Speculative Design | The Value of a Commute

Does your mode of commuting reflect your values? How might it be different if it did? What could that time spent commuting offer you? And why is the healthiest choice so rarely the easiest choice?

These are among the questions Inhauck Choi, Ambika Ramesh Menon, Ruthvik Panchaksari and Jesse Yu, a team of students from the University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering’s master’s program, wrestled with for a capstone project we sponsored.

The result: a speculative design exercise that invites you to reflect on  individual commuting choices, the alignment with values and preferences, and how individual choices affect transportation infrastructure and vice-versa. The team gathered user perspectives, designed several interventions and built prototypes of future artifacts. You can check it all out at The Value of a Commute.