FMS Client: Carpenter

Interview Agenda

Date:  3/30/2026

Time:  10:00 AM

Location:  FMS Building

Intro (Everyone): 

• We each introduce ourselves 

  • name major project 2

  • experience with carpentry 

• Ask them to introduce themselves

  • What exactly their roles are

Project Overview (Perry)

• We are making things that make your job slightly easier. 

• Due to the timeline, we will only have a medium fidelity device (4 weeks time) 

  • Specify timeline

• We are not

  • professionals

  • building a commercial product and just a prototype

  • only for you / very specific for the person

• Have a good idea of what to make by the 1st week

• No access to what they have access to (woodshops, his machines etc) 

  • If so, we need to see/touch it to plan 

What to make (Sukie & Perry)

• Questions for him 

  • What is a day like as a carpenter? 

    • Ask specifics as he describes it, such as: 

      • What tools do they use for the tasks described

      • What leads to them needing them 

        • Facility?

  • What’s one issue you ran into this morning?

  • What’s something small that constantly bugs you?

  • What tasks concern safety the most? 

  • What department did they work with? 

    • shared space? Storage?

  • Do they run into problems with communication? 

  • Who assigns them to the tasks and under what circumstances? 

  • Give a few examples of tasks and how many people are assigned to each

  • Storage of items and how they are kept, count/location

Conclusion and next steps  (Sukie)

• Thank them for their time 

•  Ask for contact

• Set up potential time to go to the shop for more testing

Meeting summary and major takeaways 

We met with the carpenter to learn more about their daily routine, work environment, and recurring frustrations so we could better identify an opportunity for our prototype. A recurring theme from the conversation was that their job involves a mix of scheduled tasks, communication with others, and frequent movement between spaces, so any solution we design should be simple, portable, and easy to integrate into their workflow.

Main takeaways

Routine

• The workday usually starts around 7:00 AM with checking in and talking to people, then moving to the Morewood shop around 7:30 AM

• They usually cannot enter student rooms until 9:00 AM, though common spaces are accessible earlier

• Their day includes service work, lunch around 11–12, and logging work information later in the afternoon

Communication & Job Assignment

• Communication happens through phones, iPads, and texting coworkers directly

• Everyone have their own Ipad which they gets their daily tasks from

• When they don't have their ipad, their phone has an app that connects to their ipad where they could get information

• Tasks are assigned and discussed during check in with his department head in the morning

• They also will get visits from other departments if they are in need

Tasks

• Tasks are categorized and are ranked in terms of urgency

• Emergencies tasks shows up on Ipad as they will also get phone calls

• Task varies from fixing door handles to leaking wall/pipes

• Tasks are across all campus areas such as the Hill dorms to fifth ave apartments

• Time on tasks starts from 1hr and then adds with 1hr intervals

• On site: They would usually visit the site first then come back for tools and bring them to site.

• Off site/In workshop: They would evaluate est. time/resource for the specific repair, then decide the best option.

Tools

• Common tools include screwdrivers, wrenches, channel locks, drills, knives, and saws

• A lot of the work involves handling small parts and materials like nuts and bolts

• Power tools are shared among the three workshops that are in the space

• Don have his own tool kit that he brings around with him

• Bigger tools are carried around in the van, which he shares with one of his coworkers

Space

• He shares the office/workspace with two other co workers (job hands)

• The floor he is on has two other workshop/office

• They are in charge of the cleaning of the space

• His stuff are very organized as he is a very organized person

Resource/Restock

• He keeps track of his own stock and he is very on top of it

• Screws are checked twice a month by a professional company

• Paint/glue are restocked regularily

• He keeps track of older/recycled material too for smaller budget jobs.

Personal Protection Equipments (PPE)

• Health service restock their first aid bin every month

• Sufficient earmuffs and headphone for loud noise

• Masks/air filtering wear are provided

• Not much situations to use PPE other than when using power tool

One of the most useful parts of the meeting was hearing about the smaller issues that come up repeatedly. These seemed more promising for our project than trying to solve a large-scale problem.

Potential opportunity areas included:

• A tool tracker

• A portable status display

• A device that could work well in awkward spaces, such as restrooms or student rooms

• Flexible attachment methods like clips, strings, suction cups, or door-mounted solutions

Overall, the meeting helped us better understand that the most valuable prototype would likely address a small but frequent inconvenience in a way that fits naturally into Don's everyday routine.

Your thoughts after holding the meeting and discussing as a team 

The meeting truly helped us to understand Don's work, especially with the chance that we get to talk to him in his workshop. We were able to start our conversation right away after we arrived at his workshop since we had a "warm-up" time on our walk to the workshop. The meeting was very effective and efficient in garthering information while also making sure his concerns are being addressed. He is a really organized person with very effective work flow that he prefers to stick with so realizing that helps us to move away from building something that assists workflow to building something that would assist him in connivance. After we realized this point, we were able to start narrowing down areas where we could potentially do something. During this process, we were also able to learn more about how he would get prepared for his on-site works and the pipeline for work preparation and after work strike. 

If we were to do this another time, we would start with asking more questions about the pipeline and the shared tools. We walked into the space with a set mindset that everything in there was used by him but that was not the reality. So, if explored further, we would include in more questions about sharing space and tools with his co-workers.