Collaboratories for Sustainable Design Matthew Kam Feb 27, 2003

Sawhney Reading Remote participatory design –Made possible by ThinkCycle collaboratory –Focus on knowledge-intensive work –Aims to cross social and institutional boundaries To what extent does being an “open” collaboratory help?

Case for Collaboratories –Leverage on under-used home computers –But limited applications and problems OpenLaw –Generated public awareness and interest ThinkCycle –Shared online space for engineers, domain experts, and stakeholders to exchange and construct ideas for design solutions in critical problem domains

Impediments to Remote Collaboration Olson’s work –Readiness to collaborate Culture of cooperation Trust and other common ground Incentive structure for all parties involved How about language and cultural barriers? –Ability to use collaborative tools and knowledge

ThinkCycle Creation Process Concept prototype –Post problems and solutions –Many bugs –Not scalable (serialized objects) Early functional prototype –”Design that Matters” class to get end-users, generate content, etc. –Post work artifacts like files, images, etc. –16 months of iteration to get user interface right!

Online Community Issues Affordances for social awareness Integrating info from multiple modes of communication and work environments Low bandwidth SoapBox: Informal, impromptu interactions were the norm Unmoderated discussions -> greater participation –Contrast with junk posts on some un-moderated newsgroups Structure for content Privacy and security “Vandal” peer reviews

In Practice ThinkCycle largely used for –Design memory –Solicit feedback from online community –How about group cohesion? –Posts drop when insufficient public interest Co-located members work f2f more instead Topics do not define communities –Action projects, DyD conference and SoapBox discussions more likely to sustain community

Other Issues Roles of online members in ThinkCycle collaboratory?