Project proposal: MEta-design
Team members:
Javier Velez
Ali Hassani
Statement of the issue:
To many people, meta-design could be considered a new word that they never encountered before. To some others, it could be too technical that they don't even want to know about it. In fact, meta-design is one of the most needed concepts in the development of new systems. Now that the old foundation of the Human computer interaction systems (HCI) have already been learned, and now that the number of people that have the ability of taking external information and turning it to computer representations has increased, we can talk about setting up the new foundation of HCI.
The new foundation of HCI would be in the biggest need for meta-design and social groups collaboration in order to make every system. The new systems have to have a domain of shared ideas and inputs from concerned people in order to guarantee a better product, and collaboration could only improve the making of a products because designers would be able to see the products not only from their point of view, but from other people's point of view as well.
Rationale:
Meta-design is one of the most powerful concepts that new systems could use. It encourages user input and helps user and designer collaboration which will increase the chances to have a better product that satisfies everyone's needs. All a user has to do is to know about the product that will be designed and at that point, the user will have enough knowledge to give feedback and make suggestions that could be helpful in the design of the system, and could guarantee better results in the long run. Users collaboration is more needed than ever because everyone is striving to make a product that fits everyone's needs, and if we include meta-design in every single project and encourage a high number of users to be part of it, we would decrease the chances of having a product that satisfies the needs of some people and neglects the needs of the others. Therefore it is necessary to include all kinds of users so that the product achieves its goal in satisfying the needs of most users.
Null hypothesis:
The truth is that as much as we agree about the importance of meta-design in the development of modern systems, there are a lot of people that are just not motivated to cross the bar and learn deeply about a product that they use. Even more, they are less concerned of making it better as long as the limited functionality they need is already provided to them. There are a lot of products in the market that could be improved if end users were to get involved in the making of them, but the truth is, the products stay the way they are because there is no input from the users to influence the design.
In revisiting the EDC and Clever projects and some open source projects, we hope we can get an insight on how meta-design could be efficient in making a design decision. Also, we will take a look at the incremental design model for the fact that it is a model that encourages change and shared ideas at any time of the design.
By going deeper into those projects and the concepts supported by some design techniques, we shall determine what are the techniques that could motivate people to get involved in projects that may concern them now or some other time.
Project tasks:
Revisit and Analyse the EDC and Clever projects
Make a survey around the class about what is the main motivator for people to get involved in a project
Make a summary of how the incremetal model is the ideal design model to support meta-design
Search for some techniques that would help the involvement of end users in the design of any system
References:
The EDC project
The Clever Project