After skimming through different research papers conducted by the department for traffic and infrastructure of the Arbeiterkammer there was one paper left that I chose to do a deep dive on: Unterwegs zwischen Erwerbs- und Familienarbeit (Commuting between waged work and family work). This particularly stood out to me, as I can already imagine that people who tackle duties of care on top of work are facing exceptional challenges when commuting.

Gender gap in commuting

Amongst an in-depth analysis of commuting habits, also focusing on a case study in lower Austria, the report also explores the different situation for commuters in a city in contrast to rural areas. Considering employees who have care related responsibilities outside of their workplace a significant difference between men and women can be noticed. With men only participating in care and family work for 17,6 hours a week, women spend 32,1 hours a week of their time for these duties. Furthermore, the difference between rural areas and cities can once again be observed.

For whom to serve

For the sake of defining the user group of my research project women with care responsibilities living in a rural area, and working outside of their home municipality could potentially outline a possible primary persona. However, for now I haven’t had the chance to dive deeper into the topic of inclusion. I will take this with me to the next semester to explore commuting possibilities and obstacles for people with accessibility needs. I could imagine that this part might even make more sense as a seperate research project, nonetheless it’s important to have a look into the topic.

Overall Conclusion

As I have already mentionend in the introduction part of this entry I put a lot of focus on understanding transit and mobility with a focus on commuting as a whole. I purposefully chose not to narrow it down to the field of interaction design yet. Considering we are supposed to think outside of silos this only adds up in my opinion. During my professional working career for example, I have already made several experiences that showed me how harmful it is to always think inside the box and never outside.

This is why I decided to approach the topic of commuting to work holistically, before going to specific into “how could a prototype look like”. I am happy that I made this choice, because diving through mobility as an overarching topic allowed me to broaden my horizon and get an educated understanding of the real challenge behind my topic.

Some more learnings from this semester

Besides expanding my understanding of mobility and transit related facts I also found some ways of nudging myself into working on this project. I thought I could share this here since it might be inspirational to my peers.

1.   Create a moodboard

Create a funky moodboard that deals with all things related to your research. Make it look cute, make it aesthetic and even consider creating it with a child-like approach. It’s a place of no judgement that allows you to get a better grasp of what exactly it is that you are doing within your research.

2.   Write down some inspirational quotes

I have a personal sketchbook that I am using exclusively for my research topic. I have one full page that only consists of some motivational quotes and manifestations.