Immersion, Spring Semester -- Week 7

Don’t Box Me In!

Performance Centered Design
User Centered Design
Usage Centered Design

We have learned about all of these design methods in our efforts to understand the intricacies of instructional design and development. All are so similar and yet so different (according to those who have originated these concepts). Understanding personas to model the preferred user experience, scenarios to model task flow, and essential use cases to get down to the basic user/system interaction is enough to make your head spin. Our advisor wants us to employ usage centered design as we try to map out the Virtual Collaboration Center interface. The team is having difficulties conceptualizing this extremely abstract process. According to Constantine and Lockwood (1999), originators of this method, a use case “describes interaction independent of implicit or explicit assumptions regarding the technology or mechanisms of implementation” (p. 107). This means we shouldn’t have tunnel vision by letting technology cloud our vision during design. Otherwise, you may end up trying to push a square peg through a round hole. But the team still wants to frame these use cases in terms of available technologies because this process is so abstract, we are searching for some definition, some boundaries to work with. I think it is almost akin to being in a well lit, yet windowless room when suddenly the power goes out. It is pitch black, and what do you do? Immediately identify the nearest wall and follow it around to the nearest door.

As I worked on the use case that I needed to develop, I have thought a bit about Keepon. This innovative little robot was created specifically for kids with developmental disorders such as autism. It’s basic design seems to me like an example of usage centered design. Whether that technique was employed in the creation of Keepon, who knows, but I can see where identifying essential use cases could have been integral in the design and development in this simple and extremely effective robot. Another thing I like about Keepon -- he is a viral and music video star!

References

Constantine, L. L., & Lockwood, L. (1999). Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Methods of Usage-Centered Design. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Fall Semester Wrap Up

Some Final Thoughts ...

So today is the last day of the Fall Semester. As this semester draws to a close, here are some final thoughts ...

Advanced Instructional Design - Honestly, I didn't think I would enjoy this class very much. I am not a theory person. But I will have to say I was pleasantly surprised when everything came together for my final project. After a bit of a false start (Blackboard proved to be a bit inflexible for a Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext), I am relatively please with the end result.

Performance Centered Design - At first, I could barely follow what the instructor was talking about in this class (Question posed by instructor in the first class - In 60 seconds, tell me how many seconds are in a year? Response - Well, there are 12 - January second, February second, etc ... ). So, needless to say, I didn't think I would catch on. But, after working with my class partner, I think I had the most fun working on the final project in this class. Okay, our first iteration of the Public Speaking Support Blog needs a little work, but it is a pretty decent first stab from a couple of folks who only recently got into this whole Instructional Design field.

Immersion - I will have to say that I am not quite sure how I feel about my Immersion experience at this point. Last night, we gave our semester end presentation on the analysis phase of the project with the prospect of presenting virtually to our client, who at the last minute decided he couldn't participate. I think that about sums up the Immersion experience this semester for me. While we presented a "realistic" scenario for the team to work on during the design phase, who knows if it is going to fly with the client, or if it will even be realistic enough to work for the audience. On a positive note, we did have an SME attend the presentation last night and she gave us a glowing thumbs up. I just hope that we can deliver.

I am very proud of our team -- we brought the project together and delivered last night. I really felt like we were a cohesive unit, with lots to show for all our hard work. I am extremely happy to be involved with such a talented group of designers. It has made the semester that much easier when the road got bumpy. Great job, guys!

Immersion -- Week 10

Mid-semester rant, doubts, blues ....

Up until this point, I have kept my posts pretty objective concerning the whole Immersion experience. For this posting I will digress a bit. This week has been a struggle for me. In one class I was included in a group that was on the receiving end of some pretty harsh and unproductive criticism in an activity that was intended to be an open and reasonably positive peer critique of our work.

I have doubted my ability to adequately facilitate the Immersion team and move them forward in the analysis phase of our project. Even though I have tried my best in the role as Project Coordinator to not act as a leader (see post on bioteaming), during client and SME meetings as well as interactions with our instructor I feel that I am responsible for filling that leadership role. I don't mind facilitating - as a matter of fact most of the time I enjoy it. But I'm finding that in this situation I dislike the facilitator role more and more each day. Perhaps it is because I have a vested interest in the outcome of the project and cannot act as an impartial party during this process. Sometimes I feel like I am battling my teammates and imposing my perspective and sense of order on them. I don't want that to happen. So this week I was more passive in my role to see what would happen in the team meeting. A circular, unproductive conversation ensued that had the team stalled on the same topic for about 45 minutes. Not good. I suggested that we all start sharing the role of leading client and SME meetings. They agreed, but didn't jump up and down at the opportunity to take on this task. I was able to convince one team member to handle a portion of the meeting while I stood by as back up.

Then to top it off, we got an interesting perspective from another instructor who filled in briefly for our Immersion advisor this week. From his view, it appears that our whole approach to the needs analysis needs to be completely revamped so we are not considering a virtual collaboration center as an end product. This has been a concern voiced by some team members as we have progressed through analysis. I feel that there are some competing agendas here that have prompted the "do what is wanted" stance where the project is concerned, causing the "do what is actually needed" approach to take a back seat (see my fuchsia post). That doesn't make me very happy.

On a more positive note, I did get to play with Springdoo, a neat Web 2.0 tool that allows you to create quick and easy videos that can be emailed, or posted to websites, blogs, and social networking sites. I posted my quick and dirty first attempt at a Springdoo video. My partner and I hope to use this for our Performance Centered Design project that will support public speaking.

Immersion -- Week 9

The "virtues" of virtual communication

As I mentioned before, in order to consider what is possible in this "virtual collaboration center" for T/TAC Online, the design team is going to play with the various virtual communication tools that are available at T/TAC. So we dove right in and decided to conduct a virtual meeting using Adobe Connect. I set up my computer with the various downloads, tested the audio and played with uploading documents for participants to view and sharing my desktop. We started the meeting. Some had our webcams working, which initially seemed pretty cool. Okay, so the video representation of ourselves was about the size of my thumbtip, but at least we could see ourselves, right? And maybe the audio was a bit garbled too. So we decided to turn off our webcams. That seemed to improve the audio quality. I was facilitating the meeting and initially things seemed to go fairly smoothly. Then one person couldn't hear me. We logged off and logged back onto the session. Okay, now we could hear each other again. I shared my desktop so the group could edit a document together. There was such a delay between what I could see on my screen versus what the group could view through the Connect meeting that feedback on what I was trying to edit on my screen was tedious at best. Then someone in the group had to leave. The moment she logged off the session, another team member's audio went out. By the end of the session, I was about to throw my laptop out the window.

So the supposed "virtues" of virtual communication? Right now I don't see any. Perhaps I will have a different opinion if you ask me the same question a week from now. This experience makes me think of the article on Donald Norman's analysis of the failures of the personal computer that we discussed in my performance centered design class. This experience also clarifies exactly how much work we will have to put in as a team to adequately explore all of the limitations of these virtual tools in order to effectively design this virtual collaboration center.

Immersion -- Week 6

Completion of the Performance Analysis

We have finally finished our performance analysis! After meeting with a myriad of SMEs on all things T/TAC and T/TAC Online, it looks like we actually have some direction with our project. We met with the client this week and presented some straw (in other words, we gave the client some draft recommendations to respond to). After processing his feedback, we came up with the following priorities:

1. Develop a virtual collaboration center that would enable T/TAC staff to take advantage of existing but currently under-used conferencing and collaborative software resources.
2. Create resources to support T/TAC staff development with respect to their ability to use newer training creation tools.
3. Customize T/TAC Online content for individual users.

Our initial thoughts focused on creating a collaborative working environment for all T/TAC Online users and harnessing the "collective intelligence" of the audience through Web 2.0 tools. However, due to the perceived lack of control over the conversations that could occur in this type of environment, there would not be support for such an open exchange of ideas and information. But, if such an environment was created for T/TAC staff to enhance their ability to deliver training across the state, then this type of "virtual collaboration center" would probably be embraced. We discovered that T/TAC has recently acquired all sorts of neat conferencing tools that will allow T/TAC stakeholders to deliver and receive training virtually. So, the iTeam (Immersion Team) will get a chance to become familiar with such items as Flash, Camtasia, Articulate, Captivate, podcasting, and Adobe Connect. I can't wait to play with these innovative tools. I say -- let the games begin!

So, now that the Performance Analysis is complete, it is onto the Needs Assessment to determine which of the above priorities we will focus on.

Immersion -- Week 5

Performance Centered Design ... Objectivist or Cognitivist?



A classmate recently remarked that performance centered design (PCD) seemed very objectivist in nature. That is, in order to receive just in time support, people are many times led by the hand in the right direction for the information they need to get the job done. But, my PCD instructor presented his take on this issue - that distributed cognition is the foundation of Performance Support. From the distributed cognition view, knowledge is transmitted between individuals and cultural tools, and the relationship of these different elements (person-to-person, person-to-tool) changes the external structure to develop a "functional system". I can see where this view would fit with performance support. However if you are trying to get a person from Point A (weekly timesheet) to Point C (entering weekly timesheet into automated system) and present B (job aid to help person enter weekly time into automated system) as the stimulus to get to Point C, then isn't that purely objectivist? Or can it be both?