A Load of Cobbler’s Children: Beyond the Model Designing Processor

HCI has developed rich understandings of people at work and at play with technology: most people that is, except designers, who remain locked in the information processing paradigm of first wave HCI. Design methods are validated as if they were computer programs, expected to produce the same results on a range of architectures and hardware. Unfortunately, designers are people, and thus interfere substantially (generally to good effects) with the ‘code’ of design methods. We need to rethink the evaluation and design of design and evaluation methods in HCI. A logocentric proposal based on resource function vocabularies is presented

When Failure Is Not an Option: Designing Competency-Based Pathways for Next Generation Learning

Proposes an online learning-assisted model in which students advance by demonstrating mastery of subjects based on clear, measurable objectives and meaningful assessments. Examines innovation drivers, challenges, and philanthropic opportunities

Everything should be as simple as possible, but this will still be complex : a reply to various commentaries on IPEBA

Peer reviewedPostprin

Taking Stock: An Approach to Engaging the Australian Dairy Industry in Farm Business Management

This paper describes the development and achievements of a farm management service available to all dairy farmers in Australia. Dairy businesses in Australia came under severe pressure between the years 2002 and 2004 when three events coincided: a prolonged drought; deregulation which removed protection on milk prices; a downturn in the global commodity price for milk. Taking Stock was developed as a farm management service to help businesses respond to these pressures. Significant development challenges were encountered to ensure services reached 9,500 farmers who were scattered across 7,682,300 square kilometres using vastly different production systems to farm under temperate, sub-tropical or Mediterranean climate zones. These businesses were receiving varying degrees of support from a variety of organisations in the service sector. We ask the question, to what extent can a program like Taking Stock build industry confidence and enable an industry to develop a more inquisitive business culture? We conclude that progress can be made as a whole of industry towards building confidence and to improve the level of inquiry among farmers if seven development factors are addressed by the program.Livestock Production/Industries,

The Relevance of Rigour for Design Practise

Design is an inverted discipline. The concept of rigour, as understood within the natural sciences, cannot be applied to Design Practice. Rigour for the natural sciences is a quality assurance mechanism ensuring that the knowledge bases of the disciplines are developed to an accepted set of standards. Design’s ontology is not like the natural sciences and as such an understanding of rigour for Design must proceed from an appropriate standpoint about the nature of Design Practice. This paper builds upon Harfield’s [1] ontological assessment of Design, Schön’s [2] [3] work on Reflective Practice and Spencer’s [4] investigation into the experience and practise of designing to develop a standpoint about Design Practice and make a proposition about the relevance of rigour for Design Practise. This paper considers how individual Reflective Practice practitioners, within the context of Design Practice, manage and ensure quality control through the application of care and thoroughness. This paper argues that rigour for Design Practise is the personal and phenomenological quality control of a design inquiry: a process of managing expanding mental chaos and restricting order