Comparing paradigms

Today we're going to try to understand the difference between different design paradigms from an experiential perspective. How does it feel to think about a design problem from different perspectives? What are the different outcomes that different design processes lead to?

What to expect

• This is going to feel ill-defined. That's normal. Remember, designers have to be good at designing design processes too, which means you'll be figuring out what to do with your time.
• These are artificially short periods of time to apply these methods. It's going to feel rushed in the same way it can feel rushed in industry.
• I don't want you to design anything in particular to solve these problems. That's for you to figure out as part of your design process.

Form groups (3 min)

Find two people you don't know in this class and team up with them.

The problem

Let's try to tackle how can undergraduates get more sleep?

1st paradigm: Participatory design (25 min)

A stakeholder is anyone directly or indirectly affected by a problem.

• Who are the stakeholders in this problem? (Find at least three.)
• How can you involve the stakeholders in the design process?
• Study the problem by somehow involving stakeholders.
• Ideate solutions "with" stakeholders.
• Sketch a solution you believe best solves the problem for all stakeholders.
• How would you test this solution with these stakeholders?

Questions:

• What affected the outcome of your design?
• How did stakeholders change your ideation?

2nd paradigm: Value-sensitive design (VSD) (25 min)

Values are complex constructs related to how people makes sense of the world. A simplified definion by Batya Friedman (UW professor that created VSD) is: A human value is what is relevant or desirable to a person and guides their actions and decisions. This includes ideas such as freedom, agency, privacy, security, independence, beauty, comfort, etc. Value-sensitive design engages these values to understand the nature of a problem from a values perspective.

Let's re-evaluate the same problem with a VSD perspective:

• What values are most important for your stakeholders?
• What are the tensions between the values in the problem?
• Ideate solutions that reconcile these different value tensions.
• Revisit your solution making sure to solve a value-tension.

Questions:

• What would you wish to do differently to improve the results of this activity?
• How was the focus on values different from the participatory approach?
• Did you find anything limiting about the value-sensitive approach?
• How were your solutions different from the participatory approach?

Credit

Submit the piece of paper with all of your ideas with each of your names on it.