MSC Project 2 Progress Report 1

Our first progress report for project 2. This page will describe our progress of the information gathered on meta-design and changes to the main web page that will eventually contain our identification and analysis of existing meta-design environments. To view our progress on the project, click on this link => Makeshift Crew Project Main Page.

• A working title for your project:

    The Spectrum of Meta-Design Environments: The Correlation of Openness and Purpose

• Extend and refine the description of your project--how has your understanding of the project changed/evolved since you started?
  
  We have transformed our project to be an extended definition of meta-design. The evolution began with our frustration in trying to make black and white declarations about what is and what is not meta-design, and what is a good use of meta-design and what is not. We are now developing a concrete definition of meta-design in the form of a spectrum of mutability. Depending on the goals of the developer of a system, we propose a meta-design environment that can be more or less editable by the user. We created a mutable spectrum of existing meta-design site. This spectrum of sites, along with some comparison of similar environments with differing goals, is intended to make clear to future designers that these considerations will have a profound, albeit somewhat unpredictable, effect on the overall feel of their design as it evolves. We intend to relate our definition to existing definitions of meta-design. This spectrum will eventually contain a reference that rates where the meta-design should be placed.
  

• If the organization of your project or role distribution among your team members has changed, please describe this.
  
  Initially, we each had specific tasks relating to exploring different meta-design environments. We planned to explore separate things and then come together to make one definition. As we have been defining our project though, we ran into the difficulties mentioned above: meta-design seemed to have different meanings for different sites, and it seemed impossible to classify one site as correct for being entirely open to user development and, by default, another site as bad for being less open to user development. We decided that each site developer had different goals in mind for the site, and defined the openness with these goals in consideration. Or, it is possible that the developer did not consider all of the impacts of his/her meta-design choices when creating the architecture. Either way, all meta-design sites have a means for user-editing, but different sites have different levels of restriction that grants the user certain amounts of privileges. 
  
  Therefore, we met with Jane Meyers to talk about our confusion, and with her help, we came to the conclusion that meta-design should perhaps be defined as a spectrum of openness. This is dependent on the degree of access the user was given when the infrastructure was created by designers. We have all been editing our Google Wave documents for the project, and meeting together physically to discuss our theories on the whiteboard. Eventually, we may individually explore our sites that we were assigned initially.

• For each project group member, please describe:
  
  Again, our group has been more collaborative and there aren't really that many specific tasks that have been completed yet as we are still in the research stage: group meetings and discussions, outlining our project in the Google Wave environment, etc.
  
  
  • What have you done since you started working on the project?
    
    Our group has been working mostly collaboratively, rather than as individuals. So far, we have generated a detailed spectrum of meta-design environments, physical and virtual, by talking together and adding to a line on a whiteboard over the course of a daylong meeting where members came and went as they had different schedule requirements. We have started drafting our definition in text in the Google Wave.
        
  • What specifically will you work on over the next few weeks?
    
    During our meetings, we discussed the differences between environments with similar classifications but with very different levels of mutability. We have also discussed the impacts of these differences on the evolved feel of the site. We are working on converting these thoughts and notes into text. We have drafted a preliminary spectrum, which we will refine and make more readable within the next few weeks.We also intend to read more papers about meta-design in order to relate our definition to theirs during this time. Andy and Alberto identified two sources with information on social network statistics and have contacted at least one of them to try to get information. As we obtain more information on meta-design, we hope to have more specific group goals instead of individual goals since our group was a little scattered during our last meeting. With this data, we hope to have a more complete outline of what we want to accomplish as a group for the project.

Authors of this document are the MakeShift Crew:

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