Complex design problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses because the knowledge relevant to a problem is usually distributed among stakeholders. Bringing different and often controversial points of view together to create a shared understanding among these stakeholders can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts. New media that allow owners of problems to contribute to framing and resolving complex design problems can extend the power of the individual human mind. Based on our past work and study of other approaches, systems, and collaborative and participatory processes, this article identifies challenges we see as the limiting factors for future collaborative human-computer systems. The Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC) is introduced as an integrated physical and computational environment addressing some of these challenges. The vision behind the EDC shifts future development away from the computer as the focal point, toward an emphasis that tries to improve our understanding of the human, social, and cultural system that creates the context for use. This work is based on new conceptual principles that include creating shared understanding among various stakeholders, contextualizing information to the task at hand, and creating objects to think with in collaborative design activities.

Design is a rich domain in which to investigate barriers and biases in computer-supported communication because it involves many different modes of communication in social-technical contexts. This chapter briefly describes different design approaches. It analyzes the biases and barriers of two different types of design communities: communities of practice and communities of interest. To address the communication challenges between diverse design communities, boundary objects are needed to establish common ground and shared understanding in the context of complex design tasks. We explore the unique possibilities that computational media have to support our conceptual framework. Our work is based on the fundamental belief that there is no media-independent communication and interaction—that tools, materials, and social arrangements are always involved in some way in these activities. The possibilities and the practice of design are functions

Abstract—Nonfunctional Requirements (NFRs) have been frequently neglected or forgotten in software design. They have been presented as a second or even third class type of requirement, frequently hidden inside notes. We tackle this problem by treating NFRs as first class requirements. We present a process to elicit NFRs, analyze their interdependencies, and trace them to functional conceptual models. We focus our attention on conceptual models expressed using UML (Unified Modeling Language). Extensions to UML are proposed to allow NFRs to be expressed. We will show how to integrate NFRs into the Class, Sequence, and Collaboration Diagrams. We will also show how Use Cases and Scenarios can be adapted to deal with NFRs. This work was used in three case studies and their results suggest that by using our proposal we can improve the quality of the resulting conceptual models. Index Terms—Software design, requirements elicitation, nonfunctional requirements, goal graphs, UML conceptual models. 1

Although software reuse can improve both the quality and productivity of software development, it will not do so until software developers stop believing that it is not worth their effort to find a component matching their current problem. In addition, if the developers do not anticipate the existence of a given component, they will not even make an effort to find it in the first place. Even the most sophisticated and powerful reuse repositories will not be effective if developers don't anticipate a certain component exists, or don't deem it worthwhile to seek for it. We argue that this crucial barrier to reuse is overcome by integrating active information delivery, which presents information without explicit queries from the user, and reuse repository systems. A prototype system, CodeBroker, illustrates this integration and raises several issues related to software reuse.

In design, problem analysis is as important as solution synthesis. Strategic knowledge is required not only for constructing a solution but also for framing a problem. While externalized representations play critical roles in design tasks, different types of representations are necessary for different stages of a design task. In early stages of a design task, design support tools need to provide hands-on representations with which a designer can easily perform trial-and-error and examine the whole as well as parts of the whole, allowing the designer to represent any levels of preciseness as he/she likes. Sketching and drawing with paper and pencil provide an ideal representation for this process. But what about supporting design domains, such as writing or programming, where no sketching exists? In this paper, we argue that two-dimensional positioning of objects in a design support tool serves for the same purpose as sketching does for architectural design. Two-dimensional positioning allows a designer to produce hands-on representations that “talk back ” to him/her without forcing the designer to formalize or verbalize what to be externalized. Two systems, ART for writing and RemBoard for component-based programming, illustrate the framework.

Individual, unaided human abilities are constrained. Media have helped us to transcend boundaries in thinking, working, learning, and collaborating by supporting distributed intelligence. Wireless and mobile technologies provide new opportunities for empowering humans, but not without potential pitfalls. We explore these opportunities and pitfalls from a lifelong-learning perspective and discuss how wireless and mobile technologies can influence and change conceptual frameworks such as the relationship between planning and situated action, context awareness, human attention, distances in collaborative design activities, and the trade-off between tools for living and tools for learning. The impact of wireless and mobile technologies is illustrated with our research projects, which focus on moving “computing off the desktop ” by “going small, large, and everywhere. ” Specific examples include human-centered public transportation systems, collaborative design, and information sharing with smart physical objects.

Professional development for science teachers is widely recognized as a key element for successful standards-based systemic reform, yet there is little empirical evidence to justify design decisions for professional development. This paper presents both a theoretical model of teacher learning and an analytical framework that employs the model to link professional development to both student and teacher learning. Our approach begins with an analysis of relevant content standards for science learning, and then uses evidence of student performance to gauge areas where focus is needed in professional development. The success of our professional development designs is evaluated using a combination of teacher reflection, classroom observation, and ultimately the re-assessment of student performance. This process is used to inform a continual process of design and re-design. We present two examples of this process in use. The first example describes teacher learning about the use of modeling software by students. The second example is about teacher learning related to helping students master map reading skills related to watersheds. We argue that this form of empirically-based assessment of professional development, linking teacher and student learning, is a key to the eventual success of standards-based systemic reform efforts.

Findings from behavioral organization theory, behavioral decision theory, survey research and experimental economics leave no doubt about the failure of rational choice as a descriptive model of human behavior. But this does not mean that people and their politics are irrational. Bounded rationality asserts that decision-makers are intendedly rational; that is, they are goal-oriented and adaptive, but because of human cognitive and emotional architecture, they sometimes fail, occasionally in important decisions. Limits on rational adaptation are of two types: procedural limits, which are limits on how we go about making decisions, and substantive limits, which affect particular choices directly. Rational analysis in institutional contexts can serve as a standard for adaptive, goal-oriented human behavior. In relatively fixed task environments, such as asset markets or elections, we should be able to divide behavior into adaptive, goal-oriented behavior (that is, rational action) and behavior that is a consequence of processing limits, and measure the deviation. The extent of deviation is an empirical issue. These classes are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and may be examined empirically in situations in

Complex design problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses because the knowledge relevant to a problem is usually distributed among stakeholders. Bringing different and often controversial points of view together to create a shared understanding among these stakeholders can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts. New media that allow owners of problems to contribute to framing and resolving complex design problems can extend the power of the individual human mind. Based on our past work and study of other approaches, systems, and collaborative and participatory processes, this paper identifies challenges we see as the limiting factors for future collaborative humancomputer systems. The Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC) is introduced as an integrated physical and computational environment addressing some of these challenges. The vision behind the EDC shifts future development away from the computer as the focal point, toward an emphasis that tries to improve our understanding of the human, social, and cultural system that creates the context for use. This work is based on new conceptual principles that include creating shared understanding among various stakeholders, contextualizing information to the task at hand, and creating objects-to-think-with in collaborative design activities. Although the EDC framework is applicable to

The history of the human race is one of increasing intellectual capability. Since the time of our early ancestors, our brains have gotten no bigger; nevertheless, there has been a steady accretion of new tools for intellectual work (including advanced visual interfaces) and an increasing distribution of complex activities among many minds. Despite this transcendence of human cognition beyond what is “inside ” a person’s head, most studies and frameworks on cognition have disregarded the social, physical, and artifactual surroundings in which cognition and human activity take place. Distributed intelligence provides an effective theoretical framework for understanding what humans can achieve and how artifacts and tools can be designed and evaluated to empower human beings and to change tasks. This paper presents and discusses the conceptual frameworks and systems that we have developed over the last decade to create effective socio-technical environments supporting distributed intelligence.