学习界面的设计个案研究

AcasestudyonthedesignoflearninginterfacesGabrielaTrindadePerry\o"Affiliation:a"a,

,

,

,

FernandoSchnaid\o"Affiliation:b"ba

DEG/UFRGS–DepartamentodeDesigneExpressãoGráfica/UniversidadeFederaldoRioGrandedoSul,Av.SarmentoLeite,320,CEP90040-060PortoAlegre,Brazilb

PPGEC/UFRGS–ProgramadePósGraduaçãoemEngenhariaCivil/UniversidadeFederaldoRioGrandedoSul,Av.OsvaldoAranha,99,3°andar,CEP90035-190PortoAlegre,BrazilAbstractThedesignofeducationalsoftwareinterfacesisacomplextask,givenitshighdomaindependencyandmultidisciplinarynature.Itrequiresthatteachers’knowledgeandpedagogicalbeliefsbeincorporatedintotheinterface,posingachallengetobothteachersanddesigners,astheyhavetoactaspartnersfromtheearliestphasesoftheprocess,sharingtheirknowledge.Thepresentworkinvestigatesthestrategiesdesignersusedwhenpairedwithexperiencedteachers,todesigntwointerfacesonchemistry,evaluatinghowdesignersworkwithsubjectstheyknowlittleabout,intheinitialphasesofthedesignprocess.Ourobservationsdemonstratethatalthoughexperiencedandnon-experienceddesignersusedifferentstrategiestocouplewiththedesigntask,bothapproachedthetaskinadepth-firstmanner.Theseresultsshouldnotbegeneralized,becausefewsubjectswereinvestigated,butpointtotheimportanceofbeingfamiliarwiththeknowledgedomain–whichposesachallengefordesigners.Highlights►Theexperienceddesignerusedtheapproach“integrateasfastasyoucan”.►Theinexperienceddesignerusedtheapproach“structurethendesign”.►Bothcanbeclassifiedasdepth-firststrategies.►OurresultdoesnotmatchGoel’s,probablybecausethedomainwasunfamiliar.KeywordsHuman–computerinterface;

Interdisciplinaryprojects;

Multimedia/hypermediasystems1.IntroductionTheprevalenceofInformationandCommunicationTechnologies(ICT)foreducationalenvironmentsjustifiestheurgetounderstandhowtobetterdesigneducationalartifacts.Despiteaccumulatedexperienceandknowledge,itstillposesagreatchallenge.

WintersandMor(2008)

statethatthemethodologicalweaknessinthedevelopment[design]ofsuchartifactsmightbethereasontheydidnothavethedesiredengagingeffect[ineducationalsettings].However,thefactthatitisdifficulttodesign,andthatdesignitselfisdifficulttoteach(Schön,1983),mightbeanexplanationforthisscenario.

LawsonandDorst(2009)

reportseveraldeclarationsofprofessionaldesignersandteachersdescribingtheirpracticeasamixtureofpassionanduncertainty.Fromatheoreticalpointofview,this“feelingofuncertainty”couldbeexplainedbytheassumptionthatdesignrequiresadifferentkindofthinking–acognitiveprocessthatcannotbedescribedbythesymbolicinformation-processingframeworkdevelopedby

NewellandSimon(1972),asitdealswith“fluid”statesandrepresentations(Goel,1995).Definingdesignasaproblem-solvingactivity–forwhichNewellandSimon’sproblem-solvingconceptsaresufficient–opposestwoofthemaintheoriesondesigncognition:

Simon’s(1996)

and

Schön’s(1983).Theseauthorsdescribeddesigninoppositeways,butbothholdthatsolvingadesignproblem[orfacingadesignsituation,accordingtoSchön’sterminology]isverydifferentfromapproachinga“well-definedproblem”,becausedesignersdonothavealgorithmicpathstofollowfromproblemtosolution.2.ControlstrategiesforapproachingdesignproblemsTheclassofproblemsdesignersfacehasimplicationsontheirstrategytoapproachthedesigntask(alsocalledcontrolstrategy):itcouldbebreadth-first,depth-firstoranadaptivecombinationofboth(Visser,1994).Accordingto

BallandOrmerod(1995),abreadth-firststrategyhasmanycharacteristics,suchasatop-leveldesigngoalreducedintoanumberofsub-goals,whicharedecomposeduntilarequisitelevelofdesigndetailisreached–nosub-goalisexploredindepth.Breadth-firststrategiesalsohavethebenefitsofoptimizingthesearchforsolutionsandreducingthecommitmenttoearlysolutions.Incontrast,thedepth-firststrategyentailstakingonetop-levelsub-goalatatime,anddevelopingitinconsiderabledetailbeforemovingontothenextsub-goal.BallandOrmerod(1995)

arguedthatthedifferencebetweenexpertandnovicedesignerscanbecharacterizedintermsoffavoringtheuseofoneapproachoveranother.Expertdesignerspreferprimarilybreadth-firstbehavior(withoccasionaldepth-firstincursions),whereasnovicedesignersprimarilytendtowarddepth-firstbehavior.However,as

Akin(1986)

notes,amixofthesestrategiesisexpected,becauseadesignerwillnotuseonlyoneofthesestrategiesallthetime.

Ball,Onarheim,andChristensen(2010)reportedthatdesignerstendtobeginataskwithabreadth-firststrategy,andthenswitchtoadepth-firststrategyaftermajorrequirements[oftheartifactbeingdesigned]aresatisfied.Deviationsfromthesestrategieshavebeenlabeled“opportunistic”shortcutsfromatop-downstructuredapproachtothedesigntask.

BallandOrmerod(1995)

arguedthatthismighthavebeena“blanket”termusedtodescribesituationsthatdeviatefromthosecontrolstrategies,suchasthosewhichmightbecausedbymemoryanddesignfailures,informationunavailability,boredomandserendipitousevents.Thisreviewofdesignstrategieswillgroundourconclusionsaboutthestrategiesemployedbythesubjectsofthisresearch.Atthispoint,itisimportanttostressthatonlyoneofthestudieswefoundinourreviewinvestigatedthewayinwhichexpertdesignersapproachedataskinunfamiliardomains.

AdelsonandSoloway(1985)

foundthat,inthesecases,expertswouldpursueadepth-firstmodeofsolutiondevelopment,andthatthementalmodelsoftheartifactwerelessdetailed–thisdidnothappenwhentheyworkedinfamiliardomains.Regardingthedesignofeducationalsoftwareinterfaceshowever,wewouldarguethatdesignersgenerallyworkwithunfamiliardomains.Tosupportthishypothesis,characteristicsofthedesignofeducationalartifactswillbedescribed,andsimilaritiesandpossibledifferenceswiththeprototypicaldesignareas–architectureandengineering–fromwhichmostofthedesigncognitionknowledgehasemerged,willbeexploredinthenextsection.学习界面的设计个案研究摘要教育软件界面的设计是一项复杂的任务，因为其具有很高的专业领域性和多学科性。它要求教师的知识和教学理念能够被纳入设计的界面中，这对于教师和设计者都构成了一定的挑战，因为他们两者不得不在设计进程的初始阶段就扮演合作伙伴的角色，并同时分享他们的知识来进行界面的设计。本文的工作研究了设计者和经验丰富的教师在配对合作时的设计策略，并设计了两种化学学科的软件学习界面，以此来评估设计者是如何解决他们在设计进程的初始阶段对该学科了解不足的问题。我们的观察表明，虽然有经验和无经验的设计人员通常是使用不同的策略进行设计任务的，但他们都是以深度优先的方式完成设计任务。由于研究的学科种类少，这些结果不具有普遍性，但是考虑到熟悉学科专业知识领域的重要性，设计者必须面临这一方面的挑战。亮点►经验丰富的设计人员使用的方法是“尽可能快的集成”。►经验较少的设计师所使用的方法“先结构再设计”。►两者都可以归类为深度优先策略。►我们的结果与Goel的并不相符，可能因为该领域是我们不熟悉的。关键词•人机界面;•跨学科项目;•多媒体/超媒体系统1引言教育环境中信息和通信技术（ICT）的广泛应用证明，了解如何更好地进行教育工作设计迫在眉睫。尽管前期积累了很多的经验和知识，上述工作仍是一个很大的挑战。Winters和Mor(2008)的声明指出，在这类工作[设计]中发展出的方法论的弱点可能是他们没有得到[教育设置中]所需匹配的效果的原因。然而，事实上，这是很难设计的，而设计本身就很难被传授（Schön，1983），这可能是导致这种情况的解释。Lawson和Dorst（2009）报告中提到了几个专业设计师和教师描述他们的做法的声明，称他们的实践工作是激情和不确定性的混合。从理论的角度来看，这种“不确定的感觉”可以通过假设来解释为这种设计需要一种不同的思维-即不能由Newell和Simon（1972）开发的符号信息处理框架来描述的一个认知过程，因为它涉及“流体”状态和表现（Goel，1995）。把设计定义为发现问题-解决问题的活动-对此，Newell和Simon的发现问题-解决问题的概念是足够的-反对两个设计认知的主要理论：Simon(1996)和Schön(1983)的理论。这两位作者以相反的方式描述设计，但他们都认为，解决一个设计问题研究[或面临设计情况，根据Schön的术语]是接近“明确定义的问题”非常不同，因为设计人员不必演算需要遵循的解决问题的路径。2.解决设计问题的控制策略设计人员面临的这类问题