Software Engineering Themes for the Future

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Collaborative Design, Social Creativity, and Meta-Design
Gerhard Fischer
University of Colorado, Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D)
Department of Computer Science, 430 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0430 – USA
[email protected]

ABSTRACT 2. DESIGN AND COLLABORATIVE

The objective of this tutorial is to provide the participants with DESIGN
opportunities to think differently about future challenges facing Design and specifically collaborative design are ubiquitous
software engineering research and practice. Collaborative design, activities [Schön, 1983; Simon, 1996] that are practiced in
social creativity, and meta-design are identified as themes that everyday life as well as in the workplace by professionals in many
will be of great importance in the years to come. The concept of domains and they are of special importance in the creation, use
design is used very broadly affecting all aspects of the process of and evolution of software-intensive systems. Designers engage in
creating, using, and evolving software-intensive systems. problem solving and decision making. But apart from problems in
Stakeholders coming from different disciplines and engaging in school, most problems in real life are not given. For these
collaborative design can contribute to social creativity by problems, understanding the problem is the problem: they must be
exploring new approaches, new problems, and new visions. Meta- framed, a process in which the important objects are determined
design is a methodology empowering users to act not only as and the desired outcomes are defined.
passive consumers but as active contributors and designers,
The tutorial will emphasize domain-oriented design. Domain
thereby facilitating and supporting social creativity.
models should be designed to fit what people want to do — first
The themes of the tutorial will be illustrated with specific through participation with users and eventually by users
theoretical frameworks and innovative systems. The relevance of themselves requiring support for design in use, end-user
these themes has been demonstrated by their desirability and modifiability, and meta-design. Domain-oriented design
importance on research, education, and design practices in environments [Fischer, 1994] recognize the legitimacy of
companies, educational institutions, and research organizations. specialization to the domain by not serving all needs obscurely,
but serving a few needs well.
Categories & Subject Descriptors
Complex design problems require more knowledge than any
D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: D.2.10 Design; D.2.2 Design single person possesses because the knowledge relevant to a
Tools and Techniques problem is usually distributed among many stakeholders. Large
and complex design projects cannot be accomplished by any
General Terms: Design single person, and they often cut across different established
1. INTRODUCTION disciplines, requiring expertise in a wide range of areas [Arias et
The tutorial will discuss some fundamental problems effecting al., 2000]. Software design projects, for example, involve
software engineering in the future. Our approach is grounded in designers, programmers, human-computer interaction specialists,
the assumption that system development is difficult not because of marketing people, domain experts, and user participants.
the complexity of technical problems, but because of the social Collaborative design is done by communities. The tutorial will
interaction between users and system developers as they learn to introduce and differentiate between communities of practice (as
create, develop, and express their ideas and visions [Greenbaum homogenous design communities) and communities of interest (as
& Kyng, 1991]. Software engineering (especially its upstream heterogeneous design communities). Four specific distances
activities) is a human-centered field [Fischer, 2003], and as such (spatial, temporal, conceptual, and technological) that exist in
will always have the openness of other design disciplines, such as these communities will be discussed in detail.
architecture and graphic design, rather than the hard-edged
formulaic certainty of downstream engineering [National- 3. SOCIAL CREATIVITY
Research-Council, 2003; Winograd, 1996]. The power of the unaided individual mind is highly overrated.
Although creative individuals are often thought of as working in
isolation, much of our intelligence and creativity results from
interaction and collaboration with other individuals [Bennis &
Biederman, 1997], exploiting the “symmetry of ignorance” as a
Copyright is held by author/owners. source of power.
ICSE’06, May 20-28, 2006, Shanghai, China.
ACM 1-59593-085-X/06/0005.

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Focusing on social creativity does not mean that the importance of 5. REFERENCES
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open source — with a focus on: success model of
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living organizational memories — with a focus on: Wikis,
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users; and
interactive art — with a focus on: collaboration, co-creation
putting the tools rather than the object of design in the hands
of users.

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