By Jordan Falby.
As the Sustainable Communities Intern, most of my work for CSW has been in support of the Detroit Jobs Alliance (DJA) initiative. I focused on collecting data about the workforce development system in Detroit and its surrounding areas as well as assisting with the creation of the GRID, a directory of workforce development service providers.
As a current graduate student, this is the largest, most detailed project I’ve ever participated in and it has been an invaluable learning experience. I was delighted to make use of my newly acquired contextual inquiry skills by interviewing many stakeholders in the Detroit workforce development system over the summer, conducting research that is not only informative to CSW but will soon be available to search through using the GRID. I honed my research skills through a series of interviews, surveys, and questionnaires which contributed to the design of the directory as well as provided the majority of its content. It was an eye-opening experience learning first-hand about the world of workforce development and how vital it is to the residents of Southeastern Michigan.
The design phase of the GRID project was especially relevant to me as a student at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) studying human-computer interaction. The chance to work with developers at each stage of the project continues to be one of the highlights of my internship and has taught me many important lessons about how this kind of iterative design works in the real world, outside of academic settings.
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