their groups and the affection towards their workplace. Focusing on social well-being in a future work environment gave us many opportunities to develop new ways of communicating as a team.
We explored various meaningful ways of direct and vocal communication, as it is made possible to reach out to your colleague not by calling via phone or texting but by actually talking to each other in person. Within this concept it is possible to enhance a certain sense of belonging which is fundamental in obtaining an affection towards a workplace. Base on our desktop research we discovered involvement of body language in emergency situations crucial that is why we wanted to create concept allows communication with some with our body language without needing any technological artifact. Additionally, given the opportunity of direct communication, participation is nurtured which is a significant aspect as well as sharing responsibility and developing connections to create an open work environment culture. The emotional affection towards workplace and the ability of applying certain comprehensive skills is reasons to enhance productivity. This is especially significant element for project since we put emphasis on codec ion making and collaboration are the alternative methods to enhance productivity of the operations.
Lets go into belly of the beast! Rest of the project curated for design progress nerds :)
Going into mines : Every things started with field research and application of User Centered Design Methodologies
Coming back from Boliden and Kiruna
Creating an inspiring atmosphere helped us stay creative and close to our gathered empirical data.
After conducting interviews, we documented and updated our visual probs / stories to enhance our progress into a more refined understanding. Reason behind that, we desired to surround us with people we are aiming to help and create embodiment presence of them with in the our room.
During this project, we have explored UCD methodology which is design method really and focus on understanding user, their identity, habits, traditions, values, surrounding, context and life conditions. It leads into successful design progress by trust our skills such analysis, reflecting and observation. It gives us opportunity to collect empirical data which we apply in iterative double diamond design progress. Our analysis and findings from the field research is core part of the project that help us to achieve embodiment involvement into project by almost felling our user next to us during the progress.
While application of this progress we realized application of UCD can be quite limitation when we try to develop product suitable solution since as designer you can easily focus on practical problem-solving aspect of UCD. To achieve some sense of liberation we may need to trust/really on emotion, apply norm creative design methods and follow more passion and experimental driven approach. Our collaborative workshop with Boliden was critical to experience norm creative design methodologies where we break down standardized user profile and reflected on how we can create inclusive environment for sustainable, productive mining industry.
When we explored UCD design methods really on understanding user their identity, habits tradition, values, culture, lifestyle, relationships and engagement with people and their environment. We can achieve constructive and helpful reach by putting trust in our skills analyzing reflection and observation. It provided us various methods to gather empirical data which we used various stage of double diamond progress. Our analysis helps us achieve embodiment involvement into project by almost felling them over next to us while we are advancing further in design progress.
Testing + creating having ton of fun :) Conducting Wizard of Oz , we explored various future scenarios work flow and possible story lines-user case. Additionally, we tested HMW/what if cases to reflect on tactile sensation/level abstraction
With analysis various haptic feed forward-inhered feedback interaction to generate rock-sense machine operators posses currently. As a result we put our emphasis tangible interactions and various form study while reflecting aesthetics of interaction design and what is form in IxD. Core reasoning of these experiments where explore interaction sequencing, feedforaward- feedback, affordances and various modalities of interactions.
Professional user life is multi layered, adding into that mine zone can lead into complicated work environment which can lead into complex social issues. To be able to handle this ecosystem we conducted systematic digging required to understand and scope any given/defined problems. By practice of design ethnography, not only get to the root of any problem we understand any stakeholder involved in the ecosystem.
Creating concepts for professional user allows designer to consider more complicated and cognitive skills oriented products. For me it is more natural to consider technical and systematic boundaries in ecosystem when I am designing for professional user. There are various element to define invisible and visible interactions to detect and reflect on the problems operators experince and best tools to find these pressure points are STAKEHOLDER MAP and TASK ANALYSIS MAP. With help of this maps we researched touch points involves production workers to the governmental policies. By doing so we obtained clear insight on the complexity of influence different parties have on each other.
Ideation Mapping
We utilized different sketching methods to both get quality and quantity of ideas, which we presented to each other and created clusters based on categories and heat map voting.
Experience Mapping
Great way to summaries and visualize interviews research and field trips. While using tool you led your research manifest itself and evolve into visual probs and create more conversation about how to move on. It helps us clarify questions and developing clear picture of both logical and emotional connection shareholders/user/customer have between each other.
Design Fiction -Marginalized groups
Stories of people
World made saga invaluable or inward, but she prefers to engage and contribute to her environment and not accept her fate just because she is different able/ She loves to challenge her place in society and be part of various communities to get know more diverse circles. Person who, can smile in the darkest moment and ability translate her positive aura to others. She can’t hear the world as we do but her ability to use sign language and embodiment experience coming from that motivated her to develop advance body language which she try teach other by performative arts…
Task analysis map
To understand complicated schedule, we invested in operators liner workflow and their communication channels. We observed and reflected around their current workflow as realistically as possible to discover touch points which can be opportunity window or pressure points. Additional we hunted various element to define invisible and visible interactions .
User journey mapping
Tool consist of two part having interview and filming one-shot video. Interview technique which are combination of listing, reacting and observation of interviewee experience . It tool to collect story and filming for the documentation of the whole progress, giving interviewee second change to tell more comprehensive and detailed story. One of the my fav. tool to conduct in-dept interview. Additionally, It is visual summery tool for design progress and creation of conversation probs. I will use this till the end of my life even the next one :)
Future Journey Mapping
As we are designing for a future scenario it was crucial to implement this into the process already at an early stage. We created a potential future day of our interviewees.
This tool suits me really well how I approach design progress since you have to really on your (identity/culture/experience/personality/background) your assumption/intuition and solid result of your empirical research. You can fuse all you research together to speculate about future.
MID PRESENTATION: Conclusion of research phase + application of performative design methodologies
Organization of our research according to timeline for the mid presentation. This helped us to create moment of conversation with Komatsu as well as codesign workshops. During the mid presentation, we did a live demonstration of our concept through a mock-up, to help convey the concept for the audience. This allowed us to facilitate a discussion on the different aspects of our solution and how we could improve or progress from there.
Deciding final details of the Co-mine project with using tools such as interaction mapping and workflow planning…
Future Task Analysis
This method helped us to define the details of our concept. We defined micro and macro interactions of how users would engage with different scenarios. We decided detail of interaction sequence for primary, secondary and emergency situations. Additionally, we work around what are the necessary output information we have to provide to the operators for a seamless translation.
Information Mapping
Definition and organization of future workflow and shift mechanism to support collaborative and co-decision making environment. As explained during the progress Co-mine consist of two section which are micro and macro planning section. During first shift team make rough plan for the day. Afterwards, macro-plan operators take responsibility to mature that plan and prepare detailed version for one hour in the future. (BACK TO FUTURE :))).
Micro-plan operators focus on detailed configuration of automated excavation system and intervene in case of emergency.
With final aesthetics developments, we aimed to reduce coldness of technology and create warm artifact which motivates user collaboration and co decision making. At this stage we used tradition design tools CAD and sketching with emphasis on CMF additionally we focus on developing of aesthetic of interaction with help storyboards and mockups in video format.
Model making
Going crazy with Fabrication and Arduino
IN CONCLUSION
The purpose of our concept is to explore how autonomous mining in 2030 could look like. With a social connection at focus, we suggest an introduction of a collaboration mining table, called Co-mine, into the working space. By fusioning the responsibility of the operator and the dispatcher, we suggest a dynamic cooperative table, where teams of four people do joint predictive macro- and micro planning and excavation of the mine. I have to mention that the problems we are solving is complicated not complex. All the issues we dealt with are solvable problems. What makes us unique is our approach of framing problems occurring in work environment and developing a solution for both benefiting operators and company itself. We focused on the end-user, we aimed to purpose a vision to prevent dystonia future (Person wearing VR headset to perform mining operation, being in anti-social/isolated place to control excavator by pushing buttons time to time). By challenging the industry of mining; Co-mine removes the geographical + SOCIAL restrictions of the work place and attracts a bigger workforce. We believe that the future of mining is still people : Autonomous but not Anonymous