![[spacer]](/schemes/blue/line.gif){kind=small}
|
Questions from your perspective as a role-play participant: 1. What were your impressions of your role-play experience? They were positive. It was a good introduction to the technology and how it was used to further collaborative design. 2. Were there any aspects of the role play that made you apprehensive? No. 3. Did you feel that the role play contained any elements of what real users from a real neighborhood working on a real problem might have experienced? I'm not sure about this. The players didn't seem to take the problem very seriously and were focussed more on the design of the technology and the philosophy of collaboration than in actually following the process to a conclusion as real user would. 4. What do you think might have been lacking from the experience that would have existed in a real situation rather than a role play? A. I think real users would be more confused by and apprehensive of the technology. For some people, it might hinder their participation. For others, it would actually assist and encourage them to participate more. B. In a real situation, I think people's emotions would have played a greater role. I'm not sure how the technology would contribute to or diffuse them. 5. Were there any ways that the technology aided you in reaching a decision? Were there any ways that it impeded the process? The technology provided a great way to visualize the problem and potential solutions. Its main drawback was that it was very easy to get side-tracked when the technology became the focus of the exercise instead of its tool. Questions from a designer's perspective 1. Do you feel that there is any merit to this form of assessment compared to more traditional isolated task-oriented methods? Yes. Because the tool is being designed to enhance collaborative decision-making, watching people collaborate using the tool seems to be essential to evaluating its effectiveness. 2. What insights do you think that might be gleaned from using this technique that other techniques might miss? How well the technology holds up to multiple users working simultaneously. How the technology fosters communication among participants. 3. What limits do you see to the technique? Because it was somewhat unstructured, the role players lost focus and the exercise never really seemed to come to a definitive conclusion – no decision was made. 4. What aspects of the design do you think could be added, removed, or improved to better support the desired participatory outcomes of the process? These can be related to the technology, the social setup, the information provided, the process followed, or other aspects that you think are important. I think that a facilitator/moderator would be a useful addition to the process. This person could provide an introduction to the technology, facilitate access to it since it gets a little crowded at the table, and keep participants moving forward in the process since there is the potential to stall. |
