A6AntonioGonzalezWalterMahfuzMikelKingOlgaLiskin

A6AntonioGonzalezWalterMahfuzMikelKingOlgaLiskin

To-Do

please create an answer via the form for this assignment addressing the following issues:

• which was the most interesting idea/concept you learned from the article? what is the relationship of this idea/concept to your own work and own thinking?
• which is the most prominent meta-design environment you can think off? Why?
• analyze one computational environment in detail from a meta-design perspective? (if you can't think of a better one: analyze Microsoft-Word)
• argue in which sense the American constitution may be considered as a success example for meta-design

Most interesting idea/concept

The most interesting idea for us was the idea about the distinction between design time and use time. We liked the idea that in a meta-design application, the users should be able to change their environment during the use time and not just during design time. We were especially attracted by the ideas that facilitated this. To design for change or to underdesign an application during the design time are very reasonable ideas that will make an application more flexible and therefore more valuable for the users. Further, these approaches create a very lightweight application that does not have many constraints despite its complexity. To satisfy both conditions (lightweight and complex application) has been a goal for software developers for a long time and has led to the concept of agile software development where we can recognize the ideas of underdesign and design for change.
We are convinced that such approaches are very important for software development these days.

Most Prominent Example

To us, facebook is one of the most prominent meta-design environments. Facebook is a meta-design environment that millions of users use and to this day is constantly evolving. When Facebook was first conceived, all users had simply a profile and a wall. In many ways, a seed was planted in the form of a "wall". Users of Facebook began to use the walls as methods of sharing links and videos. Observations such as these and feedback sent to developers has kept Facebook continuously evolving. Now with the addition of applications, users and even businesses can tailor Facebook to their needs (diary, entertainment, messaging etc.) and can even "program" Facebook. It is this "tailoring" that Facebook's users do that makes it an evolutionary product and a prominent example of a meta-design environment.

Detailed Analysis

Analyze: LaTeX
Motto: Do not worry too much about the appearance of the documents but concentrate on getting the right content.

LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system. This software allows you to automatically create papers and other research materials, including: numbering, cross-referencing, tables, figures, page layout and bibliographies.

This software is a great example of meta-designed software, originally designed by Leslie Lamport. It evolves depending on the users needs and programming abilities. Also, if you have good programming skills you can contribute to the development of the software itself, as it is a OSS, moving from a meta-designed software to a participatory-designed software.

It also provides, in their web site, an area where users can comment and give ideas to the developing team, this covering other aspect to be a meta-designed software, in the way that not programmers can give input on the ways that the software works.

Like their motto says, just worry about the content of your document and the rest is easy, because you have designed before or somebody has done it for you, like the IEEE paper design.

American constitution as Meta-Design

The Constitution is the supreme law. It defines the very existence of the federal and local governments in the United States. One might think that for such a young country to reach this level of organization and omnipotence, a well defined and vast set of rules should be implemented. Not the case. Turns out the Constitution of the United States is notoriously short compared to similar documents from other countries (it has only been amended 27 times, the first 10 being the Bill of Rights).

The "original developers" (Congress of the Confederation) did define a certain set of laws (which can be changed by Congress or "system developers"), but at the same time they left most interpretations of the law to the Judiciary branch in order to guarantee that future generations would decide their own rules based on their current needs. To assert that the power would always belong to the "end-users" (citizens), the first few articles defined the scope of the three branches (Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary - all "system developers" in one form or another), making sure a system of checks and balances was in place. And because the citizens are the ones who elect Congress members and the president, the process of co-creation is guaranteed with self-evident rewards. The next articles in the Constitution implement amendments and ratifications procedures, which are the tools that will allow the re-seeding to take place.

As we can see from the above paragraph, the design of the Constitution takes power from itself and gives it to the users (or customers). It is true that the Constitution is not always executed as planned, but the idea that government and society is dynamic, and that rules must constantly adapt to the changes brought by time, has guaranteed the existence of this document for over 220 years. This (meta-) design allows the final product to behave as an organism that adapts itself to survive in a changing environment. Countries that adopt a more robust and comprehensive set of rules end up with huge constitutions (due to all sorts of amendments) that can be inefficient, difficult to interpret, sometimes contradictory, and every few decades in need of a new "version".