7 research outputs found

    A participatory design approach based on the use of scenarios for improving local design methods in developing countries

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    Working paperOver the past few years, the use of scenarios in participatory design has proved its worth. It has resulted in some interesting tools for capturing the context of use. However, these approaches have been almost exclusively developed and used for software design. In this article, we shall describe the development of scenarios in the specific context of tropical food processing equipment design in developing countries. As well as exploring this original field of application, this article raises fundamental questions about scenario use, taking us beyond the limited framework of the proposed application. We shall outline a methodological framework for structuring the deployment of scenarios according to the different design phases: the COSU method. This method implements the scenario concept in an original way. It comprises four types of scenario whose aim is to create interaction between designers and users in order to foster a shared understanding of both the problem and the solutions. We shall also show that the scenarios are objects that mediate the user-designer dialogue that is of prior importance in the context of developing countries. The applicability of the method is presented through various case study examples

    Diversifying Future-Making Through Itinerative Design

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    Designed in California is a brand statement used by high-tech manufacturers to denote provenance and cachet of digital innovation and modernity. In this paper, we explore philosophically alternate design perspectives to those this statement embodies, reporting and reflecting on a long-term multi-sited project that seeks to diversify future-making by engaging communities of "emergent" users in "developing" regions. We argue that digital technologies are typically created with a design lens firmly focused on "first world" populations, assuming a base set of cultural norms, resource availabilities, and technological experience levels that do not strongly align with those of emergent users. We discuss and argue for inclusive technology design methods, present our approach, and detail indicative results and case studies as an example of the potential of these perspectives in uncovering radical innovations. Distilling findings and lessons learned, we present a methodology-itinerative design-that pivots between emergent user communities across multiple regions, driving digital innovation through the periphery of mainstream design's current remit

    Heuristics for use case descriptions.

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    Use cases, as part of the Unified Modelling Language, have become an industry standard. The major focus has been on the use case diagram. It is only recently that any detailed attention has been paid to the use case description. The description should be written in such a way as to make it communicable to its reader. However, this does not always appear to be the case. This thesis presents the 7 C's of Communicability as quality features of use case descriptions that make them more comprehensible. The 7 C's are derived from software engineering best practice on use case descriptions and from theories of text comprehension. To help in writing descriptions, the CP Use Case Writing Rules are proposed, a small set of guidelines derived from the 7 C's. Going beyond requirements, software engineers often employ use case descriptions to help them build initial design models of the proposed system. Despite Jacobson's claim that "objects naturally fall out of use cases", fording design-oriented classes and objects in use case descriptions is shown not to be straightforward. This thesis proposes a Question Set which allows the engineer to interrogate the description for important elements of specification and design. Experimentation shows that the CP Writing Rules furnish descriptions that are as comprehensible as those written by other guidelines proposed in the literature. It is also suggested that descriptions be written from the perspective of their intended audience. The limitations of conducting requirements engineering experiments using students are considered and it is suggested that experimenters should not expect large effects from the results. An industrial case study shows that although the CP Rules could not be applied to all events in the use case descriptions, they were applied to most and at varying levels of abstraction. The case study showed that the 7 C's did identify problems with the written descriptions. The Question Set was well received by the case study stakeholders, but it was considered time consuming. One of the overriding findings from the case study was that project time constraints would not allow the company to use the techniques suggested, although they recognised the need to do so. Automation would make industrial application of the CP Rules and 7 C's more feasible

    Ο Σχεδιασμός της συμμετοχικής και παιγνιοποιημένης πλατφόρμας «Calypso» για την επαλήθευση των ψευδών ειδήσεων.

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    Το CALYPSO είναι ένα έργο ευρωπαϊκής συνεργασίας που στοχεύει στη δημιουργία ενός περιβάλλοντος crowdsourcing, στο οποίο οι πολίτες μπορούν να συμβάλλουν στην καταπολέμηση της παραπληροφόρησης, συμμετέχοντας σε μία διαδικτυακή πλατφόρμα με στοιχεία παιγνιοποίησης. Το έργο βασίζεται στην συνεργασία και τις δεξιότητες των αναγνωστών/πολιτών, των δημοσιογράφων/fact-checkers και των εμπειρογνωμόνων. Οι πολίτες υποβάλλουν στην πλατφόρμα ύποπτες ειδήσεις, τις οποίες οι fact-checkers σε συνεργασία με τους εμπειρογνώμονες επαληθεύουν, αποκαλύπτοντας εκστρατείες και μηνύματα παραπληροφόρησης σε πραγματικό χρόνο. Με τον τρόπο αυτό, αποκαθιστούν γρήγορα την αλήθεια και ελαχιστοποιούν τον αντίκτυπο των ψευδών ειδήσεων στην κοινωνία. Η παρούσα εργασία αφορά την διαδικασία σχεδιασμού της πλατφόρμας CALYPSO, με γνώμονα την Μεθοδολογία Ανθρωποκεντρικού Σχεδιασμού. Η χρήση της Μεθοδολογίας του Ανθρωποκεντρικού Σχεδιασμού έχει στόχο την ευχρηστία του συστήματος και την ικανοποίηση των τελικών χρηστών. Οι φάσεις της μεθοδολογίας που αναλύονται στην παρούσα εργασία είναι η φάση της συλλογής και ανάλυσης των απαιτήσεων των χρηστών, καθώς και η φάση του σχεδιασμού. Η φάση της αξιολόγησης του σχεδιασμού της πλατφόρμας θα ολοκληρωθεί σε επόμενο στάδιο του έργου και δεν συμπεριλαμβάνεται εξ ολοκλήρου. Σε πρώτο στάδιο εξετάζονται οι συνθήκες στο επικοινωνιακό τοπίο όσον αφορά την παραπληροφόρηση και οι σύγχρονες απειλές για την δημοσιογραφία σε ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο. Στην συνέχεια ακολουθεί συζήτηση για τις ευκαιρίες που αναδύονται μέσα από την δημοσιογραφία των πολιτών, την δημιουργία κοινοτήτων πρακτικής, καθώς επίσης και την χρήση στοιχείων παιγνιποίησης στην δημοσιογραφία και την παιδεία στα μέσα ενημέρωσης. Στο κύριο σώμα της εργασίας αναλύονται οι φάσεις του σχεδιασμού της πλατφόρμας CALYPSO και τέλος ακολουθούν τα συμπεράσματα που αναδείχθηκαν κατά τα πρώτα στάδια υλοποίησης του έργου CALYPSO.CALYPSO is a European cooperation project that aims to create a crowdsourcing environment in which citizens can contribute to the fight against misinformation by participating in an online platform with gamification elements. The project relies on the cooperation and skills of readers/citizens, journalists/fact-checkers and experts. Citizens submit suspicious news to the platform, which fact-checkers in cooperation with experts verify, revealing disinformation campaigns and messages in real time. In this way, they quickly restore the truth and minimise the impact of fake news on society. This thesis is about the design process of the CALYPSO platform, guided by the Human-Centered Design Methodology. The use of the Human-Centered Design Methodology is aimed at the usability of the system and the satisfaction of the end users. The phases of the methodology discussed in this thesis are the user requirements gathering and analysis phase and the design phase. The platform design evaluation phase will be completed at a later stage of the project and is not included in its entirety. In the first stage, the conditions in the communication landscape with regard to misinformation and the current threats to journalism at European level are examined. This is followed by a discussion on the opportunities emerging through citizen journalism, the creation of communities of practice, as well as the use of gamification elements in journalism and media literacy. The main body of the thesis discusses the design phases of the CALYPSO platform and finally follows the conclusions that emerged during the first stages of the CALYPSO project implementation

    Enabling female student interaction in synchronous virtual classrooms in Saudi Higher Education

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    A new approach to classroom technology is required to meet the challenges of 21st Century learning in Saudi Arabia. This study explores the effectiveness of classroom interactions from the perspective of students and instructors with a view to establishing how technology could be used to benefit Saudi women learners. Saudi Arabia is a country with a culture derived from Islamic religion and traditional values. These Islamic rules determine that, when a Saudi woman meets a non-mahram man (a man who does not belong to her family), she must be covered by a hijab, (a loose cloth that covers the body and a piece of cloth to cover the hair and sometimes covering the face), so as not to be seen by such men. Consequently, education in Saudi Arabia has always been segregated based on gender. At all educational levels boys and girls are taught separately, and there are women-only campuses at all universities. In higher education, it has been recognised that female students have needed to be taught by male teachers due to the shortage of female faculty throughout the country. Therefore, synchronous virtual classrooms (SVCs) have been created to reinforce constraints and allow female students to be educated by male teachers and among male students, where the female can participate in the class by being heard, but not seen. Classroom interaction is dictated by this context and students lack direct communication. The first aim for this thesis is to investigate factors that affect interaction practices in SVCs in Saudi higher education. The second aim is to develop, implement, and evaluate assistive technology to enhance interaction SVCs. The first aim is explored in a mixed methods case study consisting of three inter-related studies: Investigative Study, Interaction Study and Evaluation Study. While the second aim is explored by following the User Centred Design process to implement a technology-based approach to improving classroom interactions for female students. The Investigative Study surveyed students about their perceptions of the classroom environment, and through questionnaires collected both instructors' and students’ perceptions of the quality of the interaction. Instructors were interviewed and students participated in focus groups to illuminate the quantitative findings. The findings show that there is limited interaction in these virtual classrooms. Influences on interaction in female virtual classes are examined, including cultural factors, pedagogical approaches, technological methods, classroom management, practical courses, and opportunities for feedback. The findings suggest potential technological solutions for enhancing interaction and improving the educational experience of students and staff in the virtual classroom. It is concluded that applying advanced technology that takes culture into consideration may be an effective solution to enhance interaction and open the doors to effective virtual education. In the Interaction Study, observations and a student survey were used as methods to collect data from four courses. The findings paint a general picture of traditional, formal teaching traditions and instructor-student interactions showing limited interaction in these virtual classrooms. However, the results show that there are pedagogical approaches used by some faculty, with varying levels of success, to engage students’ attention include questioning strategies, quizzes, and presentation assignments. The Evaluation Study developed and evaluated the My Virtual Classroom (MVC) App as a solution to improve the student-instructor interactions in the SVC. A mixed method approach was used to collect data from students and instructors, to ensure an effective user experience. The design of the MVC App was found to be simple and attractive and students reported that they would use the app. The design supports Saudi culture which was taken more carefully into account, allowing for effective student-instructor interactions. The results revealed that such technology can address the challenges of interactions in the SVC. That is one of the contributions to knowledge that was discovered as a result of the thesis. In addition, the findings of the three studies that contribute to this thesis were diverse, such as: the frequent appearance of factors that affect the interaction in SVCs, the user interface design preferences in a novel context of female students' education in Saudi Arabia, the factors that may have a negative or positive impact on online evaluation sessions in the novel setting of Saudi Arabia education of female students
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