Meta-Design: Putting Owners of Problems in Charge
Speaker
Gerhard Fischer
Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D), Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)
Description
In a world that is not predictable, improvisation, evolution, and innovation are more than a luxury: they are a necessity. The challenge of design is not a matter of getting rid of the emergent, but rather of including it and making it an opportunity for more creative and more adequate solutions to problems.
Meta-design is aimed at defining and creating social and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. It extends the traditional notion of system design beyond the original development of systems to include processes, in which the users become co-designers in personally meaningful problems. It is grounded in the basic assumption that future uses and problems cannot be completely anticipated at design time, when systems are being developed. Users at use time will discover mismatches between their needs and the support that existing systems can provide for them. These mismatches will lead to breakdowns that serve as potential sources of new insights, new knowledge, and new understanding.
Our evolving frameworks and systems instantiating meta-design are focused on open source software design, architectural design, urban planning, teaching and learning, living organizational memories, digital libraries, and interactive art.
Speaker's Bio
Gerhard Fischer is a Professor of Computer Science, a Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Science, and the Director of the Center for Lifelong Learning and Design (L3D) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research is focused on new conceptual frameworks and new media for learning, working, and collaboration; human-computer interaction; cognitive science; distributed intelligence; social creativity; design; meta-design; domain-oriented design environments; and universal design (assistive technologies). More information about the L3D Center can be found at http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/.
Speaker's Website
http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/
Host
Mark D Gross