A6Makeshift_Crew

A6Makeshift_Crew

To-Do

1. study the document “Projects for the HCC Foundation Course” (in “Students’ Projects” on the Wiki)
2. select a project that is of real interest to you
3. find collaborators and form a group of peers (such a group may already exist) with whom you will work on the project
4. sign up for the project (if it is still available) on the site “Students’ Projects”
5. identify parts of the project and an initial role distribution between your team members
6. each team member should contribute
   1. a brief rational what she/he finds interesting
   2. what she/he plans to do to get started on the project

Which project did you select?

Project-2: Identification and Analysis of Existing Meta-Design Environments

Describe the parts of the project you have identified and the initial role distribution among your team members

Alberto-will look at Stepgreen. I will research about how useful this site is in communicate to users the idea of being green and ways to save money by being green. I will look into how meta-design applies to this site and how users interact with it (changing it, viewing it, etc)

Andy- will look at the Encyclopedia of Life. I will research how successful it has been, both in terms of number of users and in terms of its own goal, to provide information on every known living species. I will also look into how it fits into the context of meta design.

Anne- Will research YouTube, and iTunesU to determine user statistics and traffic. I will determine whether or not these environments were successes, and in what ways they support meta-design. I will analyze the pros and cons of the environments and their different aspects and use this information to help create guidelines for what makes a successful or unsuccessful meta-design environment.

Bobby- Will look at Google Maps, SketchUp, 3D Warehouse, and Scratch. He will compare the differences in the drawing environments, how they are applied, and determine whether or not these technologies have been a success in terms of meta-design & other environments similar to the ones being researched.

Kyla- Will look at PatientsLikeMe and crisis informatics. I will research ways in which regular people can participate in technology to the benefit of themselves and experts. I will attempt to measure the success of social networks during personal issues (PatientsLikeMe) and larger scale issues (crisis informatics). I will also look at how successful they are at getting real and relevant information to sources like medical researchers and news organizations. I will analyze how both fit in with meta-design and the ways in which they are successful and need to be improved.

Makeshift Crew- As a team, we will be meeting together to share our findings to determine if there is any correlation between the sites that we have researched. If there is, then we can further support our findings. Aside from meeting in person, we will be also using Google Wave to draft our presentation.

For each team member, provide a brief rational what she/he finds interesting

Alberto-A site in which I can read suggestions on how to save money and be environmentally friendly is interesting because it gives users the sense that they are asking their neighbors, or friends what they do. Usually this input drives people to change their ways more so because they see an example of how it helped and is helping someone else. Making this website with aspects of meta-design makes it more personal to people and will drive people to tell others how they saved money, or what they've done to be "greener".

Andy- The idea of a site which provides reliable information on as many species as possible interests me a lot, and in particular I am interested to see how the site differs from Wikipedia, and what motivates people to use it instead of Wikipedia, since that is already a pretty good source of information on different species.

Anne- I am interested in defining what makes these environments successful or unsuccessful. I am also interested in discovering what portion of the success is due to initial design and aspects of meta-design, and what portion is due to non-design factors, such as word of mouth, advertising efforts, the role of cult cultures or specific groups (ie. college students sharing on YouTube). I also am interested in what motivates a person to contribute to a meta-design site and how different intentions for contributions affect the success of the contribution. For instance, many in our class, including me, have only contributed to YouTube in order to share a video with our friends or family. We had no intention of getting a million views. Do many of the viral videos start out this way? I am interested in the success rates of all of the sites, and in determining what could have made them better.

Bobby- SketchUp/3D Warehouse is an environment that uses more carpentered design (ie. buildings with multiple angles) and is applied to maps such as Google Maps. Scratch manipulates images, music, and videos that are made and is used as an interactive video. I find it interesting that both environments evolve as more people become involved and support drawing. In the end though, SketchUp/3D Warehouse is tailored for more static images like buildings whereas Scratch is focused on the motion of dynamic images such as videos. It's also interesting that the static images used in the background in Google Maps have the a dynamic property to change the directions in the foreground or view different angles in street view similar to the fundamental idea of Scratch, which is to interact with media.

Kyla- I am interested in the ways in which technology can be used to help meet people's unique needs. Both PatientsLikeMe and the study of crisis informatics aim to give people social support during challenging times. However, they are also both useful to people who would like information about illnesses and crises. I would like to research what compels people to contribute to these environments and how trustworthy the information is. Since there is no one specific "crisis informatics site," I also would like to research the development of crisis informatics and the ways in which an environment such as PatientsLikeMe could be useful in spreading reliable information in crises. If it is indeed the way of the future that information about important and life-changing events will be spread over the internet, what are ways in which meta-design could ease this transition and make it viable?

For each team member, provide a statement of what she/he plans to do to get started on the project

Alberto-I will visit Stepgreen (and perhaps create an account on the site) and look at all the aspects of the website to see what people have suggested and what people say about those suggestions. I will look at the aspects of meta-design used in this website and take note on how those help in making this website useful to people.


Andy- I will start looking at the site and getting an understanding of the basics of how it works, and compare some Encyclopedia of Life articles to those on Wikipedia.


Anne- I will visit iTunesU, and read about how it works. I will try to see if I there are any lectures relevant to my classes, or if there are lectures I would have downloaded for fun if I had realized what iTunesU was (depending on what a lecture is about, this could be similar to audiobooks). Do you have to pay for lectures? Have a password to get to them? I will then try to find out what the traffic has been like and see if I can get some news stories describing the success of iTunes U. I will then do the same for YouTube, though for YouTube it will be more about finding statistics for traffic and trying to find out what proportion of the videos are for what. I'll also try to find some old articles about YouTube to try to figure out what the original vision was for the site, which will help support or refute the argument that meta-design helps environments grow beyond what the designers ever imagined.


Bobby- He will explore the websites first and compare the two environments. He will also look at news and blogs on the two environments and where they have been applied. For example, the biggest application of SketchUp/3D Warehouse is Google Maps. Eventually, he will determine if these environments have become a success or failure between the environments and in terms of other technologies similar to the ones he is researching. In the process, he will find try to find unique projects that have been created.


Kyla- I will start by researching crisis informatics and trying to understand how recent tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings and 9/11 were impacted and changed because of technology and the internet. I will also start exploring PatientsLikeMe to find out how many people are involved and why, the original intent of the site, and how much it has so far adhered to that intent. I will look at its growth and try to understand if it has been a success or failure.

Makeshift Crew- We will meet to prepare our presentation for class and also align our group goals for the project. We will discuss how we will each go about our part and how we will fit them together.