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

Designing History

Strategist of landmark political campaigns from as far away as Liberia and as close as Baltimore City, Professor Larry Gibson takes images from his own storied past and Maryland history to paint a rich future

Designing Electricity Auctions

Motivated by the new auction format introduced in the England andWales electric- ity market, as well as the recent debate in California, we characterize bidding behavior and market outcomes in uniform and discriminatory electricity auctions. We ¯nd that uniform auctions result in higher average prices than discriminatory auctions, but the ranking in terms of productive e±ciency is ambiguous. The comparative e®ects of other market design features, such as the number of steps in suppliers' bid functions, the duration of bids and the elasticity of demand are also analysed. We also consider the relationship between market structure and market performance in the two auction formats. Finally, we clarify some methodological issues in the analysis of electricity auctions. In particular, we show that analogies with continuous share auctions are misplaced so long as ¯rms are restricted to a ¯nite number of bids

Designing for interaction

At present, the design of computer-supported group-based learning (CS)GBL) is often based on subjective decisions regarding tasks, pedagogy and technology, or concepts such as ‘cooperative learning’ and ‘collaborative learning’. Critical review reveals these concepts as insufficiently substantial to serve as a basis for (CS)GBL design. Furthermore, the relationship between outcome and group interaction is rarely specified a priori. Thus, there is a need for a more systematic approach to designing (CS)GBL that focuses on the elicitation of expected interaction processes. A framework for such a process-oriented methodology is proposed. Critical elements that affect interaction are identified: learning objectives, task-type, level of pre-structuring, group size and computer support. The proposed process-oriented method aims to stimulate designers to adopt a more systematic approach to (CS)GBL design according to the interaction expected, while paying attention to critical elements that affect interaction. This approach may bridge the gap between observed quality of interaction and learning outcomes and foster (CS)GBL design that focuses on the heart of the matter: interaction

Designing with Users

1.1 The past 2-3 years has seen a resurgence of interest in the creation of pedestrian priority places. This interest has largely been stimulated by the advent of "traffic calming". There are two important differences however, compared to previous phases of interest in "pedestrian issues". Firstly, the emphasis is shifting beyond the town centre to residential and district centres. Secondly the interest is stimulated as much by `green issues' as by `pedestrian issues', meaning that people's interests are much broader than merely improving conditions for pedestrians. This new concern has led to fresh attention being focused on the design of pedestrian places and design processes. This attention is not only relevant to pedestrian places. All around us are transport systems, facilities and structures which at some point have been "designed". All too often these extensively researched projects still create dissatisfaction amongst the people who use them. The reasons for this dissatisfaction are numerous and need to be understood in order to provide better work and design in the future. In this paper we discuss how we might set about designing such places in order to produce satisfaction to these people who have to use them. We argue that the appropriate method should be a user-centred design. We define what this means and compare it with more conventional perspectives/approaches to design. For simplicity we have shown in Figure 1 the essence of the user-centred approach to design. 1.2 The term `design' is used to mean the exercise of a process to bring together all the requirements of the space and an endeavour to satisfy these requirements. Design as here used deals with the issues of function, cost, timing and effectiveness in use. The intangible functions of safety, comfort, attractiveness, visual appearance, respect for location are included, not just the usual interpretation of "Design" by non-designers, who think of it solely as the aesthetic aspects. Design is interpreted to mean an understanding of a continuing process - not just the first design of the project. But most importantly, here, design means design in terms of satisfaction of the user, not just satisfaction of the designer! The term `user' refers to those people who will have to live, work, shop, visit, walk around, drive through or look at the final project

Investigative Designing: usage-oriented research in and through designing

In this paper, we discuss the practice of investigative designing. The notion is currently being used to denote a variety of ideas in design research, and we first seek to clarify some of them. We then present our own, specific take on this notion, while acknowledging that it is being used broadly. We adopted the notion as an umbrella term for our combined research and design activities: as investigative designers. We use it for the exploration of how designers can integrate designing and researching within a design process. The two main concerns we are pursuing within this are to clarify the role of a designer with research skills, and to explore the implications of a usage orientation in design. We present two studies in this paper in which we investigated how usage research for design can be specifically geared to the needs of design, and what helps designers (and what does not) in designing with usage information. In the first study, we ourselves conducted usage research, developed design ideas on the basis of that, and reflected on this process. In the second study, we observed how three other designers engaged with the same user data and developed design ideas. Our findings include that the designers tended to prefer to develop their own design ideas independently from the data, only checking or adapting the ideas to the data. Furthermore, the capacity of designers for dealing with data needs to be taken into consideration. Lastly, the form of data presentation influences how well designers can engage with it in designing. Keywords: Investigative Design; Designing; Designer; Product Usage; User Research</p

Designing Scalable Business Models

Digital business models are often designed for rapid growth, and some relatively young companies have indeed achieved global scale. However despite the visibility and importance of this phenomenon, analysis of scale and scalability remains underdeveloped in management literature. When it is addressed, analysis of this phenomenon is often over-influenced by arguments about economies of scale in production and distribution. To redress this omission, this paper draws on economic, organization and technology management literature to provide a detailed examination of the sources of scaling in digital businesses. We propose three mechanisms by which digital business models attempt to gain scale: engaging both non- paying users and paying customers; organizing customer engagement to allow self- customization; and orchestrating networked value chains, such as platforms or multi-sided business models. Scaling conditions are discussed, and propositions developed and illustrated with examples of big data entrepreneurial firms

Designing sustainable medical devices

Stakeholders in the medical device manufacturing industry are becoming more concerned about the environmental impact of their products and processes. The consumers are also becoming more aware of the negative impact that manufacturers can have on the environment. Government initiatives continue to increase environmental awareness through the development of new policy and legislation, encouraging industry to become more accountable for the environmental impact of their products and operations. The ISO 14001 standard, Environmental Management Systems-Requirements with Guidance for Use, sets guidelines to enable businesses to recognize the environmental effects of their products and processes. Departments can use the tool to set targets to lower the environmental impact and identify areas of high environmental concern when designing, purchasing, and marketing products. Research in these areas will be used to develop the environmental scoring tool to aid in the design of future sustainable medical devices

Designing Familiar Open Surfaces

While participatory design makes end-users part of the design process, we might also want the resulting system to be open for interpretation, appropriation and change over time to reflect its usage. But how can we design for appropriation? We need to strike a good balance between making the user an active co-constructor of system functionality versus making a too strong, interpretative design that does it all for the user thereby inhibiting their own creative use of the system. Through revisiting five systems in which appropriation has happened both within and outside the intended use, we are going to show how it can be possible to design with open surfaces. These open surfaces have to be such that users can fill them with their own interpretation and content, they should be familiar to the user, resonating with their real world practice and understanding, thereby shaping its use