Mapping Wicked Problems: Homelessness in Pittsburgh

A Giga Map that communicates our research, analysis and potential solutions in a visually engaging way.

6 weeks
Sapna Tayal, Phoebe Lee, Helen Zhang, Juhi Kedia

Miro, Figma, User Research, Systems Thinking

Developing approaches to analyze and describe socio- technical systems. Considering the interconnectedness and patterns within systems. Identifying systems existing at different scales, and designing interventions to wicked problems.

Mess mapping

Thinking through the Homelessness crisis in Pittsburgh by itentifying possible causes, their relations to one another, and interventions aimed to target larger issues we discover.

Working with a group helped bring a wide range of ideas to the table. We came up with this rough map by bouncing ideas off each other and asking prodding questions to think about specifics more deliberately.

The truth of the sitaution at this time however, was that all of my group was fortunate enough to not have expereinced homelessness. Furthermore, none of us had lived in Pittsburgh before our shared college expereince. We found ourselves making some pretty big assumptions about this topic and struggled to find sources from the actual realy people impacted by this wicked problem

Familiarizing ourselved with feedback loops, stakeholder relationships, and historical/sociaocultural epicenters of the issue through readings and going through local documentation and news.

We used the STEEP (Social, Technological, Environmental, Economical, Political) framework to guide our research and make connections across a variety of areas.

Organizing the massive amounts of information we have collected thus far into a digestible visual format. Using the scale of an affecting factor, broken down to individual, community, and societal to further break down different aspects affecting the issue, and hinting at the scale their solution may take.

Points for Interventions

Stakeholder Map

A look into some of our findings

Sapna Tayal