Encouraging Social Responsibility through Collaborative Team Learning

Encouraging Social Responsibility through Collaborative Team Learning
Jean Gasen
Department of Information Systems
Virginia Commonwealth University
Box 844000
Richmond, VA 23284-4000 USA
Tel: 804-828-7128
E-mail: jgasen@cabell.vcu.edu
ABSTRACT
How do we bring the real world into the classroom? How do we teach students to see and appreciate its complexities without overwhelming them? How do we encourage them to value collaborative teamwork and multi-disciplinary approaches to problems? And how do we instill the importance of addressing larger social issues in their professional future?

This poster will describe a multi-disciplinary team approach to teaching user-centered interface design. The course focused on the development of multimedia prototypes for the VCU Cancer Center. How the course impacted upon student motivation for learning, group process and interface design will be presented.

KEYWORDS

hci education, multimedia, collaborative work, social issues in design

INTRODUCTION

Designing and implementing a collaborative course within higher education is quite a challenge. From the differences in curriculum pre-requisites and requirements to the isolation between and among faculty from different parts of a university, finding areas of overlap and searching for ways to bring multiple perspectives together in a teaching environment takes a significant time commitment. And even when ideas are crystallized, overcoming logistical matters can play havoc with the opportunity to make such efforts into reality.

In addition, finding meaningful, real-world projects that can be woven within the constraints of a semester time frame and that will instill a sense of professional ethics and responsibility in students is challenging. Finding an organization willing to participate in such an endeavor without guaranteed, tangible benefits also can be difficult.

Despite these challenges, a multi-disciplinary group of faculty and staff at VCU created an experimental course that bridged two schools and two campuses. The primary course objective was to develop students' skills in designing interactive, multimedia prototypes from a human-centered perspective. The participants included faculty and staff from the School of the Arts, the School of Business and the Massey Cancer Center at VCU.

COURSE ORGANIZATION

The course was divided into two major components: introductory concepts and project-focused prototype development. Classes were structured around a variety of formats including: lecture, lab and library/field study.

For the introductory concepts (six weeks), students spent equal time learning about human centered perspectives on technology design and working in the lab to familiarize themselves with the hardware and software that would be needed to carry out the second, project-focused component.

The second component (nine weeks) focused on the analysis, design and development of interactive, multimedia prototypes. The specific subject for development was an information kiosk for cancer patients who were beginning chemotherapy treatment at the John N. Dalton Ambulatory Oncology Clinic.

The project was intended to address some of the questions and concerns facing newly diagnosed patients and their families. This information would be used to help augment effective communication between the patients, their families and the clinic staff.

Six, multi-disciplinary project teams were established with three person teams. Three suggested team roles, including coordinator, usability specialist and designer, were often redefined by the teams and varied from group to group.

Project activities focused on four, two week modules including Analysis, Ideation, Production and Refinement. At the end of each module, teams completed a summary of activities and a deliverable related to the project. For example, in the first module teams researched chemotherapy and interviewed patients and clinic staff. They provided a purpose statement, a general description of the user population and an initial description of prototype's scope and functionality. Later modules focused on the design and development of the prototype. All teams developed a usability testing plan (e.g., specifics on how the prototype would be tested with end users - including who, what, where, when and how information would be collected from users) and conducted at least one iteration of testing. The final prototype with a summary of recommendations for refinement completed the fourth module.

REFLECTIONS: STUDENT PERSPECTIVES

A special, multi-page evaluation form and individual interviews with each student provided feedback on the class experience. A number of interesting and thoughtful comments emerged. These can be grouped into four areas: satisfying aspects, frustrating aspects, course-related learning, group process related learning.

Satisfactions

Happily, the project was viewed as the most satisfying aspect of the course for most students. For example, students indicated that developing and watching the interface evolve, participating in the creation of an actual system, and seeing how the system development life cycle works in a real life environment were all satisfying aspects of the course.

Working with the Cancer Center provided special motivation for many. As one student remarked: "to work on something that might be used by the Massey Cancer Center...made me struggle more and gave me more incentive and purpose.

Frustrations

Also as might be expected, the group project was often the focus of frustration. Frustrations comprised four main areas: time constraints, communication difficulties among team members, responsibility and control issues and technical difficulties. Sample comments on each of these areas of frustration:

"...meeting with three students who all had different available time schedules..." "...limited to developing and testing only a partially functioning prototype..."

"During the project it was a very difficult task for me to address my ideas about the prototype to the designer."... "Fighting with members of my team about the visuals."

"not having control over the final project"..." not being able to do the actual design. I was able to put my opinions into the design process, but I had no control over what [was] being designed."

"...the system was lost during user-testing. The whole team had to work extra hours to make up for the loss" "...the system [was] lost well into the process which was more than frustrating."

Learning about Human Centered Design

Students commented that design from a human centered perspective is both more time consuming and more difficult than originally anticipated. They recognized the importance of including users in the development and testing of systems and the challenge that the diversity of human nature brings to the design of usable systems. Finally, they recognized that designers must take responsibility for user problems with the interface. Sample comments in response to "What did you learn most about human computer interaction?":

" The importance of usability through user testing...no matter how artistic the design may appear, if the users do not get the key function of it, the system will be useless." "...functionality is a very important concept...visibility, mapping, feedback and the conceptual model require in-depth thought when designing a system."

Learning about Group Process

Some students in the group had little experience working in groups prior to this course. However, even those who had group experience had not been exposed to multi-disciplinary team projects for the most part. Sample comments reflecting on what they learned most about working in a multi-disciplinary team:

Everyone has responsibility and must be responsible for fulfilling their responsibility and keeping other team members notified on the progress.

It's very difficult to get your views across unless your have something physical to show to explain what you're saying. But respecting each other ideas, questions, and concerns...was very important to keep the group functional and to achieve progress.

Finally, this comment expressed the views of many working in a multi-disciplinary context for the first time:

"Working with arts students was different. Working in the [Mac] lab was a different environment. The way the graphic students [work is] different. I learned that people are different and I had to understand their ways of doing things too.

Multi-disciplinary projects, while time-consuming for both students and faculty, provide an ideal setting in which to underscore the human side of interface design and development. What is gained is far more than a set of tools and techniques. The ability to address needs of others, whether they be cancer patients or other team members, is an essential part of learning in this environment. It is hoped that such learning may help shape the way in which these students view interface development in their future horizons.

This summary is adapted from Gasen, J.B., DeMao, J., Price, J., Watson, A. and McDade, E. Human computer interFACE design: Collaborative team teaching and learning. VCU Teaching, Spring 1995, 19-22.