Creative Worthwhile Interaction Design

Over the last two decades, creative, agile, lean and strategic design approaches have become increasingly prevalent in the development of interactive technologies, but tensions exist with longer established approaches such as human factors engineering and user-centered design. These tensions can be harnessed productively by first giving equal status in principle to creative, business and agile engineering practices, and then supporting this with flexible critical approaches and resources that can balance and integrate a range of multidisciplinary design practices

Supporting Worth Mapping with Sentence Completion

Expectations for design and evaluation approaches are set by the development practices within which they are used. Worth Centred Development (WCD) seeks to both shape and fit such practices. We report a study that combined two WCD approaches. Sentence completion gathered credible quantitative data on user values, which were used to identify relevant values and aversions of two player groups for an online gambling site. These values provided human value elements for a complementary WCD approach of worth mapping. Initial worth maps were extended in three workshops, which focused on outcomes and user experiences that could be better addressed in the current product and associated marketing materials. We describe how worth maps were prepared for, and presented in, workshops, and how product owners and associated business roles evaluated the combination of WCD approaches. Based on our experiences, we offer practical advice on this combinination

Diffusion of Worth Mapping: The worth of resource functions

This workshop paper uses a resource function vocabulary from the Working to Choose framework to analyse diffusion of the Worth Maps approach across several application domains. It explores how a resource function vocabulary can indicate aspects of design approaches and their use that favour successful diffusion

Making Designing Worth Worth Designing

This position paper on Methods to Account for Values in Human-Centred Computing summarises the Working to Choose framework as an option for addressing several of this CHI 2012 workshop’s topics. It also lists worth-focused design and evaluation approaches that my collaborators and I have developed, applied and assessed

Mental tactility: the ascendance of writing in online management education

A qualitative study of online management education and the role of writing as an indicative measure of thinking and learning. Established educational models, such as Dale\u27s Cone of Experience, are expanded and redeveloped to illustrate the central role of writing as a critical thinking process which appears to be increasing, rather than decreasing, with the advent of online multimedia technology. In an environment of increasing reliance on audiovisual stimulus in online education, the authors contend that tertiary educators may witness an ascendance or re-emergence of writing as central to the academic experience. This may be both supply and demand driven. Drawing on a study of two undergraduate units in the Bachelor of Commerce and applying hermeneutics to develop challenging insights, the authors present a case for educators to remain conversant with the art of teaching writing, and to promote writing to improve educational outcomes. <br /

Enhancing legacy in palliative care: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy focused on positive outcomes.

BackgroundDignity Therapy is a brief psychotherapy that can enhance a sense of legacy while addressing the emotional and existential needs of patients receiving hospice or palliative care. In Dignity Therapy, patients create a formalized "legacy" document that records their most cherished memories, their lessons learned in life, as well as their hopes and dreams for loved ones in the future. To date, this treatment has been studied for its impact on mitigating distress within hospice and palliative care populations and has provided mixed results. This study will instead focus on whether Dignity Therapy enhances positive outcomes in this population.Methods/designIn this study, 90 patients with cancer receiving hospice or palliative care will complete a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy (n = 45) versus Supportive Attention (n = 45). The patients will be enrolled in the study for 3 weeks, receiving a total of six study visits. The primary outcomes examine whether the treatment will quantitatively increase levels of positive affect and a sense of life closure. Secondary outcomes focus on gratitude, hope, life satisfaction, meaning in life, resilience, and self-efficacy. Using a fixed, embedded dataset design, this study will additionally use qualitative interviews to explore patients' perceptions regarding the use of positive outcome measures and whether these outcomes are appropriately matched to their experiences in therapy.DiscussionDignity Therapy has shown mixed results when evaluating its impact on distress, although no other study to date has solely focused on the potential positive aspects of this treatment. This study is novel in its use of mixed methods assessments to focus on positive outcomes, and will provide valuable information about patients' direct experiences in this area.Trial registrationISRCTN91389194

Capturing creativity using digital video

This paper evaluates the use of a creative learning activity in which postgraduate student teachers were required to collaboratively make short digital videos. The purpose was for student teachers to experience and evaluate a meaningful learning activity and to consider how they might reconstruct such an activity within their own teaching practice in their placement schools. Within UK primary schools (children aged 4 to 11 years) there is currently an increasing focus on creativity within teaching and learning and a desire to use ICT to enhance learning. This led the teacher educator in this case study to introduce a learning activity in which students created a short advert using digital video. The nature of creativity is considered, as is the collaborative element that frequently forms an element of creative learning activities. This collaboration was an integral element of the digital video activity. An existing framework of ‘meaningful learning’ is used to inform the analysis of the students’ responses to the learning activity. Student responses show that they valued the experience and developed a desire to use digital video in their own classroom practice on school placements. The combination of positive student responses, the collaborative nature of the activity and the scope for it to support meaningful learning make digital video a powerful tool for supporting creative teaching and learning

Using Hybrid Effectively in Christian Higher Education

Hybrid is just one of a number of terms used for the convergence of face-to-face and online learning, At the University of Central Florida (UCF) they are called mixed mode courses, In the corporate world the most common language used for hybrid is blended learning, Blended learning, says Bob Mosher, is about using multiple learning modalities, which include, but are not limited to, the Web.7 The blended learning term is also being used more frequently within academic circles,8 Because of the inconsistency in how blended learning is employed, though, and because our goal is not to describe learning in general but to focus on individual courses, this article will use the term hybrid and will apply it more narrowly to mean a course in which face-to-face and online learning are integrated in such a way that the seat time of the course is reduced

Modelling complexity of gender as an agent of change

Social inclusion continues to develop as a key issue in responsible design practices. To date, we have witnessed change in the development of inclusivity for the aged, and the physically and mentally challenged, but little more than exploration by certain minorities has been achieved concerning gender diversity and fluidity. A key reason for this is cultural complexity, in terms of differences in social constructs, and conflicts with personal constructs, but there is a perceived need for change, towards more inclusive perceptions and behaviours. The commonly held ‘binary’ model may have appeared to offer society a natural method of controlling complexity, by reducing mental effort involved in social decision-making. However, in terms of innovation, the use of such stereotyping may be seen as acting against originality and individualism, certainly not encouraging of positive change and diversity. The traditions attached to the binary model permeate our language, constraining our perceptions and thinking. To present an alternative perspective, this project developed a more inclusive model of gender to recognize diversity and fluidity, while maintaining a level of simplicity to ensure effective comprehension and application. This paper’s presentation of the ‘Gender Fluidity Cube’, seeks to describe the context for a more inclusive view of gender, sex and sexuality, as three dimensions which enable inclusion of any individual or group within its volume. Through a more indepth study this dimensional model may offer creative opportunities to a number of professions including design, marketing and education, as a stepping-stone ‘population’ model, to inform more effective ‘causal’ models for systems thinking