A4TeamCacti

A4TeamCacti

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.

"Meta Design creates open systems that can be modified by their users and evolve at use time, supporting more complex interactions (rather than linear or iterative processes). Open systems allow significant modifications when the need arises. Participatory design has focused on system development at design time by bringing developers and users together to envision the contexts of use. But despite the best efforts at design time, systems need to be evolvable to fit new needs, account for changing tasks, deal with subjects and contexts that increasingly blur professional and private life, couple with the socio-technical environment in which they are embedded, and incorporate new technologies."

http://swiki.cs.colorado.edu:3232/CHI07Design

Characterize your chosen design methodology.

"Meta-design [Fischer et al., 2004] is an emerging conceptual
framework aimed at defining and creating systems as living
entities. It allows users to act as active contributors rather than
being confined to passive consumers. Meta-design extends the
traditional notion of system design beyond the original
development of a system to include an ongoing process in which
stakeholders become co-designers—not only at design time, but
throughout the whole existence of the system. A necessary,
although not sufficient, condition for users to become co-
designers is that software systems include advanced features that
permit users to create complex customizations and extensions.
Rather than presenting users with closed systems, meta-design
approaches provide them with opportunities, tools, and social
reward structures to extend the system to fit their needs."

1. Software Engineering Themes for the Future: Collaborative Design, Social Creativity, and Meta-Design by Gerard Fisher

What are the strengths of your selected methodology?

Meta-design allows tools to grow and evolve with how their user's interact with them, instead of requiring the interference of a developer to make changes. This allows systems to change organically to be more efficient. As a user gets more skilled in working (both in their job and a particular tool) their habits and patterns of use will change. If the tool was created with meta-design in mind, it will be able to grow with the person and continue to be the right tool for the job.

While developers are brought in to create tools, the users are the ones who will actually be using the system. A meta-designed system will allow those users (who know their own work best) to modify the tool to best fit their working style.

Meta-designed tools present the user with "opportunities, tools, and social reward structures to extend the system to fit their needs" (1). By integrating this user feedback the tool's lifetime and applicability are increased.

1. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/EUD-meta-design-online.pdf

What are the weaknesses of your selected methodology?

Because changes can be made by users not necessarily trained in design, they may make decisions that are not necessarily "portable" or able to be used by others. The danger is that changes made organically will not face any sort of critique process to filter out problems. If the tool in question is part of a shared environment, these changes can be harmful to other users.

Ex: a tool has a menu with a set of action related to selecting and moving text. Users can add macros to menus in this application to add functionality. User A always structures his documents in a specific way, and builds a macro that runs over his document and formats it properly. He adds this to the menu as auto-format, since he remembers it that way. Unfortunately, his macro has not been tested, and when user B tries it, it screws up their document and they have to spend hours piecing it back together.

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

1. Social Creativity: design problems require more knowledge than a single person can possess, and relevant knowledge is distributed (Fischer).

2. Open Source: an activity in which a community of software developers collaboraively constructs systems to help solve problems of shared interest for mutual benefit (Fischer). Ex: OpenGL.

3. Learning Communities: an educational model that explores meta-design in the context of university courses by creating a culture of informed participation (Fischer).

4.  Interactive Art: focus on collaberation and cocreation. This puts the tools rather then the object of design in the hands of the users (Fischer).

References:

Meta—Design: Beyond User-Centered and Participatory Design,Gerhard Fischer,University of Colorado, Center for Life Long Learning and Design,Department of Computer Science, 430 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0430 –USA, See Attachments.

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

1. Design problems where required knowledge a single person knows, and relative knowledge is not distributed.

2.  Closed Source programs where the community is not allowed to modify the source to solve problems of shared interest.

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

Meta-design is both applicable and highly important in human-centered computing. As HCC is focused on making a tool that best suits the needs of a user, meta-design offers a way to provide an opportunity for a user to create their own tool. No one knows better than the end user exactly what they need from a tool. By initially under-developing the software, more work is invested in making the project flexible and extensible, thus allowing the end user to employ problem specific designs rather than being forced to work with what is already there.

Still, meta-design is only appropriate in some given circumstances. For instance, if you are developing a programming environment for software engineers, you could make it almost barren and allow the engineers to make the environment into whatever they want it to be. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you are designing a program that will be marketed to people with no technical experience at all, giving them the option to create their own tools would probably confuse them to the point of them not wanting to use the program. Thus, meta-design must be focused on the end user, even to the extent of realizing that it is an inappropriate method for some products.