A4StormDrain

A4StormDrain

To-Do

1. selection process: choose one of the design methodologies (not yet taken by another group) from the list (and mark it as chosen by editing the wiki page with the list of options — “first come / first served”)
2. do research (read papers, interview software designers, analyze existing systems—hint: the abovementioned wiki site contains references to resources) and answer the following specific questions for your chosen design methodology:

Define your chosen design methodology.

Professional-dominated design is when the professionals creating something, overlooking what is really needed by the user. The professionals create something for them and for their needs rather than looking at what is really needed by the users as a whole. While the product looks and works great for the professional, it’s not suitable for the user. As an example, when you, the professional, write a program, you know exactly how to use it. You know ever feature inside and out. If you give it to someone else though, they might be completely lost in how to do anything with it. Since you wrote the code, you know how everything works, but you made a bad user interface, so the program is nearly unusable by anyone else. You designed it with you in mind, not the user.

Characterize your chosen design methodology.

Professional-dominated design was used heavily before User-Centered Design took hold. This was a “major step forward in HCI”, because professional-dominated design “ignored real user needs and capabilities.” (Source: http://swiki.cs.colorado.edu:3232/CHI07Design/)

Professional-dominated design often ignores the needs of non-professional users, which may prevent designs from reaching a wider audience: “The need for a ‘science of design’ goes beyond technology professionals: it must also reach today’s learners. To address the national shortage of information technology professionals, we must attract more youth to the IT field, specifically women and minorities.” (Source: http://swiki.cs.colorado.edu:3232/CHI07Design/uploads/5/koch_etal.pdf)

What are the strengths of your selected methodology?

Professional-dominated design caters toward the high level users and design team. These designs are very beneficial to these specific users because they know the interface very well and are able to quickly navigate and accomplish required tasks. This works well for businesses that need software designed specifically for their company where only a very limited number of users work with the program. The software can be catered to deal with the specific needs of the company making these processes much more fluid and easy to handle.

What are the weaknesses of your selected methodology?

Since these interfaces are designed without the end user in mind it takes much longer for a new user to learn to use these interfaces and pull the full potential from a program. Because the design is so specific to the professional user and specific tasks it cannot be easily applied to other similar task which it was not specifically designed for. This limits the distribution of the software and requires redesigning of the interface for it to be used efficiently in any other setting than that which it was designed for.

For what domains or problems is your selected design methodology appropriate?

Since professional-dominated design is built and implemented without the user in mind, the domain in which this design approach is most appropriate is the professionals themselves. Because the professional-dominated design is built with the notion of the artifact's functionality in mind, the user is not included in the design process and only a select group of people, possibly other professionals with the same level of expertise, would likely feel comfortable using this design. In this methodology, professional designers "engage in design methodologies founded on the belief that they understand the users' needs."("Knowledge Communication in Design Communities, by Gerhard Fischer and Jonathan Ostwald. Published in: in Rainer Bromme, Friedrich Hesse and Hans Spada (ed.), Barriers and Biases in Computer-Mediated Knowledge Communication, 1-32. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.Printed in the Netherlands. ) This means that it would be likely that a professional creates a design to achieve some purpose that in the end does not satisfy other user's needs. Therefore, while professional-dominated design is most appropriate for the professionals themselves, this design approach is clearly inappropriate in respect to a large or varied group of users.

For what domains or problems is your selected design methodology inappropriate?

See Above.

Why is design methodology important (suited) or not important (suited) for human-centered computing?

Professional-Dominated Design plays a large role in all aspects of human centered computing. Whether it be positive or negative, we cannot deny its existence in most design methodologies. While other methods may produce more user friendly products and applications, having a professional approach can help produce a more polished result. Design methodologies like user-centered design, participatory design, and learner-centered design all evolved out of a need to change the way design was being done. It is the foundation for other methodologies to build upon. We need a base method to evolve from.