UCD Project News Edition 16, November 10, 2003
UCD Project News is a fortnightly e-newsletter devoted to increasing
awareness of user-centred design (UCD) principles and contributing
towards a culture of UCD within the Smart Internet Technology CRC.
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In this issue:
1. Supriya: A Time to Connect
2. Youngmi Choi presents at MAAOE
3. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
4. Useful Links & References
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1. Supriya: A time to connect
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Now that we are over the Research Advisory Committee presentations
and waiting for the budgeting decisions for the next round of projects,
there is an enjoyable lull. We are connecting with some of our technology
partners, thinking of the assumptions underlying our work. We are
getting in touch with people around the world who are involved in
the innovative use and design of Internet technologies.
The end of the year is also leading to a push to complete papers
that were promised. And of course, for some of us in the universities,
it means marking assignments. But for now in Melbourne, spring is
here – at least for a couple of days. The gardens are blooming.
And celebrations marking the end of the year have begun. So it is
a good time.
Supriya
Assoc Prof Supriya Singh,
Project Leader
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
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2. Youngmi Choi presents at MAAOE
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Youngmi Choi, a Research Associate with the User Centred Design
Project, based at RMIT, recently presented a paper exploring how
fashion designers managing SMEs in Melbourne adopt information and
communication technologies (ICT) at the MAAOE conference (Multi-national
Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence) in Melbourne
(http://intergon.net/maaoe).
The paper, entitled 'Clashes of ICT Implementation and Owners' Business
Philosophy: Stories from the Designer-Owned SMEs in the Australian
Clothing Industry', was based on face-to-face interviews with 15
SMEs in the Clothing Industry and investigates how their activities
fit with technologies and how these technologies in turn fit or
do not fit SME designers' activities.
It confirms that there is a conflict of art versus technology, particularly
when the technology is seen as a machine. The use of technologies
often threatens the artist in terms of easy reproducibility, authenticity,
creativity, and craftsmanship. These threats, arising from the use
of technology, still linger amongst the interviewed designers and
seem to influence their use of technologies.
For further information on the paper, please email Youngmi on: youngmi.choi@rmit.edu.au
or phone (03) 9925 1492.
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3. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
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* PDC 2004
The eighth biennial Participatory Design Conference will be held
in Toronto, Canada from July 27?31, 2004. Participatory Design Conferences,
held every two years since 1990, bring together a multidisciplinary
and international group of software developers, researchers, social
scientists, designers, activists, practitioners, users, citizens,
cultural workers and managers who adopt distinctively participatory
approaches in the development of information and communication artifacts,
systems, services and technology.
The overall theme of the 2004 conference, "Artful Integration:
Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices" describes a central
reality of participatory design. It recognizes that an essential
ingredient in design practice is the working together of multiple,
heterogeneous elements. Whereas conventional design approaches emphasize
the role of the designer and the creation of singular "things,"
artful integration calls attention to the collective interweaving
of people, artifacts and processes to achieve practical, aesthetic
or emancipatory syntheses. The call for papers is now open and contributions
that address all aspects of participatory design, especially those
that address these concerns.
For further information, please visit: http://cpsr.org/conferences/pdc2004/
Or email: pdc2004@cpsr.org
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* Convergences ‘03
The third International Conference on the Convergence of Knowledge,
Culture, Language and Information Technologies (Convergences ’03)
will be held in Alexandria, Egypt on 2-6 December 2003. The conference
has been jointly organized by the UNDL Foundation and the Library
of Alexandria, in cooperation with UNL Arabic Language Centre of
the Royal Scientific Society (Jordan), and promoted with the support
of the United Nations, UNESCO, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social
Development, and a number of national governments and universities.
The conference seeks to address the questions: How can understanding
prosper, for instance, without crossing language barriers? How can
dialogue and cooperation be promoted without bridging “local”
knowledges and “universal” knowledge? How can multi-diverse
manifestations of culture flourish if they are not universally shared?
Researchers from Humanities and Engineering are invited to contribute
and discuss new conceptual frameworks or functional constructs in
support of reciprocal knowledge and transcultural interactions.
For further information, please visit: http://www.convergences03.net/index.html
Or email: sirin@rss.gov.jo
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* ASSETS 2004
The Sixth International ACM SIGCAPH Conference on Assistive Technologies,
(ASSETS 2004) will be held in Atlanta, US on October 18?20, 2004.
The ASSETS conference is a forum for disseminating the results of
innovative scientific research that is being conducted to investigate
computer technologies and their use by persons with disabilities.
This conference also serves as a forum for sharing state?of?the?art
design and development efforts that are aimed at creating assistive
systems for persons with disabilities.
The meeting is designed in a way to encourage the exchange of ideas
both in the formal paper sessions as well as informal evening sessions
and social interactions. This is a single?track conference in order
to encourage group participation.
Questions about the focus, structure, or venue of the conference
should be directed to the Conference Chair, Julie Jacko on email:
jacko@isye.gatech.edu
or tel: 404.894.2340.
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4. Useful Links and References
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* Vohringer-Kuhnt, Thomas (2002), “The Influence of Culture
on Usability,” Masters Thesis, Freie Universitat, Berlin.
Software products and web applications in particular are used more
and more outside the countries and cultures they have been developed
in and designed for. But only limited research has been carried
out to investigate cultural influences on the usability of globally
used software products. In this study, a research model has been
developed, according to Hofstede’s cultural specific variables
(Hofstede, 1980; 1991) and the ISO 9241-11 (1995) definition of
usability. The model is derived from Davis’ Technology Acceptance
Model (Davis, 1989), which has been used in a lot of studies about
user acceptance and human machine interaction. The overall results
of the study indicate differences in the attitude towards usability
across members of different national groups.
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~kuhnt/thesis/results.pdf.
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* Gulliksen, J., Lantz, A., and Boivie, I. Eds. (1998), “User
Centred Design in Practice – Problems and Possibilities”,
Centre for User Oriented Design, Royal Institute of Technology,
Stokholm, Sweden.
This CID report is a collection of the papers accepted to the workshop
“User Centered Design – Problems and Possibilities”
that was held in Seattle, the U.S., on November 14, 1998. The papers
discuss the problems that are commonly faced in user centred design.
Several examples are provided in the papers - some of which are
success stories and some of which are failures. The overall theme
is that user centred design contains a great number of unsolved
problems and different approaches and thus is not the "silver
bullet" for designing for usability in cooperation with users.
http://www.nada.kth.se/cid/pdf/cid_40.pdf
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* Michel Menou, (2002) "Information Literacy in National Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) policies: The Missed Dimension,
Information Culture," White Paper prepared for UNESCO, the
U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and
the National Forum on Information Literacy, for use at the Information
Literacy Meeting of Experts, Prague, The Czech Republic.
Most national and international development policies have now made
ample room for the application of ICT and transition toward the
information society. Within each country as well as among them,
inequalities in access and use (usually referred to as “digital
divide”) are seen as a major threat. In addition to securing
“universal access," information literacy is a major component
of these efforts. A number of examples mostly drawn from Latin America
illustrate the patterns in addressing information literacy issues.
The emphasis upon use of computers and more generally the quite
narrow perspective of these programs makes them look far more an
exercise for “retooling” the workforce than empowering
citizens. It is advocated that the potential of the Information
Age cannot be realised without expanding the scope of information
and computer literacy far beyond their usual, functional aspects.
http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/infolitconf&meet/papers/menou-fullpaper.pdf
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