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.

FROM LUKE

Characterize your chosen design methodology.

FROM LUKE

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.

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 objectof design in the hands of the users (Fischer).

References:

Meta—Design: Beyond User-Centered and Participatory Design,Gerhard Fischer,University of Colorado, Center for LifeLong Learning and Design,Department of Computer Science, 430 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0430 –USA, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=13&ved=0CCcQFjACOAo&url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.6.8238&rep=rep1&type=pdf&rct=j&q=Meta-Design&ei=sdCXTIbaG4H-8AbjtJCXDA&usg=AFQjCNFCpnHLHw-0AZWH5i122KGb-JD1ZQ&sig2=a26upysXN8MUoA0_omfDVA&cad=rja

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?