A5WeLovePeaches

A5WeLovePeaches

To-Do

1. Please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members — discuss the answers between your group members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
2. Choose a web site and claim it as yours by editing the list on the Meta-Design Sites page (first come – first served)

Describe your understanding of meta-design in your own words (not copying a paragraph from a paper or a website)

In general, Meta-design is a collaborative effort that creates a better product, service, or overall community using multiple designers in many different fields. The content is continuously improved because this collaborative effort concept fuels sustainability. When applied specifically to software design, Meta-Design is adapted so that both the user and the creator/programmer contribute to the overall process of creating a source of information. Often there is a ‘program’ left unfinished in order to allow the ‘users’ to come in enrich the content in the best way to serve the community.

Setting: you are talking to another student who is interested in design; how would you explain to her/him the strengths and weakness of meta-design as a design methodology

Well Billy, if you're interested in the different design methodologies out there, you may not want to ignore Meta-design as the one you choose for your site. Meta-design is quickly becoming a part of Web 2.0 and sites like Wikipedia and YouTube are prime examples of how the Meta-design principles have proved sucess. One of the main reasons for that success is that people drive the content of the site. If you see something missing you can add it. That wasn't an option for sites that we browsed ten years ago. The fact that users, like you, can add content to a Meta-designed site really effects where the site will go, and how the community wants to see it shaped. So you make a site about 90's electronic gaming...it turns out no one cares to talk in depth about Sega Genesis, but instead your content is rich with Virtual Boy or NeoGeo. No way could you accurately predict what content your site should serve correctly in a Web 1.0. Also, if there is a new revelation about 90's gaming that has not been heard by the whole community, a user can upload it quickly. In uploading, that user says, "Hey, your upload form doesn't accurately describe or provide inputs for the content I need to upload." Well, they can easily let you as the designer know, and then you can change that content on the fly. There are a few issues with choosing Meta-design though. First is getting together an active community that wants to talk "90's electronic gaming" in this example. It could be very well possible that you have few contributors and many consumers of your data. Those looking for reference material will start to avoid your site as they aren't finding the information they were looking for, limiting your hits. There is also the risk, without self policing by the community, that your site is bastardized by certain contributors. Of course content that has no value to a "90's electronic site" could be trimmed or deleted, but what if your site goes from talking about home entertainment systems to those old school handheld games you could buy for 10 bucks at the store? Remember, the ones that the digital "Batman" character either kicked or punched while digital enemies appeared and dissapeared on the 2in screen? Yes, it's electronic gaming, and it has a place, but not on your site that was meant to talk about NES and PSX. You may also find that your contributors in the community lead the other members astray with wrong or incomplete info. Your site would include 90's gaming like NeoGeo, and VituralBoy, but how many of your contributors have owned/played these systems? How many actually know what they're talking about? You hope that your community keeps these things in check, but likely the more obscure the subject, those with knowledge drive the content.

Which Web site did you select?

OpenEl

Analyze your chosen web site from a meta-design perspective:

The OpenEl website is a wiki for energy information of all types. The site is sponsored by NREL and The Open Government Initiative which aims for it to be the go-to wiki for all energy information. It uses an agile development process which means that any bugs or additions to the site will be supported and adapted quickly by the designers of the site. It has the framework for using the Semantic Web, which will map its content for easier indexing and discovery. Links like "What links here" and "Related changes" help the community discover more about the topics in energy they find interesting. Contributors to the site can use the "Special pages" link to help them improve the site by finding "Wanted pages" or "Orphaned pages." With the goal of energy related information it hopes to truly be a source for the best content on the web. The website was very associative with many social networks such as Facebook, Twitters, and etc. Despite the fact that the interface is not quite clean for users, the website will be quite useful to those people want to know and share about energy related resources. But since this website is focussed on specific topic, energy, we think it will be mostly a Web 1.0 website rather a meta-design website. Contributors will most likely continue to be NREL or other stakeholders until the site grows and provides in-depth information. Typing in "bio fuel" returns a basic search engine result that contains "bio fuel" in articles that do not provide exact info into what the search intended. While typing "bio fuel" into Wikipedia goes straight to a very content heavy page that is not only very extensive...but provides links throughout if one part of the article strikes interest. OpenEl would benefit from contributions by journal authors and those on the cutting edge of research. Instead of being a resource that one can type "bio fuel" into, it should instead contain content on the latest techniques of ABE fermentation or Syngas.

Please provide the names of your group members who contributed to this answer.

Leon Gibson Andrew Hepler Jason Cockerham Myhung Kim