Duration: 3 months
Done at: Indiana University, Bloomington
Collaborators: Sean Connolly, Adam Williams, Eugene Chang
Client: Tony Fry; Global Re-directive Practitioner, Australia.
Tasks done: Literature Review, Semantic Deferential Maps, Comparative Benchmarking, Concept Generation, Interviews, Focus Group Discussions
Project Brief:
The workshop to be designed, should be “an electronic facility to be created in order to encourage graduate research students world-wide to tell each other about their projects, exchange information, make their research available to their peers, share problems, issue invitations to comment or collaborate.” - Tony Fry
Design Process and Solution:
We went about doing an exhaustive study of literature on Online collaboration tools. A focus group discussion was conducted with people who used online collaboration tools, and also with people who do not user them. We then looked into the existing ones and mapped out the characteristics against the tools. The characteristics of the tools were classified into the broad categories forums, content management, user interactions and user experience. Each tool could get one , half or zero points depending on the fulfillment of the requirement.
A comparative study of over 14 different applications resulted in Ning being the most fitting for the workshop.
Study of existing Collaborative Platforms
Once the above was done, we went out and plotted a semantic differential map for the existing collaborative tools. On the X axis we have permanence on one end; transience on the other, and on the y axis, we have Collaboration – focused tool on one end; and an individual- focused tool on the other end.
Semantic Differential chart
We also mapped out the ability to change the content in any collaborative tool against each other. We noticed that for designing a collaborative tool for the workshop, one needed the flexibility and participation of the forums, and involvement and final product nature of the wikis. Hence our concept, the Fiki.
The union of a “forum” and a “wiki”, a Fiki is online collaborative tool that encourages the nonlinear flexibility of collective debate and brainstorming while simultaneously tracking, developing, and organizing a temporally ‘final’ representation of the aggregate debate.
Collaborative Level Mapping
Characteristics that define a Fiki are
- Valuated content
- Pieces of debate
- A sense of a temporal final
- Non-linear flexibility
Fiki Concept Key features diagram
However, due to technological and time constraints, we were unable to deploy Fiki. It is hoped that in the future, a Fiki will be developed soon. For our client, we were able to install and set up Ning, which we found from our rigorous study , was the best solution.
Imagination is more important than knowledge, and it is hoped that with this project it would provide a channel for the different stakeholders with the power to dream and imagine.