Design team members: Steve Lebourveau and Barry Piquette
Supervisor: Liwana Bringelson
Background
Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is an organisation that provides people with technical skills the opportunity to help the developing world. Its members are dispersed across Canada, and its potential stakeholders are scattered around the world. Communicating is critically important for such an extensive organisation. Although the Internet has proved very useful in allowing all kinds of organisations to improve world-wide communication, it has produced mostly one-to-one (through e-mail) and one-to-many (through WebPages) solutions. The needs EWB would like to address with the ReseachSpace project suggest that a many-to-many solution is required. These needs include:
Researchers need to communicate with Non-Government Organizations (NGO) and other organisations/people in the developing world to gain knowledge about the challenges faced.
Researchers also need to communicate amongst themselves to determine if and where relevant research is taking place before embarking on research projects.
Students need to be able to communicate with faculty members in order to arrange supervision for class-related projects.
Project description
ResearchSpace, the proposed solution to these challenges, was originally conceived as simply a database that can be accessed by those looking for information on technological matters for the developing world. George Roter, EWB President, describes it as analogous to 'open-source' programming, a concept that involves individual programmers working on software, then releasing the source code so that others can work to improve it. With ResearchSpace, researchers will do research on solving a particular third-world problem, then publish the results on ResearchSpace, so that others can see the results and contribute.
This design team is implementing ResearchSpace as an on-line community. This means including various forums for discussion and interaction in the design. This will facilitate project management over large distances, and will allow users to learn from one another's experience and expertise in addition to the more factual knowledge that could have been obtained from implementing the original conception of ResearchSpace. This added dimension to the project will provide members with "...opportunit[ies] for collaborative learning and knowledge building [and aim to] reduce professional isolation... [and to] expand the opportunity for learning at several levels of richness: seeking solutions to technical questions, keeping up-to-date with recent advances, and extending the boundaries of collective knowledge." [1]
Design methodology
ResearchSpace was developed using a user-centered design spiral which consists of four stages: analysis, design, implementation and testing. The user-centered aspect of this process implies that the users are the main focus of the design. End-users are used throughout the process to ensure adequate input and feedback. Four complete cycles of the spiral will be needed to guarantee a highly intuitive and usable product (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Spiral Method
Analysis
In this stage, the problem is defined and important criteria are generated for use in the design stage. Users provide the design team with valuable insight into the needs, desires and capabilities of the end users - the customers. This was done through interviewing and e-mailing stakeholders in order to obtain desired features (chat rooms, messageboards, library) and potential tasks (what users expect to do with ResearchSpace, e.g. Find material on water purification).
Design
Typically, this is where one or more ideas are conceived using the results of the analysis stage. Using the user-centred design approach, there is only a need to produce a single design, as this design will be moulded to fit the conceptions of the users. A campus analogy was chosen for ResearchSpace, and the intended features of the site were distributed amongst the various buildings within this university community.
Implementation
This is where the designers fabricate one or more prototypes of the design(s). The proposal from the design stage was implemented into a low fidelity prototype, meaning a non-functional but representative model. ResearchSpace was first created on paper, with Post-it notes and paper cutouts representing frames and pop-ups in the real world.
Testing
Here,
the
prototype
is
tested
with
users
as
subjects.
Since
the
goal
of
the
project
was
to
create
an
intuitive
and
usable
product,
the
prototype
was
tested
for
types
or
errors
and
error
rates.
A
discount
usability
method
was
used
to
discover
the
faults
of
the
initial
design.
Using
the
tasks
identified
in
the
Analysis
stage,
users
walked
through
the
prototype
attempting
to
perform
the
tasks.
When
difficulties
were
encountered,
they
were
noted.
Following
the
fourth
stage
of
the
process,
the
team
begins
the
second
phase
or
run
through
each
of
the
stages.
The
testing
results
are
analysed,
and
if
required,
the
problem
is
redefined
and
new
criteria
are
developed
for
the
next
design
stage.
References
1. Liwana S. Bringelson and Tom Carey, "Different (Key)strokes for Different Folks: Designing online venues for professional communities", Educational Technology & Society, 3(3), 2000.