This section discusses a hypothetical example of using n-dim for facilitating design participation in the design of the new community library in a hypothetical town: Particburgh, PA. Particburgh is a town with 2000 residences (total population 7500). There are several factories in Particburgh including a recently opened assembly line of Toyonda, a Japanese car company. (Therefore some of the workers are starting to acquaint themselves with the Japanese perspective of concepts such as quality and sharing.) From the 2000 residences, members from 150 residences are active in various town activities.
The first stage in any participation is the initial presentation of concepts that is intended to trigger feedback or dialogue. In this project, the trigger was a town meeting in which the new project was presented to the town assembly. The county administrators decided to try a new approach in designing the facility: participatory design. They have heard a little about it and thought that it may be interesting and also beneficial.
The administrators had to discuss many issues: what could be the form of the participation, will they need a moderator, how long will the process take? They had to collect material on workshops and manuals for participation. Although some information was gathered, it was still partial.
Meanwhile, the county administrators found a computer program called n-dim that was available for experimenting; although it was not a commercial quality software, it was free and was accompanied with a proposal to send a researcher interested in studying participation to act as a participant in the project.
In the town meeting, the county officials presented the new idea and asked several people moderately proficient with the use of personal computers to try the software, and meanwhile, learn about participation by using it. The county officials also scheduled another meeting to allow these residents report their experience with the software. Moreover, this second meeting was supposed to give residents the ability to hear about the tool and the concept of participation from members of the community, rather than from county officials, and subsequently decide on the future progress of the project.
The researcher had several roles that facilitated the understanding of participation. Most importantly, the researcher demonstrated by example that n-dim could be used to structure information, beside being used as a fancy electronic mail facility. Figure 4 shows a text written by Joe and its translation to the ToDo model by the researcher. Meanwhile, Keren, another active resident, created the models in Figures 2 and 3, among others.
Figure 4: From textual to model representation
In order for Joe to view the ToDo model the researcher created, the researcher had to publish it, and Joe had to search for it (or receive it through the talk facility if the researcher was using n-dim at that time). Joe searched for the published ToDo objects and also found Keren's model which she recently published. Joe could then view and use his model in various ways; for example, he could annotate it and send it to Keren or copy and use some of Keren's model in his ToDo model.
Once the residents understood the modeling, browsing, search, and talk facilities of n-dim, they could start learning about previous experiences other participants had while participating in different projects and exchange their impressions. Such contextual information was critical for better appreciating the meaning of objects such as Frame_of_Mind, Resources, or Quality_of_Design appearing in Figure 2. Therefore, in order to make an informed decision about whether to participate, residents had to understand the issues involved in the library project, even if in a preliminary manner.
Figure 5 shows the model Participation_Projects classifying previous participatory design projects in addition to the model Facilities_Classification classifying facilities according to their function. These models were created by the researchers before the beginning of the exercise, but in real use, they are expected to accumulate through actual use in design projects. The participants detected the Boulder_Creek_Branch_Library and Library models and decided to browse the latter. The participants also noticed the models labeled Toyota and Honda and decide to browse it later. This had lead them to better understand the concept of participation as well as the rationale behind some of the activities they started practicing in the Toyonda plant.
Figure 5: Browsing previous participation experience
Figure 6 shows four models explored by the residents: (1) the
Library model organizing the information on library design; (2)
the Experience model containing the details about specific
projects and their relation to specific design stages; (3) the
Guidelines model containing various information sources about library
design; and (4) the Floor_size model depicting guidelines
for determining areas of various spaces of a library.
Figure 7 shows some of the issues in library design distilled from the different experiences and guidelines.
Figure 7: Issues in designing a library
One of the cases appearing in the Experience model, the Boulder_Creek_Branch_Library model, is an example of designing a community library center [4]. The residents decided to explore it next. In this model, the residents could view stages in the design process, including layouts of proposed solutions (see Figure 8). The residents could study this design and appreciate its relevance to their project. Indeed, a close observation revealed interesting similarities with their project. The success of the Boulder Creek Library design was influential on deciding to participate in the library design. The residents also discovered that the nature of the participation process, even if carefully planned ahead, could change as it unfolds. Therefore, their decision does not bind them to specific activities or processes; rather, it only requires that they maintain an open Frame_of_Mind.
Figure 8: Browsing the Boulder Library experience (drawing after [4])
The decision was to adopt participation and try n-dim as a vehicle for its facilitation in the project. The next steps for the participants included among others: continuing the process of idea elicitation, requirement formulation, consensus establishment through building models in n-dim and communicating them; contacting potential architects and constructors that were involved in participation or community library design projects to propose their participation in the early stages of the project; and possibly using and viewing a variety of analysis and design tools relevent to library design.
As mentioned in the discussion of n-dim, the embedding and use of design tools within n-dim is an important concern of the n-dim research project and is central to the goals of participation in design. By creating various kinds of models, participants are able to discuss, annotate and provide feedback on the results of using design tools to those who generated the results. At the least this would enable participants at every level to access, review and monitor the tool based design activities of design professionals in a direct way that is normally not possible today. Depending on the sophistication of the design tools involved and their ease of use within n-dim, participants may also be enabled to use certain tools themselves. Special n-dim modeling languages can assist in automatically preparing input to the tool in the proper format and sequence, in translating the results of the tool's execution back into n-dim models, and in directing input and output between tools (this is the common case where the output of one tool is filtered to provide input for another, and so on).
In Figure 9, we illustrate the use of a layout design tool
called ABLOOS to produce layouts of the library. The residents used the
spaces in the Boulder Library project as templates to be configured by some
of the guidelines found in the Guidelines model, for exploring a
preliminary design for their library. The figure shows, in the upper left,
two alternative Library_layout_Input models. These were constructed
based on templates for the various library spaces contained in a
Library_Design_Repository model - this model is a classification of the
spaces generally included in libraries such as those in the Boulder Library
project. The Library_Layout_Input1 model is shown open to display
the desired spaces and their adjacency relationships. A model of one of the
spaces, Reference, is shown open to illustrate its recommended maximum
and minimum sizes and minimum area - this can be edited and adjusted for its
instantiation in a particular library layout. In the upper right, the
Run_Library_Layout model illustrates the Library_Layout_input1
model linked as input to a Run_ABLOOS model to generate layouts as
output. The output is stored in a Layout_Results model and the
Run_ABLOOS model is a standard, pre-existing model available to the
participants as a result of the embedding of ABLOOS as a tool within n-dim.
The open Layout_Results model shows two alternative layout models for
the library generated by ABLOOS and these layouts are displayed in the
bottom of the figure. These solution models can
now be included in (pointed at) from other models where discussions and
annotations about their merit can be attached and communicated to the
library designers and other participants. For instance, the solutions might
be referenced in an IBIS issue-base discussion model.
Figure 9: Conducting a preliminary design with ABLOOS
Meanwhile, while the design was progressing, the researcher was learning about participatory design and the (often creative) ways n-dim was used by the participants in the project. The researcher heard feedback from participants and attempted, with assistance from the n-dim group, to provide timely answers. The researcher also participated in the design itself by assuming a role assigned by all the participants. This provided the researcher the necessary baseline for understanding the issues raised in the project, the terminology used, and the roles different participants assumed. Such information was modeled continually in n-dim and provided further details for analyzing the progress of the participation process. The information on this project as it evolved was modeled and inserted in its proper place into the models of past participation experiences. This activity was performed in the everyday course of the project.
