Discuss about the Social Informatics Forum Discussion Write-Up.
The roles of the designers, implementers and developers cannot be under looked in the implementation of the ICT projects. McDonald (2010) raises issues that are of great concern to the entire ecosystem of information and communication technology. The ruling on the court case gives a clear view of the law concerning the handling of information. It is a clearly stipulates the roles of the designer developer and the implementer. In the case, the content developer is responsible for the content while the provider of the ICT infrastructure is not responsible for the content that they are channeling to the intended audience.
In Myschool, the designers had clear goals to reach. First, they wanted to provide a platform to compare the student’s academic abilities based on the exams done. The student’s backgrounds were considered in ranking the students. It also seeks to compare schools performances for the good of the community. Their job was well done. On the other hand, the developers have also done an excellent job in creating the platform itself. The website has not had any technical hitches and ran smoothly. Further, the implementers have created and submitted the content as planned. However, there has been the conflict arising due to the unforeseen effects of the content. The conflict affects the designers and implementers of the project. While it has successfully been able to rank the schools and students as well as promoting transparency, the project has had its undesired consequences. Some of the highlighted issues that the system has created include increasing the levels of anxiety of the students. The student’s performance will certainly be affected by the stress. Further, the system has been blamed to shames brought upon the schools and students that are not performing well. The unforeseen consequences have varied widely.
The Australian government designed the digitized Census process and implemented it (ABS, 2016). In this project, the designers, developers, and implementers work seamlessly to together to achieve their goals. In the case of census fiasco 2016, there seemed to be a conflict in the roles played by the various individuals. The team developing the website failed to set up high-security features too. The reports of hacking created a crisis, and the implementers had to shut it down in several instances. The incident shows the negligence on the part of developers. However, the real hacking threat was on keeping the security of the citizen’s details. The reported problem was the purported huge number of citizens trying to access the system at the same time. This is according to Ried J (2016).
Innovation in today’s world cannot be ignored. Several organizations are competing against one another to provide products and services to their consumers. To keep up with the demands, there has been a need to continually innovate. The role of designers cannot be underrated in the current century. A creative designer will be able to capture the market demands. Working in a team would ensure that more participatory undertaking is achieved (Torres et.al. 2012) An organization cannot survive without a vibrant workforce that can design and implement the projects. Leadership is an important aspect of the life of a designer. This simply means that a designer must be able to inspire others to innovate.
According to Tim, (TED, 2009), design is a human aspect that primarily has to tackle the challenges people face. A difficulty now should be an opportunity for the designer to offer their leadership skills, innovating and create a solution to the problem. Where there are no needs, the designer will not be able to make an impact on the life of the people. He points out further that the needs once integrated with the innovation in technology and economics will certainly be an impact. It is, therefore, important to understand the culture and lifestyle of the people in need.
The design thinking in the present involves several issues, but the right questions must be asked. Unlike the past, a designer should be able to learn by making. It is true that prototypes always make the design process faster (Brown, 2009). Innovates will be able to cover a broad range of factors before they finally create the final product. This is a fundamental approach that applies across the generations of designers. However, today, the designer should be able to incorporate the position and views of everyone. This is giving everyone a chance to participate. With this approach, more values can be created. On top of gaining the proceeds regarding money, the people will be able to own the product or service because they were given a chance to participate in the design process. Another important aspect of the participatory approach is that it takes the power off the hands of the designer onto the hands of the final users. It is important that the final product can have a life beyond what the designer had in mind.
The designer should also focus on the systems in place. These systems should help navigate the challenges as well as streamlining the system where possible. A designer should apply this approach to be able to anticipate the consequences whether desired or not desired.
According to Brown and Wyatt, design thinking brings new ways to address the challenges available. The designer should explore the new opportunities in technology and the economy to create tools that bring change. Changes come along with new choices. This calls for the designer to create new ideas, expand their view on things and be able to ask the right questions.
The broad steps to a transformative design include gaining an understanding of the problems and the current practices of an organization. Several agencies face different challenges today. There are new challenges as well as new ways of preparation that have been put in place. The broad steps to a transformation design are as follows.
First, a transformative design success lies in understanding these and being able to address the problems with new methods of practice. The second step would be to create a new approach to issues. This is done through prototyping and barnstorming on the matters at hand. A desirable end product would be the ability to maintain a longer engagement with the clients. The third step would be to seek new transformative designs. Transformative design advocate for the observation of the processes so as to come up with new desirable ones. Organizations should be able to conduct prototypes and evaluate their usefulness. A fail should not discourage them, but a continuous monitoring of the situations will eventually lead to success. Lastly, the designer should embrace new approaches available. Traditional methods can be hard to surpass because of the practical as well as some psychological barriers. The approach should be able to create exciting opportunities for the designers to embrace it.
Most services can be transformed. This is because of the following. First, most problems are manmade and will require manmade solutions. To a designer, a problem will present an opportunity to create a solution as well as putting their skills into work. Secondly, most services can be transformed because of the availability of the will and resources to do it. The services will ultimately improve the lives of people.
However, several challenges face the designer in transforming the service delivery. First are the cultural differences across the world. The challenge here is that no one type of the provision of services can match the requirements of the whole population. This calls for a lot of resources to be deployed to provide the service for the people. Resources are scarce, and this poses a challenge to the designers. Another practical challenge to service delivery is being able to communicate the impact and value of the design. Where people do not see the potential of the design, the product will be difficult to sell to the people. The designer must, therefore, have excellent communication skills to successfully put across the message (Burns et. al, 2006).
A radical approach to service delivery will be possible when the organizations can break down the small details that are of most importance to the consumers. This should be considered because the consumers will always seek ways that solve their problems in detail as opposed to a general solution. The right job app is a good example of the radical approach. This is because it is designed to fit into the lives of the users. They identify with it the app is likely to help solve the joblessness. The primary concerns of gamification would be that it may not fit into the lives of other people. As mentioned previously, people have different cultures; not every product will fit into their way of doing things.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). (2016, July 22). The 2016 Census: Making a difference to all of Australia. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/MediaRealesesByCatalogue/247F0127852AB4 ABCA257FF70080BDC7?OpenDocument
Brown, T. and Wyatt, J., 2015. Design thinking for social innovation. Annual Review of Policy Design, 3(1), pp.1-10.
Brown, T., 2009. Change by design.
Burns, C., Cottam, H., Vanstone, C. and Winhall, J., 2006. Transformation design. RED paper, 2.
McDonald C. (2010). Raising the stakes in the content debate.pp 41-42 Retrieved from https://www.canberra.edu.au/researchrepository/items/0d8caf04-bec6-141b-70d6- 353453a9a96c/1/
Ried J. (2016, August 10). Census: ‘Hacking a deliberate attack on Australia’. Retrieved from https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2016/08/10/census-hacking-deliberate-attack/
TED, (2009). Tim Brown urges Designers to think Big. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAinLaT42xY [Accessed 24 Sep. 2016].
Torrente Barberá, P., Salanova Soria, M., Llorens Gumbau, S. and Schaufeli, W.B., 2012. Teams make it work: How team work engagement mediates between social resources and performance in teams.
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