William A. Stubblefield

Patterns of change in design metaphor: a case study

Design metaphors play an important role in the development of many software projects. However, the influence of metaphors on project functionality, design methodology and the interactions among members of the development team is not well understood. This paper seeks insights into these issues by examining the experiences of a design team in building a system under the influence of a particularly strong design metaphor.

GMS: preserving multiple expert voices in scientific knowledge management

Computer archives of scientific and engineering knowledge must insure the accuracy, completeness, and validity of their contents. Unfortunately, designers of these sites often overlook the social and cognitive context of scientific activity in favor of highly distilled collections of theoretical findings and technical data, divorcing scientific information from its human origins.Contextual aspects of knowledge seldom find their way into journals and other scientific forums, yet they often reveal the broader strategies behind the development and application of that knowledge. In implementing a GMS (Glass-Metal Seals) knowledge-management system, we found such contextual aspects as the structure of expert communities, the patterns of communication across disciplines, and the informal representations, sketches, and stories experts use in casual discussion to be essential to our efforts. Preserving these ìextra-technicalî features in the systemís content and organization gives users an implicit experience of the subtle interpretations, viewpoints, and strategies that define engineering expertise.

Software design and engineering as a social process

Traditionally, software engineering processes are based on a formalist model that emphasizes strict documentation, procedural and validation standards. Although this is a poor fit for multidisciplinary research and development communities, such groups can benefit from common practices and standards. We have approached this dilemma through a process model derived from theories of collaborative work rather than formal process control. This paper describes this model and our experiences in applying it in software development.

The social life of engineering authorizations

We may view documents, not only as containers for information, but also as active participants in organizing and sustaining communities. This paper discusses our experiences in designing a web-based tool for writing and managing engineering authorizations, and the social perspectives influence on our understanding of the problem and the design of our system. It presents observations based on our fieldwork with users, and the evaluation of a set of prototype systems. It shows how these observations changed our central metaphor for the system, moving it from a machine model to a society of agents metaphor. Finally, it illustrates the way this new metaphor changed our system functionality and architecture.

Narrative structure in virtual collaborative environments

The ability to conceptualize the world in narrative form is one of the central characteristics of human intelligence. We are unique, both in our ability to form narratives, and in the degree with which we require them to organize our knowledge of the world. Artificial Intelligence has recognized the importance of narrative structure since its earliest days [1]. More recent work has demonstrated the role of narrative structure in the formation of scientific theories [2, 3], in machine learning [9], in shaping human-computer interaction [4], and in our understanding of virtual worlds [5].Narrative also plays an essential role in forming and sustaining communities. Shared narratives articulate the common goals and assumptions of a community, and define the space of choice and action for cooperative activity. Ever since people began carving stories of the hunt on cave walls, shared narratives have played a central role in defining the terms of community membership, in articulating a communitys shared goals and values, and in setting the patterns according to which people behave and interact in a social context.In Computers as Theatre, Brenda Laurel demonstrates the similarities between human-computer interaction and the structure of improvisational theatre [4]. In both contexts, people determine their own actions, but do so within a framework of assumptions and possible actions. These frameworks are largely narrative in structure: they have a beginning, a set of actions in the middle, and an end when the goals of the interaction are achieved (or failure occurs). In improvisational theatre, actors improvise within the basic framework of a genre, be it comedy, mystery, farce, etc. Their improvisations usually follow the basic plot arc of the genre. Where they diverge from the genres structure, audiences perceive the alteration as a counterpoint to their expectations: the genres narrative structure still exerts its influence. Similarly, users of interactive software improvise their work within the structure of goals, actions and information afforded by the software interface.In describing her work on co-operative role-playing in a multi-user virtual environment, Raybourn [6] has remarked on the ease and enthusiasm with which users assume roles in a larger story context, and spontaneously play to the larger, stated goals and assumptions of the simulation. Turkle [7] confirms this insight and argues that personality itself becomes plastic and context dependent in MOOs and other virtual environments.

Risk assessment of climate systems for national security.

Climate change, through drought, flooding, storms, heat waves, and melting Arctic ice, affects the production and flow of resource within and among geographical regions. The interactions among governments, populations, and sectors of the economy require integrated assessment based on risk, through uncertainty quantification (UQ). This project evaluated the capabilities with Sandia National Laboratories to perform such integrated analyses, as they relate to (inter)national security. The combining of the UQ results from climate models with hydrological and economic/infrastructure impact modeling appears to offer the best capability for national security risk assessments.

The LIGA traveler: the use of technical and social invariants in software design

It is not enough for software to support individual interactions well. Everyone involved in the programís use, maintenance, and management must experience it and its designers as behaving meaningfully and responsively across the life cycleóin short, as situated in their community. Achieving this requires that designers understand the communityís deeper invariant structure: inherently stable patterns of activity, technology, information, and communication.The LIGA Traveler is an information-management tool for a micro-mechanical systems-fabrication process. It serves a specialized R&D group at Sandia National Laboratories. Supporting this community required that we understand both the pressures for change within it, and the technical and social invariants that counter those pressures. This paper discusses the process of interpreting field data to discover these invariants, and their use as a foundation for the design of the system. It also presents a set of software components we have built specifically to support our design process.

Collaborative evaluation of early design decisions and product manufacturability

In manufacturing, the conceptual design and detailed design stages are typically regarded as sequential and distinct. Decisions made in conceptual design are often made with little information as to how they would affect detailed design or manufacturing process specification. Many possibilities and unknowns exist in conceptual design where ideas about product shape and functionality are changing rapidly. Few if any tools exist to aid in this difficult amorphous stage in contrast to the many CAD and analysis tools for detailed design where much more is known about the final product. The paper discusses the Materials Process Design Environment (MPDE), a collaborative problem solving environment (CPSE) that was developed so geographically dispersed designers in both the conceptual and detailed stage can work together and understand the impacts of their design decisions on functionality, cost and manufacturability.