Patterns, Participatory Design and Civil Society

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Patterns, Participatory Design and Civil Society

• Andy Dearden
• Sheffield Hallam University, UK
• Also starring
• Janet Finlay, Elizabeth Allgar, Steve Walker
• Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
• Barbara McManus
• University of Central Lancashire, UK
• Doug Schuler
• Evergreen State College, Washington
• and many others

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Outline

• Patterns and pattern languages
• introduction and some history
• Patterns and participation
• patterns
• participatory interaction design using patterns
• findings
• Patterns and Civil Society
• What is Civil Society?
• How is Civil Society different?
• Two projects
• Pattern based design for Civil Society?
• Questions, Questions, Questions

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The BIG READ

• Gamma, Helm, Johnson Vlissides
• Design Patterns Elements of Re-usable OO
  Software
• Christopher Alexander
• The Timeless Way of Building
• A Pattern Language
• The Production of Houses, The Oregon Experiment,
  A New Theory of Urban Design
• Greenbaum Kyng
• Design at Work
• Schuler Namioka
• Participatory Design

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Patterns in Architecture

• Christopher Alexander
• Suggested (in a series of books 1975 87)
• Patterns
• aim to explicate positive design advice
• to be interpreted in each specific context
• Language
• organised network of inter-related patterns
• generating an organised sequence of design
  activities

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An example of Alexander (et al.s) patterns -
street cafe
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Some other examples from Alexander

• Community of 7000
• Identifiable neighbourhoods
• Access to Water
• Old People Everywhere
• Nine percent parking
• Alexanders writing and the patterns reflect a
  very clear sense of values

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Design Patterns in Software Engineering

• Gamma, Helm, Johnson Vlissides
• The gang of four book
• descriptions of communicating objects and
  classes that are customized to solve a general
  design problem in a particular context
• Sharing good solutions
• Presented in sensible chunks
• A way of presenting known good practice
• For communication within the software engineering
  profession

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An example Observer

• Intent
• Define relationship between a group of objects
  such that whenever one object is updated all
  others are notified automatically.

Subject
observers
Observer
attach (observer)
update ()
0..
detach (observer)
1
notify ()
for each observer
observer.update()
RealSubject
RealObserver
subject
getState ()
update ()
1
1
0..
setState ()
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Patterns in user-interface design

• Examples
• Jennifer Tidwell Common Ground
• Martijn van Welie
• Amsterdam Patterns Collection
• http//www.welie.com/
• Jan Borchers
• A Pattern Approach to Interaction Design
• van Duyne, Landay Hong
• The Design of Sites

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Examples of Interaction Patterns

• Step by Step Instructions Tidwell, 1998
• Easy Handover Borchers, 2001
• Recommendation Community
• Location Breadcrumbs van Duyne et al, 2003
• Present good design ideas in sensible chunks
• The goals of an HCI pattern language are to
  share successful HCI design solutions among HCI
  professionalsInteract 99 Patterns workshop,
  as quoted by Borchers

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Alexander on using Patterns

• The Oregon Experiment (1975)
• All decisions about what to build, and how to
  build it, will be in the hands of the usersThe
  Oregon Experiment, p5 p58
• It is virtually impossible to get a building
  which is well adapted to these needs if the
  people who are the actual users do not design
  it. p 43
• The Production of Houses (1985)
• the key to success or failure of the system lies
  in the way that control is distributed. Above
  all, it is this which determines the quality of
  the environmentThe Production of Houses, p33
• Keynote address to OOPSLA 96
• one of the characteristics of any good
  environment is that every part of it is extremely
  highly adapted to its particularities. That local
  adaptation can happen successfully only if people
  (who are locally knowledgeable) do it for
  themselves

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Investigating Participatory use of Pattern
Languages

• Can HCI pattern languages support participatory
  interaction design?
• Two simulations
• travel websites on-line learning facilities
• Users
• students and lecturers(non computing)
• administrative and secretarial staff
• One real example
• www.facethemirror.net
• cosmetic surgery
• user recruited via a local clinic
• actual results of the design are no longer
  available

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Establishing a pattern language
what do we recommend?
General HCI patterns
how does this pattern apply in this domain?
HCI patterns community
language editor
Specialised pattern language
Design context
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Participation in (micro) design
Specialised pattern language
Design context
how do I apply this pattern in my design?
Which patterns could apply here?
individual patterns or small sets of patterns
designer -facilitator
user-designer
paper prototypes
working prototypes systems
mockups
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Example patterns

• Travel website pattern language
• On-line Learning Language

 
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What it looks like
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Findings

• Physical design matters
• how is the language to be handled in practice
• wording, layout, amount of explanatory text
• The facilitator matters
• how directive should the facilitator be?
• what do they say about the patterns?
• Users trust the patterns
• It does feel that when you have designed the
  pages that it actually means something because
  all the criteria associated with it have been
  addressed
• which may be good or bad
• Effectiveness
• ???

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Summary

• Patterns were originally designed for
  participation
• Patterns can be used to support participatory
  interaction design
• It is not clear how effective this approach is
  in comparison with other approaches
• Alexanders patterns reflect a strong sense of
  values

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Designing for Civil Society

• What is Civil Society?
• Charities Non-governmental organisations
• debating
• campaigning
• delivering services
• Person to person organisational networks
• stop the war coalition
• on-line petitions

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How is Civil Society Different?

• Networks of small organisations
• local groups
• information centres (e.g. HoDIS)
• Often dependent on volunteers
• rich mix of technical literacy
• different levels of connectivity
• Different values
• inclusive
• sharing ideas and resources
• not necessarily growth oriented
• May involve conflict with other social actors
• trade-unions
• environmental campaigns

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What is going on?

• Support organisations
• Internet rights Bulgaria
• Circuit Riders
• Innovative local projects
• The Fiankoma Project (Fiankoma, Ghana - Brighton,
  UK)
• Help the Aged on-line shopping
• Information portals and mailing lists
• Democracies on-line
• dialog on / labourstart
• developmentgateway
• Open-source tools
• www.Martus.org (human rights software)

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Patterns and Civil Society

• The CPSR Public Sphere Project
• The Pattern Language for Living Communication
  project is a long-term, participatory project to
  create a useful, compelling and comprehensive
  collection of knowledge which reflects the wisdom
  of people from all over the world who are
  developing information and communication systems
  that support humankind's deepest core values
• Started through DIAC conference 2002 (Seattle)
• Further work at PDC 2002 (Malmo) and DIAC 2003
  (Milan)

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A patterns approach

• Some examples
• The commons
• E-consultation
• Bottom-up Communication
• User-driven software quality labelling
• Public Information Infrastructure for Workforce
  Development
• Crossing the Divide through Service (Learning)
• A mix of general aspirations and concrete
  suggestions

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A tools approach

• Summer Source Camp
• supported by Soros Foundation
• NGOs open-source developers
• DebianNonProfit
• a basic open-source distribution for
  non-profits
• operating system
• open-office
• file print sharing
• office scheduling
• volunteer co-ordination (contact database,
  calendar, to-do wiki)
• finance - office inventory, needs, donations
• event planning/scheduling/managing/ticketing

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An interaction patterns approach?

• Focus on an area of the Public Sphere Language
• e.g. Effective Mutual-Help Medical Websites
• Develop bridging patterns
• useful components
• interaction design
• Revise review the language
• Examine use of patterns with suitable partner
• Iterate
• Next experiment
• on-line social support community for HE students
• Elizabeth Allgar (LMU)

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Conclusions

• Patterns belong in the participatory tradition
• Theres a lot happening in civil society
• If patterns really work this would be a good
  place to try them

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Questions?