Another work page3
OpenEI
- describe your understanding of meta-design in your own words (not copying a paragraph from a paper or a website)
- 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
- analyze the site you selected from a meta-design perspective.
Created by Myung Kim
1. In general, Meta-design is all about creating a better thing through an existing objects which we may see everyday of our life through the collaboration of designers of many different fields.
2.
Strong Point:
I think the strong point of meta-design is all about creation. Since it is done by multiple people, this will bring out fresh and many different aspects of design for an object.
Weak Point:
There is a proverb saying "Too many cooks spoil the stew." This is not always true, but there maybe chance that the design will go really wrong, and may result totally weird thing that is fundamentally different from original use of the object. Also this is seen by many users, and wrong idea may direct many people in a wrong way.
3.
My first impression for this website was very distractive and messy. Unlike other Meta-design websites, OpenEI website is purely focussed on energy information, data, and resources related to energy. It still has edit function that can be edited by many different users as long as they sign up for the website. 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, I think this will be mostly earn and read information website rather a meta-design website. The information poster will be mostly energy related company or government related organization, and most of users will be readers/consumers.
Jason Cockerham - 1) meta design is designing that never stops. users can continuously add stuff. Strong point) The amount of stuff. You can find information on pretty much anything on Wikipedia or find almost any episode of an old tv show on you tube. Weak point) Such cites are monitered but it takes a while, so something put up on the cite to be offensive won't be taken down quickly. OpenEl looks new so there in not too much in it. It will be more useful as time goes on to those interested in energy. It wont be a meta design site with input from the general public. I imagine the input will come more from professionals doing something in that field, it will still be a meta designed site, though.
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Andrew Hepler
The idea behind Meta-Design is 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 and tweek the information to specify new data in which they may find valuable to other users. One of the pros to using Meta-Design is that the information produced from the website can be changed if there is a new revelation that is not yet heard by the community, and could be uploaded by a user promptly. Also, with Meta-Design there is collaboration on the project between users and designers, in which a user might suggest that the design is too complicated for most users and then be modified for best use of that program or site. One of the main drawbacks of Meta-Design is that because users have so much authority on what to add to a website of program is that if there aren’t enough contributors to the process the program/website would be aimed for a more specific audience. In addition, if a user’s information is incorrect and is part of the website; many people will be learning wrong data. In the case of OpenEI the use of a Wiki page enables users to contribute their energy intake with the rest of the world, in which a proper design for energy consumption could be easier mapped out. The Open Government Initiative is one of the main contributors to OpenEI, in which using Meta-Design would let many people give their insight on how we can budget renewable resources for the change for the future, which should give an advantage to those who would like to conserve for the better of the planet.
