An official website of the United States government
This paper reports on a fully inclusive co-design process of an informal VR science game intended to be accessible to a broad range of learners. The co-design embraces the `nothing about us without' us movement by ensuring that stakeholder voices have a prominent role throughout the design process. In the project described in this paper, professional designers and researchers work with a team of neurodiverse stakeholders as peer members of the design team. The design process is described, and the findings based on feedback from all co-design participants is reported. Recommendations for others in the field are provided to help guide those interested in implementing an effective and inclusive co-design process.
more »
« less
Logics of Collaboration: An Ethnography of Engineering Co-design in the Brazilian Amazon
Participatory design approaches such as co-design are promoted as ways to increase the likelihood that engineered products are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable by incorporating stakeholders into decision-making processes. However, executing collaborative design practices that incorporate the variety of stakeholders represents an enormous challenge. In this paper we examine these realities as experienced by a co-design team comprised of design engineers from a foreign country who are engaged with local stakeholders to develop a product for a community in the Brazilian Amazon. Based on more than a year of ethnographic research, we identify three types of perspectives or institutional logics operating in this setting—engineering, modernization, and traditional—which interact to constrain and enable the co-design process. We find that these logics can undermine co-design because the design team is better equipped to respond to stakeholders who express modernization logics rather than traditional ones. We conclude that while co-design can be truly collaborative in development projects, other times it may lead to the appearance that the design process is collaborative when it may in fact mask the marginalization of certain stakeholder voices.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1761505
- PAR ID:
- 10389674
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1555-9033
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 13
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
This work-in-progress research paper explores the intersection of cross-functional teamwork and design thinking within the course design process through collaborative autoethnography. Collaborative autoethnography uses individual and dialogic reflections to provide a detailed and nuanced exploration of experiences within a culture (e.g., a course design team) and generate insights that might inform broader community of individuals who experience related cultures. In this study, we investigate how individual educators attempt to shape and are shaped by a unique team course design process in electrical and computer engineering. The participant-researchers in this study are three electrical and computer engineering faculty members and one engineering education researcher who have participated in a six-semester-long course redesign effort. The effort has emphasized building and utilizing a new cross-functional team approach, imbued with design thinking strategies, to support improved professional formation and student-centeredness within an embedded systems course for electrical and computer engineering students. In this study, data collection and analysis were integrated and iterative. This process engaged cycles of setting writing prompts, individual writing, group discussion and reflection, and setting new writing prompts. This process was repeated as participant-researchers and the team as a whole refined their insights, explored emergent topics, and connected their observations to external research and scholarship. The autoethnographic process is ongoing, but five themes have emerged that describe key features of the team course design process and experience: (1) uncertainty, (2) navigating the team, (3) navigating the self, (4) navigating the system, and (5) process. The paper features a collection of participant-researcher reflections related to these emergent themes.more » « less
-
The Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool (CAST) serves multiple key functions in meeting nutrient reduction targets across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) and is embedded in the water quality governance system. To investigate contested perspectives regarding the model, we interviewed 59 stakeholders engaged in model governance across the CBW. We recorded statements regarding the accuracy, legitimacy, and credibility of the model, influences on its use, and on challenges and opportunities. We found skepticism regarding the legitimacy of CAST, including suggestions its role facilitates a “paper process” of policy design and that past experience has greater influence on policy decisions than model predictions. However, despite its perceived shortcomings, CAST has been central in helping stakeholders in prioritizing mitigative activities. With respect to credibility, most respondents believe the model underestimates the effects of nutrient-reduction practices, thereby underestimating progress toward TMDL-related goals. Respondents also identified opportunities for model improvement, emphasizing co-benefits of conservation practices over and above nutrient reduction. Overall, our analysis demonstrates a Collaborative Policy Modeling Paradox: collaborative model development is necessary for effective policy modeling, but the political processes of collaborative model development can negatively impact perceptions of salience, credibility, and legitimacy. Although it is important to recognize this paradox, as it is linked to dissatisfaction with the models, our findings also point to areas where improvement has occurred and to future opportunities for development.more » « less
-
This paper examines co-design as a space for collaborative learning with distributed expertise across generations and roles. We address a fundamental need in co-design spaces: to develop and surface expertise relevant to the design task across a team. We examine how knowledge building is experienced in a design process that has asymmetric expertise among youth, educators, and researchers. We used co-design to engage educators and youth in collaboration towards designing an Artificial Intelligence unit that centers equity and justice. We structured for joint inquiry to facilitate collective learning. We conducted interviews with participants to understand how they experienced codesign. We found our approach allowed for collaborative learning and interactivity among participants with different kinds of expertise.more » « less
-
We describe a framework for deploying agent-based models as a tool for decision-making during resilience planning, with an emphasis on flood mitigation. Prior work has demonstrated that agent-based models can be effective tools for modelling evolving community flood resilience and risk perception when they incorporate elements of individual decision-making. We argue for extending this methodology and incorporating it into regional infrastructure and resilience planning in order to 1) create more distributed and robust green infrastructure implementations and performance management systems; 2) provide a critique and alternatives to existing planning and delivery processes based on public sector jurisdictional boundaries; and, 3) validate and improve the modelling process by connecting it directly to stakeholder decision-making processes. This final point will effectively merge these systems-centric modelling approaches with human-centred community organising that employs various co-design methods. In regard to the ABMs, co-design methods can be a useful source of real-world data about individual decision-making that can inform and validate iterations of the models. For stakeholders, they can be a valuable source of information and education about flood risk and climate-related impacts that might not be available through other channels. And finally, hands-on workshops coupled with potential small implementation grants can be effective ways of providing skills and incentives to stakeholders who may wish to undertake projects on their own property, reshaping the way green infrastructure planning and implementation can be accomplished.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.24908/ijsle.v17i2.15709
