A7MakeshiftCrewPlusOne

A7MakeshiftCrewPlusOne

To-Do

• describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project
• describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project

The most important themes from our lectures that are relevant to our project on meta-design include an "under-designed" seeded idea designed by the developer and/or user that is constantly evolving with the help from users and will eventually be re-seeded in the information space under the SER model, comparing/contrasting the spheres of meta-design and other methodological designs under human centered computing, open source software (OSS) systems, web 2.0 technologies (ie Google SketchUp + 3D Warehouse + Earth, Wikis, and Second Life), and continued design that is in use fostered by social support among community members (Lecture 10 & Lecture 12).

The effects from the main themes and implementation of meta-design include:

IKEA effect: The user can feel a sense of pride with his creation and therefore will value it more by being connected to the product or idea. "The experience of having participated in the creation of a solution makes a difference to those who are affected by the solution. People are more likely to like a solution if they have been involved in its generation."

Motivation: Intrinsic motivation is critical in the framework for participating in meta-design "because participation cannot be enforced, only encouraged, fostered, and supported (Lecture 10 & Extending Boundaries with Meta-Design)." The study of motivation is therefore a key aspect of meta-design. if the users are not motivated to participate in shaping the environment, the environment will be sure to fail.

Domain-oriented design environments (DODE): In order for the SER model to be implemented correctly, domain-oriented systems must be designed for evolution that match the audience's needs of a particular domain. This means that the designers are aware of the user's needs and must initially create a multi-faceted architecture (specifically socio-technical environments) that allows "emergent behavior." In effect, the software systems would contain mechanisms that allow end-user modification in the system's functionality and drive its evolution when end users experience deficiencies (Lecture 10). These mechanisms that allow the user to modify the system's functionality is assumed to be easy to do with basic, low level interactions with the environment (Lecture 5). The control of the designer is therefore divided and redistributed to allow active contributors (Lecture 9). The division of power creates a reflective community from the "network of specialists from different disciplines working as a team (Lecture 5)."

Wisdom of the Crowds (Mass Collaboration) vs. Sensationalism: The wisdom of the crowds has been utilized in creating such successful meta-design environments as Wikipedia and open-source software. In an increasingly specialized world, it is recognized that no person can possibly know everything and there is effectively a "symmetry of ignorance" in any interacting group. This means that those collaborating on a project each come to the table with knowledge that all of the others might be missing. Together, people can each contribute different strengths, making a more successful product. With meta-design, the designers effectively recognize that even a whole team of product designers lack knowledge about certain things, and thus must have a "distributed cognition" by allowing the users to take part in the design of the artifact in order to take advantage of the knowledge that the users possess (Lecture 3).

There is a potential downside in the coherence of the artifact by letting the crowd contribute. With so many editors on an artifact, the coherence can be depreciated into streams of consciousness of all the editors. An example are certain articles on Wikipedia. Sometimes the editors edit it so much that it is hard to follow and ambiguous. Other times there is more than one article relating to the same subject. Another example is when reputable news sources such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Online have comment sections available to readers. There are usually some intelligent comments about the particular article, but much of the comment board eventually degenerates into sensationalist remarks and political name-calling, which detracts from the main article. Once one heated or loaded remark is posted, other posters get entrenched in their own biased views. This demonstrates one of the merits of continuing to maintain a Web 1.0 aspect to the dissemination of news. The article author, who works at WSJ, has his real name attached to the article. He is therefore professionally responsible for all he says. Not so for those that comment on the story. Also, any reader can determine the tone of the article on WSJ and decide for himself whether he agrees with the author or thinks he is biased. People will still form their own opinions based on the articles, and they may be biased, but it is hopefully a more carefully thought out opinion, rather than one created during an online yelling match between Obama haters and Obama supporters.

Past Lectures:
9/13 (Lecture 5) - Less Is More: Human Computer Interaction and High-Functionality Applications
9/22 (Lecture 8) - Design Methodologies [3rd Generation of Design Methods]
9/27 (Lecture 9) - Meta-Design: A Framework for the Future of End-User Development (EUD)
9/29 (Lecture 10) - The Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, Reseeding (SER) Model
10/4 (Lecture 11) - Cultures of Participation
10/11 (Lecture 12) - Richer Ecologies in Participation

Future Lectures:
10/13 (Lecture 13) - Social Creativity
10/25 - Application Domain 3D Modeling: SketchUp, Building Maker, 3D Warehouse and Google Earth (Guest Lecture: John Bacus- Application Domain: 3D Modeling)
11/10 - Meta-design Environments for Energy Sustainability
12/8 - Computational Environments for Human-Centered Computing: Going Small + Large + Everywhere

describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

Contributors vs. Lurkers: This concept of a lurker vs. a contributor was touched on a little bit in class, but the effects of having a small group of contributors and many lurkers has not been fully examined. Serial contributors to an environment will shape the environment. The lurkers have effectively no voice, since they are not contributing. This means that an environment could be transformed into something that a lurker may not prefer. The lurkers are likely people who, for this particular system, would not like to put forth the effort and want to simply use the service. It can be argued that since this crowd is usually significantly larger than the contributing crowd, they are the ones who should end up satisfied with the system. Systems like Amazon have struck a nice balance. Those who don't wish to write reviews do not need to write on in order to use the site in a very effective manner, and Amazon has designed the site to give recommendations and statistics to any shopper who shops with them. The contributors do not take over the site, but add to it in a helpful way. The reason this works is because Amazon maintains a lot of the control over the website and continues to develop features for all users. The result is usually a statistic designed to help the buyer make a more informed choice or make additional choices based on trends.

There is potential in an environment, however, to have the contributors completely change the atmosphere of the site. This could happen on Facebook, since the news feed is populated by activities of contributors. Most users forget that their lurker friends use Facebook, because they are never featured on the News Feed or the status updates.

Meta-designers listening to the crowd: It is always a pleasure for the majority of the users of a website if the meta-designer listens to what the people want and makes a change in that direction. There appears to be a tricky balance between listening to what the people want and trying something that will expand their boundaries. This dichotomy can easily be seen on Facebook. Marc Zuckerburg will occasionally redesign the layout of Facebook, change the way privacy works, or add new features. Every time this has happened, the News Feed (a product of one of these changes that was initially regarded as creepy and unwanted) is flooded with people complaining about the change and wanting to go back to the way things were. However, they eventually quiet themselves and adapt, unless the issue is about privacy. In some cases the privacy issues got escalated above the News Feed. Does the adaptation happen just because the people know that they cannot change it, or does it happen because people learn that they like the change and embrace it? It can be argued that adaptation has happened for both reasons for the different changes. People seem to have embraced the News Feed. It was once described as intrusive and creepy, but now people like that they can comment on a picture their friend posted without having to go to their friend's page to see if pictures were posted. It facilitates much more interaction. However, some changes to the layout are still counter-intuitive, and people just deal with them. Also, many of Anne's friends, including herself, have deleted many of their interests since the introduction of a linking page that apparently puts a user's name on a page for that interest, regardless of her privacy preferences. The Invitations to groups and applications were seen as a nuisance by Anne and her friends, and they had to delete them to ignore them. But people constantly receive application request, because many applications require people to invite friend before the application can be used. Zuckerberg seems to have recognized this problem, and now the invitations page is denoted by a small icon on the home page. Anne has never looked at her invitations again, but still sees news that other people are using applications like Farmville. How does Zuckerberg decide when to listen to the people and when to make changes, like the News Feed, that will expand the users horizons? Which choices will make or break a website?

Other Application Domains for Meta-Design: Our group would also like to investigate meta-design applications that are not related to the internet or the computer. What examples of meta-design exist outside of the internet? Could the study and improvement of meta-design make all types of design better? Is it even practical to involve people in the design of physical things the way meta-design hopes to involve people in the design of programs and websites?

Differences between Meta-Design Environments and What Ties them All Together: Our example websites all use meta-design to varying degrees. Although we have many ideas for large concepts of meta-design, what is a practical definition? Is there any definite way to tell if something is meta-design or simply design? We would like to explore all of our sites and try to find out what the common themes of meta-design are in terms of actual working examples. 

Authors of this document are the Makeshift Crew plus one:

Alberto Aranda
Andy Truman
Anne Gatchell
Ho Yun "Bobby" Chan
Kyla Maletsky
Michael Schneider

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Works Cited

Fischer, Gerhard. "Extending Boundaries with Meta-Design and Cultures of Participation." http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2010/nordichi-paper.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 10 October 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. Lecture 5: "Less is More: Human Computer Interaction and High-Functionality Applications." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 5/L5-buxton-less-is-more-Sept13.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 26 September 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. Lecture 8: "Design Methodologies." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 8/L8-design-method-sept22.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 10 October 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. "Lecture 9: Meta-Design: A Framework for the Future of End-User Development." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 9/L9-meta-design-sept27.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010 . 28 September 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. Lecture 10: "The Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, Reseeding (SER) Model." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 10/L10-SER-Sept29.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 10 October 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. Lecture 11: "Cultures of Participation." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 11/L11-cultures-of-part-Oct4.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 10 October 2010.

Fischer, Gerhard, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick. Lecture 12: "Richer Ecology of Participation." http://xwiki.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/HCCF2010/Lecture 12/L12-richer-ecologies.pdf . Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 2010. 10 October 2010.