Mobility and learning environments: Engaging people in design of their everyday environments

concrete Mobility and learning environments, report 15 December 2002 p. 8 Concept/method/theory Researchers, key sentences, special references Affordance What an every day phenomenon has to offer a person depends to a great extent on that person’s wishes and abilities. (Norman, 1988) Useworthy Useworthiness in a phenomenon is determined by the wishes and abilities of the person using it. Useworthiness and usability are not synonyms. (Eftring, 1999) Abduction (the logic for synthetic reasoning, a method to acquire new ideas) In user-oriented design it is particularly important to be able to bring to light not only the different things that one sees using different kinds of mental eyeglasses, but also what it is that constitutes the actual glasses and the difference between them. (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 1994) Distributed cognition To place cognition in surroundings in the real world, often in the form of artifacts, is a widely propagated conscious and unconscious method. The possibilities it offers for people with cognitive limitations are under utilized. (Hutchins, 1996) Tacit knowledge Tacit knowledge does not only exist in individuals and groups of people—it can also be found built into environments and work places, in professions and traditions. It is often a counterpart to more explicit knowledge. (Rolf, 1991) Phronesis Aristotle. Along with episteme and techne, according to Aristotle, was the area of phronesis—that which dealt with “the human being and her actions”. We experience that the user-personal design has a strong element of phronesis (Nussbaum, 1990). Table 1: Concepts related to methodological discussions about engaging users in design. A decent assumption is that the greater the difference is between the designer’s and the user’s worlds of concepts, the greater is the need for a user adjoining design process, and the greater is the applicability of the sentence ”You cannot know until you have tried”. This is rather impressive when designing communication facilities for differently abled people. A communication artifact resulting from a design process is supposed to represent a distributed cognition not only to the designer but also to the differently abled user. This strengthens the need for adjacentness in the design process. Mobility and learning environments, report 15 December 2002 p. 9 2 High-tech hunters and K3 Nomads Two pilot cultural probes studies have been done with students at K3: The Hightech hunters (HTH) and the K3 Nomads (K3N). We are using the tribe metaphor to stress important characteristics of how the two user groups use, move around, and collaborate in their learning facilities and environments. The HTH study included 3 users who were equipped with a ‘technological probe’ for two weeks. The K3N included 9 users who got an ‘SMS-probe’ for one week. 2.1 Arts and Communication – K3 K3 is short for Arts and Communication (Konst, kultur och kommunikation) at Malmö University. It is a cross disciplinary ‘faculty’ with approximately 600 students and 50 staff members. Malmö University is a young university, established in 1998 in the industrial harbor area in Malmö. During and since its establishment K3 has focused on how to integrate digital technology, the physical environment, and the pedagogical approach as stated in Ehn (1998) and in a pedagogical manifest formulated as ten pedagogical principles (K3, 1998). Research studios as well as education programs are based on the ideas and visions of these manifests. 2.1.1 K3 – pedagogical directions, school profile, facts As the pedagogical principles at universities starts to move away from the conventional classroom culture, towards a project and problem based learning (PBL) environment, new tools for communication and cooperation are needed. In PBL the process of learning is equally important as the result. Furthermore access to learning resources need to be much more flexible both in terms of where and when to access these since a PBL approach implies that learning most often takes place outside the lecture room, and beyond scheduled teaching hours. This has been strengthened by the fact that economic pressure at the universities has forced more students into the learning environment than originally planned for. A consequence of this is that students cannot have their own, permanent classrooms or ‘studios’. Communication areas and areas for relaxing have to serve as complementary learning environments. We consider this very challenging and inspiring, and not necessarily a negative consequence of the growing number of students. A main question in this project is how to technologically augment a mobile, collaborative learning environment like the one at K3, Malmö University. At K3 interdisciplinary projects involving different educational programs are an important part of the teaching philosophy, as a part of the idea for the Digital Bauhaus (Ehn, 1998). As mentioned earlier the Digital Bauhaus aims to combine new communication technologies with softer values such as art, culture and design. This imp lies that learning resources often are multi-medial, i.e. can be text, graphics, sound, video, as well as physical models and materials. 2.1.2 K3 – the physical layout and architecture In order to understand how the K3 environment could be augmented and transformed into a mobile, collaborative learning environment the physical layout and architecture should be explained (see figure 3-6). The total area is approximately 5000 m. The overall architectural idea has been to put all ‘function’area along the outer walls of the building. In the left part of the ground floor (figure 3) are mainly research studios. In the right part of the ground floor are mainly labs, project rooms for students that can be booked for shorter or longer periods of time. Second floor (figure 4) primarily contains lecture rooms and project rooms. The basement (figure 5) primarily contains computer labs, lecture rooms, and videoand sound editing facilities. Mobility and learning environments, report 15 December 2002 p. 10 Figure 3: K3 ground floor Figure 4: K3 second floor Figure 5: K3 basement The most interesting parts of the building in our respect are the ‘white’ areas – what architects normally refer to as communication areas – between the function spaces. Compared to usual work places we have a substantial amount of Mobility and learning environments, report 15 December 2002 p. 11 communication areas which are equipped with café-tables and -chairs, sofas, coffee-tables, ‘computer islands’, a wide stairway (which can also be used for sitting on), notice boards and open wall areas for exhibitions etc as the photos from students’ project activities on figure 6 show. An important question that we ask ourselves is what it means to be working in a group, and how such collaborative learning situations in an open, mobile environment can be augmented by digital artefacts? Figure 6: Students working in the ‘white’ areas The K3-students move freely both in closed augmented spaces like the university facilities, a student corridor, and a library; or through a non-augmented spaces like the city center, a cafe, etc. The mobility outside the augmented spaces is constrained in terms of connectivity to digital resources, which we in the following define as ‘communication constraints’. 2.1.3 Hotspot and collaborative displays an early design idea Once in the augmented space, it is obvious that the availability of the different indoor spaces is what will define the workspaces for the project groups. We also consider the ‘white space’ a so-called potential ‘HotSpot’ an open usability lab where different technologies could be tried out in a prototypical way both in usercentered and product-centered analysis. The administration of such spaces has evolved in a similar way at many universities around the world. In these open areas, both a social and work-related interaction takes place. Such spaces differ from the more closed project rooms because of an obvious lack of intimacy, loud background noise, etc. There is a constant change of the group working locations, and students move among groups for joining different projects, which makes it very difficult to set up a physical space, that can be personalized by the group-members. This raises another interesting question: How can we support the project-groups with personalized spaces, which can quickly change between different project settings? In an earlier scenario (Nyström, 2001), we created a concept of a movable projection wall, where different devices could get connected simultaneously, giving non-prioritized access to the display, where the project members could interact freely using their own devices. We envision such a wall to be used both for limiting and augmenting the workspace. In this way, by virtually storing the project display configuration, the configuration can be changed easily by detecting which kind of workgroup is present and close to the screens. Such a concept is feasible today using existing technologies: high frequency ultrasound signals for the direct interaction with the screen, low frequency ultrasound for the group-members positioning, projection walls and sound speakers; all integrated by an adequate software design and communication platform. An important part of our project activities during 2003 will be to create prototypical designs and study whether such Mobility and learning environments, report 15 December 2002 p. 12 a setting would be useful in a collaborative learning situation, and if it would provide the group with enough intimacy and other qualities as described above. 2.1.4 First experiences with technological infrastructure and facilities Today K3 has an ordinary LAN, and access to computers from all labs and studios. The open space has – so far – one computer ‘island’ with four basic computers mainly for reading and sending emails and for searching for information. Everybody (staff and stude