Designing for Irrelevance

My job title is ‘designer’ but I’m reluctant to describe myself as a designer for a number of reasons: first, because the practice has a lot to answer for; and second, because I don’t do a whole lot of design. I help groups of people to collaborate and converse their way through problems towards solutions—activating a latent capability for design in people as they think and work differently, together. The sense of agency that accompanies this is intoxicating. This work can produce strategies, systems, and services, as well as spaces, objects, and graphics. The awareness that design can shape both our (intangible) experiences and our (tangible) environments—and that, as a mode of thinking, it can be accessible, inclusive, and participatory—shifts it from a practice to a stance. In this sense, is design a choice that we make to perceive and move through the world in a contextual and intentional way? What does this mean for the practice of design?I respod to these question by reflecting on my experience of participating in the Indonesia Australia Design Futures project

Mynydd Parys & Afon Goch

I am the founding member of the artist-led collective Environmental Resistance. This publication combines photographs of an abandoned copper mine ('Parys Mine' or 'Mynydd Parys') in Anglesey, and an eco-toxic river of leachate emerging from the same mine (the Afon Goch River), with mineral sample results taken from within the frame of the image at the time of making the photograph. The Mynydd Parys & Afon Goch publication represents an attempt to visualise the scientific process, using multimodal design techniques, in order to promote the need for environmental remediation of abandoned metal mine sites in the UK and beyond

Putting it all Together: A Holistic Approach to Utilizing Your Library\u27s User Data for Making Informed Web Design Decisions

In the age of Big Data, there is an abundance of free or cheap data sources available to libraries about their users\u27 behavior across the many components that make up their web presence. Data from vendors, data from Google Analytics or other third-party tracking software, and data from user testing are all things libraries have access to at little or no cost. However, just like many students can become overloaded when they do not know how to navigate the many information sources available to them, many libraries can become overloaded by the continuous stream of data pouring in from these sources. This session will aim to help librarians understand 1) what sorts of data their library already has (or easily could have) access to about how their users use their various web tools, 2) what that data can and cannot tell them, and 3) how to use the datasets they are collecting in a holistic manner to help them make design decisions. The presentation will feature examples from the presenters\u27 own experience of incorporating user data in decisions related to design the Bethel University Libraries\u27 web presence

Testing General Relativity with Current Cosmological Data

Deviations from general relativity, such as could be responsible for the cosmic acceleration, would influence the growth of large scale structure and the deflection of light by that structure. We clarify the relations between several different model independent approaches to deviations from general relativity appearing in the literature, devising a translation table. We examine current constraints on such deviations, using weak gravitational lensing data of the CFHTLS and COSMOS surveys, cosmic microwave background radiation data of WMAP5, and supernova distance data of Union2. Markov Chain Monte Carlo likelihood analysis of the parameters over various redshift ranges yields consistency with general relativity at the 95% confidence level.Comment: 11 pages; 7 figures; typographical errors corrected; this is the published versio

Knowledge Reuse Through Categorical Breakdown Analysis: A Method for Collaborative Systems Evaluation

Designing Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems that support the widely varying needs of targeted users is difficult. There is no silver bullet technology that enables users to effectively collaborate with one another in different contexts. We propose a method of collaborative systems evaluation that enables novice evaluators to make insightful observations about the systems they evaluate at a level comparable to experts in certain situations. These observations come in the form of a categorical breakdown analysis of a laboratory study. The quantity and type of breakdowns can then be connected to recommended CSCW tools and features developed and described in the related literature. We conducted a study to explore the results generated when the method was applied by both experts and novices in the field of CSCW. We observed that experts found the method to be usable, and that novices capitalized on the knowledge embodied in the breakdown categories to make categorizations similar to those of experts

Knowledge management as an image of the organization: industry standards and processes of knowing in credit risk management

There is often a discrepancy between an organization’s theory of its work and its practices. Drawing on evidence from credit risk management in a major international bank we show that management-led knowledge management (KM) initiatives have reinforced this tendency. We show that, in a direct reflection of the rational economic image of financial markets, training programmes and KM projects focus on technical mechanisms to manage credit risk and under-emphasise the way in which these standard approaches are situated in processes of knowing. Using a conceptual scheme developed from Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety we maintain that the assessment and management of risk involves both the attenuation and amplification of variety. Information intensive infrastructure-based businesses need processes of standardization (as attenuation) that facilitate globalizing business flows and the creative capacity (as amplification) to respond to uncertainty and innovation. In conclusion, we present further evidence to suggest that standard, technology-based solutions to knowledge management should be part of a broader portfolio of (dis-) organizing practices designed to support knowledge workers in a community of practice