pirates of the caribbean 2 poster

let me know if you want one. I've got 10 of them, and could possibly get more if needed...

and here we go again...

new post coming later...

the customer is always right?

that doesn't always seem to coincide with the truth... there've been quite many cases where the original that we receive is in so bad shape that it's just embarassing to look at. unfortunately, there's not much we can do about it, so we just have to nod and smile. many times the translated copies that we produce are of higher quality, simply because we look it over and fix the small things. not much effort needed, but a great difference in the result.

unexpected consequences of work

I'm eating a lot more fruit! Since I don't have access to our fridge at home and all the other things we have there, I'm bringing fruit with me every day to work. It's a good thing, have never eaten this much fruit before... I could probably get used to this :)

diversity!

cbg is strictly client-driven, which means that we must use the exact same software versions on the same platforms as the clients use to produce their originals. this means that there are loads of different programs and versions and operating systems around on all the computers. during this past week I've used pagemaker 6.5 on both mac and pc, framemaker 6.5 and 7.0, indesign cs2, and a host of acrobat/distiller versions. there's a lot to learn from each and I get to practice my adaptability and learn new programs, but of course there is some frustration as well since some functions work somewhere but not in other places...

we even have a computer running windows 3.1 here...

cbg konsult

ever wondered how a manual or instruction book in multiple languages gets created? well, to tell you the truth, neither did I... however, that's what I've been working with these past two weeks. cbg konsult administrates, facilitates and coordinates the translation of these books and manuals into many, many languages, arranges the layout, and then delivers it back to the client. the clients are big companies, such as Volvo, SAAB (GM), Sony, etc etc...
the way it works is incredibly cool... the original is received from the client, and is then put into a database where it is analyzed and broken down into small segments. each segment is then matched against the others, and duplicates are stored so that only one gets translated and the others automatically copied. this whole thing is then sent out to the translators, who translate into their own native language, and then sent back again to be put back into the original file. most often, one unique copy is arranged for each language, which then gets layout-checked and delivered.
I've this past week been working on stuff from Sony, radios and walkmans and speakers and subwoofer for the car, checking and fixing the layout. it's mostly been danish and finnish, and some swedish... I'll try and write a list on what I've done, so if you buy any of it, be sure to read the manual! ;-)

wanna be startin' something...

so I got a job, two weeks ago... and will now turn this blog into telling about my career. will try and change the template around a bit as well...

football blog

I've started blogging about football. click!

update?

not so many reading this blog anymore, and also there's nothing new to say... I'll start updating when I get a job, whenever that happens...

done.

uhm, yeah, I'm done... finished it in mid-june, had my presentation, fixed the report and all... the blog kinda died a bit before that. I might take it up again and post about more stuff, but that'll have to be for later... thank you for reading!

writing...

got the method okay'ed with a few changes. have finished the results section and just sent it to my tutor. just, discussion, conclusion/recommendations and abstract left... whoa!

1 page today

difficult section though... so it's good that I got it done. might be able to get the results done by the end of the week.

2 pages today

good...

writing...

fixed my methods section and sent... am a bit unsure of exactly how much to put there... now I've cut it down to slightly more than 3 pages, but if I'm going to elaborate on my evaluation part, it might double... we'll see what my tutor says.

week off

taking this week off... catch you later!

what I expected...

gotta re-write the method part... it was too long and too descriptive. would be enough to just have it shorter, tell what I did, who was there, etc. the results and the whys and stuff can come later. lots to do :)

report sent!

:)

meeting booked

booked a meeting with my tutor for thursday at 10... gonna send the method part in later today, and then we'll talk about it... I'm thinking of combining method and results into one section though, feels a bit easier to have it that way...

13 888

4.5 and 4.6 left... should be done by the end of the weekend, if not already tomorrow...

turbo writing!

just realized I need a meeting with my tutor before the easter break. gonna be gone thursday-thursday, and I think she'll be away around the time I come back. since I don't want to prolong the method part for too long, I suggested a meeting sometime next week.

means I have to write a lot now!

past 13 000...

I just broke 13 000 words, which I guess is good... yesterday was a bit of a slow day, running back and forth here and there... time to catch up. 4.1 and 4.2 done, working on 4.3 now, got three more sections after that to be done with the method part. 3 pages this far, am guessing it'll go up to ~10 or so... that's excluding pictures and screenshots which are appendices.

I sent the introduction a few days ago, and we'll talk about that and my method once it's done.

12 616

a bit better. sent introduction as well, and am thinking of perhaps presenting the excel sheets a bit more thoroughly... we'll see what my tutor thinks about that.

12 000 words

been going a bit slowly...

orange paper update :)

updated paper! :)

intro

introduction almost done...

background done

background done, sent it to my tutor. been relaxing a bit these past couple of days, needed it...

seminar

went to seminar today. didn't need to say much, nothing at all actually, just had to be present and get a signature, but it's a necessary part of the project. also talked a bit with my classmate, whose report/presentation I'll be opposing on later. maybe I should save all the evil comments for later and really grill him? ;-)

nah... :)

ch-ch-ch-CHANGES!

the meeting with my tutor went really well today, we talked through most of the stuff about the project... and decided that I'm basically done with the practical stuff. I'll probably just do some stuff these two days left of the week, and then from next week I'll start actually writing my report. first method and results, and then we'll meet and talk through those sections. the final thing to write will be a discussion of the whole project and stuff, seeing how I've done compared to literature and if I have achieved my goal, and what the prerequisites were... I might have some sort of evaluation after a month of use somewhere there, to just see how things have been going when they've turned into "expert" users, if the system is still supporting them in their work as it should.

quite interesting things... am a bit surprised, positively, of course :)

of course, the last thing is to present and oppose another person's presentation, will hopefully do it to my classmate, so that should be interesting. seminar tomorrow, have to attend one of those too...

ch-ch-ch-changes!

as I've written somewhere before, my tutor is now also my examiner... wrote to the administrator now to see what should be done about that... have also written a mail to the norwegians, asking them to check out the system a bit more and that I'll probably send some sort of questionnaire to them later on...

report updated

updated my report now... added keynotes for remote evaluation and some other stuff which we talked about with my tutor a while ago... meeting tomorrow, going to write down all the points I have written and see if I have managed to fulfill them.

evaluation results and comments

here's my summary and comments... put it up on the forum:

Statistics:
I have now added a mark for non-Bahá'ís which can be sorted by. What do you think of changing name on this to "Overview", "Summary" or something like that?

The small boxes in the bottom can be used to filter a bit more, for example to find people who have gone either one or another course (the option "Or", middle row), or haven't gone through a course ("Not", bottom row)

I'd like you to think about how it can be improved in the future, when the lists will probably be much larger than they are today. Would it for example be interesting to have more advanced/detailed information where address, e-mail, etc is showing?


Studycircle:
Now you can set the date from when all circles started/finished after should appear.

I have found some old circles which I have added, but I had very few... the statistics in the past was slightly insufficient when it came to keeping track of exactly when circles were happening.


Cluster report:
The pyramid is now up, you can see it if you click your specific cluster and then "Show pyramid".

Remember that the diagrams only show people that have *finished* a course. If you want the addition of people who are currently active or something similar, let me know. The problem is that the diagram might not be as nice and easy to see, but I can take a look at it.

When it comes to the history it works in such a way that every month all data is automatically saved for all clusters. Beyond this you can choose when you want to save current data, for example before a reflection meeting or when a report is to be done to SBI.


Links and documents:
The mega document will probably be split up into five smaller documents, to be easier to handle. Reflections on Growth is a part of that document now.

I also added a few new links, documents and presentations. Feel free to take a look there, there might be a couple of usable stuff. If you discover something new, don't hesitate to send to me.

There is also a small statistical report over all clusters in Sweden that have a coordinator, together with all others put together into one cluster. You can contact the koordinators if you want them something through there.


New function:
Report interest: It is now possible to report interest to go a studycircle. This is done at www.bahai.se/sbi/rapport, choosing "Report interest to go a course". Encourage the friends in your clusters to do this, since it will probably ease your work quite a lot. You won't have to read peoples's thoughts :)

Possible studycircles: This is a continuation on report interest. When three or more people have reported their interest for a course where time, book and cluster matchen, the possible studycircle is shown. There you can see all participants, what options they have chosen and their comments. At the same time you see a list of all tutors in the cluster, whether they're free or not, and you can click on the person and send a mail. You can also add a comment if there is anything.

Mail: There is now a mail fuction! It is not *completely* finished yet, so if there is anything else you want me to add, let me know!
Now you can mail:
- people who have finished book x
- all tutors in your clusters (ie those who have completed book 7)
- the national coordinator (negin)
- sbi
- the administrator (me)
It is very important that you update people's e-mail addresses, otherwise this function will be a bit pointless... it is especially important that you update people who are or are about to become tutors. We are also thinking of letting the system automatically send a "congratulation mail" to all new tutors, but we haven't decided that yet.


The Excel sheets:
It gladdens me that almost everyone has gone from the Excel sheets to using this, it means that it works!


Security:
There is a complete backup taken of the entire database every day, so if anything should totally crash there is the possibility of restoring the information quite easily. I have also spread out the backup data to a couple of independent places, so the risk of totally losing everything gets as minimal as possible.

I will also work a bit later on fixing the things when it comes to the security aspects of the system. Right now it is not so limited, it is possible to do basically whatever you want as long as you know how to. It will be fixed soon.


Other:
It gladdens me that you are so very positive to the entire project, it is really encouraging and inspiring! However, I have a request, and that is that you really point out things that don't work and things that you want to be developed and changed. Partly for your own sake, and partly for my project.


The future:
What's happening next? I'm going to take a proper look at a print function, which I will hopefully get to work. No guarantee though, since it is quite hard to get to work. Already now it goes quite well to just print the pages, but it can always be better.

The goal is that the forum should be the way that we're all staying active. I will successively stop sending mails and only use "Message of the day" and the forums for communication.

Next week it's another week of evaluation, and then it's the final implementation phase. Then, dear friends, it's over... :)

plans

booked a meeting with my tutor 15.30 on wednesday...

for that one, I'm gonna prepare, both try to wrap up what's left of my report, and also actually check through the points I've written to see if I've actually done a good job.

I'm going to look through the evaluations now, summarize them and post some comments as the message of the day, so they know that I've actually made something about them...

the mail function needs a bit of tweaking, but I'll probably "launch" it today.

gonna sit with the national coordinator in around two weeks or so and go through all the security and access details and such, and probably fix it during the final implementation phase... that should be good. right now people can see and do basically whatever they want as long as they know how to, and that's not really the point! :)

nothing more to do? pfft!

just as I thought I was done I found a major bug and a design flaw. took me an hour and a half to find the bug, and 30 seconds to fix it...

other than that, there's not that much left to do... I've sent a mail to my tutor, and we're hopefully going to meet sometime next week to discuss how I should go on next... I'm gonna have to prepare a bit for that meeting, just to make sure I've done what I'm supposed to when it comes to user involvement.

I'll also be sending a mail to the coordinators and tell them that there's not much time left for them to influence the project, and that they should tell me anything they want/need...

I've actually gotten a few CIs, though just not reported through the page, but rather through e-mail/the forum, so I guess that's good enough in a sense... apparently it's easier... ah well. weekend!

new, rather exciting stuff!

don't really remember what I did yesterday, but I'm sure it was good... [edit:] oh, I updated the database with information about old study circles and so, and also updated the links in the statistics to point to them. I added the pyramid in the cluster report and also added a bit of information about the clusters, so the coordinators can see and feel part of a whole. this is something that was asked for in the evaluations.

today I started working on a "report interest" function, which had been asked for in the design workshop but I wasn't really sure how to do it. this far, it seems to be working well, though of course no one has reported any interest, as it just came up and no one is aware of it, yet. the system automatically tries to match possible new study circles depending on reported interest on book, cluster, and available times. when a possible circle is found (3 or more interests), it lists all free tutors in the cluster, and the coordinator can mail him/her. quite neat function! :)

added a couple of new presentations to the links and documents section today, and also finished all the include statements for the menus, so now I won't have to manually edit each and every file whenever I make a change to the menus and links... that's gonna be good for the future.

the mail function works now, but is not 100% available, still a bit hidden. but it's possible to send mails from the system to all tutors, coordinators, and a few others... useful!

oh, I also found out a way to speed up the system a bit with my redirects... that's gonna be tomorrow's work.

evaluations...

have gotten some of the evaluations, one or two missing... gotten quite many interesting comments and suggestions, have implemented two already... one was a missing cluster, the other was the possibility to limit the dates for study circles...

worked quite extensively on an e-mail function too... it's getting there, not all done yet. also did some site maintenance... :)

updated evaluation

my tutor suggested that I start with more specific questions about some specific functions and their use, related to some tasks. after that, I'd go to more general questions, such as positive/negative, and finally to let them give their general opinion, as it would then be in background to their previous answers about what they actually think about the different functions. she also suggested I try to get a feel of how their situation around them is, if they use any external objects, which would show a lack of usability in the system.

here are the final questions:

• What do you think of the statistics function? Does it work as you want it to?
• What do you think of the studycircles function? Does it work as you want it to?
• What do you think of the cluster report function? Does it work as you want it to?
• What do you think of the links and documents? Anything you miss there?
• Which function do you use the most?
• Is there any function that is difficult to use or unclear? How?
• Which new functions would you like to see implemented? (3, in order)
• What do you think of the help function? Does it need development? Is there a need for a course?
• What is positive with The Coordinator?
• What is negative with The Coordinator?
• How can the positive be strengthened?
• How can the negative be improved?
• What is your general opinion of The Coordinator? (on a scale of 1-7)
• Do you still use the Excel sheets? (yes/no)
• Why/why not?
• Do you use any other tools to assist you, such as Post-its, notepad, etc?
• Other comments:

appreciation!

this is what makes me happy, got it in a mail from one of the coordinators: "what I also appreciate a lot is that you listen to what we think and fix it - it seems like a piece of cake for you! if anything malfunctions we'll just tell you!"

*smile*

also has started to be some activity on the forum, they're talking a little bit with each other, so that's good... gotten two evaluations this far, a couple more to get...

eval update

got suggestions and comments from my tutor. change of order, and a couple of more questions added. will post more tomorrow.

the help

here are some screen shots from the help. they probably don't make much sense though...

evaluation!

now it's time for evaluation... these are the questions I asked:

• What is your general opinion of The Coordinator? (on a scale of 1-7)
• What is positive?
• What is negative?
• How can the positive be strengthened?
• How can the negative be improved?
• Which function do you use the most?
• Is there any function that is difficult to use or unclear? Why?
• Which new functions would you like to see implemented? (3, in order)
• What do you think of the help function? Does it need development? Is there a need for a course?
• Do you still use the Excel sheets? (yes/no)
• Why/why not?
• Other comments

awfully quiet

I've been awfully quiet here... I've worked on my report, added a section about remote evaluation, fixed a few of the comments I've gotten from my tutor, and am currently working on the keynotes for remote evaluation. other than that, I've implemented a few small functions that they've asked for, fixed a few things here and there, and sent a mail to my tutor with my questionnaire. will put it up tomorrow or on thursday and hope to have them answered by the end of the weekend, so I can start on my second development phase on monday.

evaluation done

fixed the evaluation, going to send my tutor the questions and see what she thinks. it doesn't have to be up by end of next week, so there's no rush with it...

first ci reported

got the first critical incident reported today... was a programming error, had changed a thing in one place but not in the other... and now it's fixed :)

mail sent to norway

got a mail sent to norway... we'll see what happens there.

small updates

fixing small things here and there at the request of the coordinators. seems that the evaluation is working quite well :) they have been posted on the forum, so it's good to keep and will be of use for the report.

have started thinking a little bit on the questionnaire and the questions. will probably work a bit on fixing the report as well, the things I have to change and add in the background after the comments from my tutor, and also the addition of the new article.

help done!

took me a while, but finally finished with the help, and I think I managed to cover everything on all pages. hope it helps...

ci fixed

critical incident reporting is fixed and working. I also fixed the motd to reflect evaluation phase. will send basically the same mail out tomorrow. have to prepare the questionnaire so it's ready and done when needed.

slow day

didn't get much done today... took screenshots of all pages and prepared a help page, but I need to put some explanations to the pictures. haven't really gotten started with the evaluation yet, have to fix the CI and then send a mail...

major facelift!

the whole site underwent a major facelift today, and now actually looks good! thank you kertu for your help :)

I got a reply from my tutor, where she asked me to think about how I was going to do things, after I explained a bit. hope she's happy with my further explanations, I have quite a good view of how I want to do things.

found another article (Remote Evaluation: The Network as an Extension of the Usability Laboratory) that explains something called critical incident reporting, where users/evaluators report critical negative or positive incidents as they happen, directly from the tool they're evaluating. the advantage is that the memory is fresh, and they can hopefully describe things well, so that the developers can fix them. I'm going to set it up so it can be done, and incorporate it in the site. I think it can be a very helpful tool. that article also had a few versions of remote evaluation, including digital questionnaires and automatic logging, so it means I'm not totally off.

forum use!

we agreed through the forum with the coordinators that they shouldn't be able to add studycircles, but should instead urge the tutor to report it through the page. if they really need to add it, they can go report it themselves through the report page, in the tutor's name.

I added so they can change start and finish time of the circles, might be good in case something goes wrong. I've also improved the logging system a bit, at least for updating persons, now I have to fix it for updating study circles. shouldn't be too hard I think.

tomorrow evaluation starts! first task: help page!

help?

did some minor updates, fixed a few bugs, or perhaps I should call them "features" ;-)

figured it would be a good idea to set up a help system as well... or at least some sort of manual that tells and shows what can be done where. I'll work on that.

mail

just sent a mail to my tutor explaining my thoughts and plans when it comes to the evaluation. they are basically:

• let them work now for three weeks, doing their usual tasks
• I will not do any major changes, only fix bugs and some design, perhaps new functions if they really ask for/need it
• I have tried to plan and prepare ahead of time, informing as much as possible
• I will use the message of the day function to keep them up-to-date
• the forums (main forum, bugs and suggestions, and questions and answers) will hopefully be used as much as possible, and I will be very attentive there and reply all questions
• I am going to develop the logging system a bit more, and inform them about how and for what I will use it
• possibly have some sort of evaluation sheet after two weeks
• I might also ask friends from norway to have a look at it as they are in a very similar situation to us...

now awaiting comments from my tutor :)

done?

I think I'm done now with the implementation... managed to fix automatic update of statistics, and also the possibility to edit the people directly from the study circle view... as well as allow or statements in the sorting... so it's all good. unless they ask for something more today, I'm done with that part for now.

the evaluation part isn't complete yet, but I have made a list of how things are going to happen... figured it's also a good idea to look at what I actually wrote in my report :)

mail and other stuff

sent a mail to the coordinators now explaining the situation... two-three more days of implementation, and then it's just evaluation. I have a basic idea of how to do it, but want to figure it out and plan it better.

arranged another way of searching for the participants, it takes a lot now for the system not to find a person. it also looks if the previous books are done, so it can give a warning when it happens. it's of course up to the coordinators what they want to do with it after that, but at least now they'll easily know.

also eased up things a little bit for the tutors when they report their finished study circle. it searches for previously reported circles under their name and they can just choose which one they want to finish and then add/subtract names. makes things easier for the system, and hopefully for them too :)

update fixed

now the coordinators can update the study circles as well... just the participants for now, I doubt anything else really changes... I supposed I could add a thing for the start and finish as well, might be a good idea...

still have to fix the linking to the statistics of the people, so that the started study circle gets added to their name... that's gonna be a little bit hard, but at least I know where to do it, now it's just the how...

three more days of developing, and then it's use and evaluation for three weeks. am going to read a couple of articles to see how they suggest evaluation to be done, and then adapt it to my situation. I want to have a plan done by thursday to be able to get comments from my tutor...

approved!

fixed the approval, now they see it as a new event when they sign in and have to approve it for it to appear in the statistics. gonna let them edit and delete it as well.

also connected the studycircle reporting from the tutors to the whole system... both starting and finishing, should hopefully minimize the risk for errors.

motd

fixed a message of the day that appears on the main page when they login... handy tool!

next step is to arrange the new studycircles so they can be "approved" by the coordinators as they sign in... this is gonna be hard :)

reporting study circles

this is going to be a major issue... since the database needs exact matches, there has to be some way of checking the input to make sure it matches existing data. all day today went to create some sort of searching algorithm to check the database versus entered data in a field. I've gone so far as to compare phonetics of entered versus matching data to find it... it isn't fool proof, but it's working reasonably well, and can fix most of the simple typos and spelling errors. now just to implement it, haha...

add people

now people can be added too :)

site moved

moved the site to bahai.se now... hope it works :)

edit people

fixed so people can now be edited.

history

took me all day to fix the history... was a mess to get the line diagram to work, but it finally does. now they can save and check history for any cluster, and also choose on the viewing which saved dates they want to view. right now it's not much to have as there is no historical data saved, but this will be very useful in the future, to see progress and such.

it also saves automatically at the beginning of each month. sweet!

automatic and manual statistics saving

... is done!

now I just need to figure out how to use it...

q&a

got a few questions and answered them today... am looking at creating automatic history reports every month, and also enabling creation of them at any given point. that's gonna be a bit of a mess, but I think it should be doable, need some thinking :)

managed to add circles, participants and non-Bahá'ís to the cluster report, which means that it is exactly what the coordinators have to report before the meetings of the institute board... that's good, one of their requests fulfilled!

cluster updated

managed to get a cluster page shown... a nice summary of how many have gone through the books, active and finished study circles the past 3 months. pretty much what the coordinators need to report whenever asked for, so it's almost meeting their needs. just needs a little bit of tweaking.

the difficult parts are left though... database updates and insertions, both to edit the different people, and also when study circles are reported... that's gonna be hard to fix.

some coordinators have also logged on and checked it out, no comments yet on anything though, except that some of the info is not really updated, but that's no surprise, and was exactly the reason I wanted them to check it already now. hope to get it done soon...

launch!

just sent a mail to the coordinators and asked them to register and try it out now... I need the information to be updated, so that's gonna be their task for the upcoming week and half. I still also need to think about how the evaluation part should be done. today I'm going to try and fix the clusters.

launch?

it might be time for a beta launch soon... got the study circles and reports (with diagrams) working now, as well as statistics and the forum since before. managed to fix some of the referral problems from before, though it is a bit weird at times, but that'll have to be one of the features of this release. other than that, it's ready for registration, I hope. gonna have to ask them to fill in some of the info that I am missing, so that we have an up-to-date database... maybe I'll send out a mail later tonight or tomorrow morning after checking through some stuff.

Naturally it looks like something that might've appeared on the web ~10-15 years ago, but right now design and aesthetic appeal isn't my main focus, that will come later. it's more important that there is some sort of functionality, so that they can get an understanding of how the system works/will work...

study circles...

study circles are almost finished... I managed to get the filtering and sorting for clusters and books done, but am still having problems with wanting to view more than one book at a time... the OR statement basically messes everything up for me... gotta take a bit of closer look on it.

next step after that will be trying to fix reports... soon I'm going to give the coordinators access to the whole system... just gotta make sure there are no huge, disturbing bugs. no doubt there are right now :)

meeting and work today

so I had the meeting with my tutor today. found out she was going to be my examiner as well, should hopefully make things easier in the end, as it will be enough for just one person to read the whole report, instead of both tutor and examiner...

the meeting itself was quite short, and quite good... she had some good suggestions on a few changes on my report, which should be fairly quick to make, and then we talked a bit about method and so... how I'll do the evaluation, etc... gotta think it through so it's not just haphazardly done, but with an actual thought behind it. there should be a few articles about evaluating here and there, think I found one about remote evaluation, and of course the projects I wrote about in the report. should be good.

and then spent all of today on working on the statistics database... now I think it's all done with the filtering as well, that took a load of energy, but it should be done now. I just hope it works well.

tomorrow I'll start looking at study circles.

statistics progress

I've managed to copy the whole excel sheet into the database... problem is that it's probably not 100% updated, but that's the least of my problems :)
sorting took me two hours to fix, but at least it's working now... soon it's time to get everyone to sign up... still gotta figure out how I wanna do the cluster assignment filtering, because the coordinators are not supposed to see anything other than their own cluster. it is sort of working right now, problem is if we have coordinators responsible for more than one cluster... dunno how to fix that... yet ;-)

sleep!

tracking done

think I've set up the tracking system and that it's now too... am tracking:

• name
• IP
• time
• page
• query
• data

of course, I will inform the coordinators that I am tracking this. but this is mainly to see where things go wrong and such...

forum done!

figured my most important task was to fix the forums first... why? well, a few of the articles on projects that I read said that e-mail lists didn't really work all that well for suggestions and bugs and so, so I figured a forum is probably better. I need to be active there though (also in one of the articles)...

done!

title: over-coming distance in user-centered design

the background is now 26 pages... LOL
mailed it :)

it is also available through the link on the right hand side.

solved?

think I solved the problem... found a couple of projects who had done distributed design, and will probably be writing about them. might start with a section on general troubles in distant groups and then go on to it.

now it's off to actually writing about it all...

literature problem!

the more I look around, the more I understand that this project is quite unique. not that no one has ever done participatory design, or that there haven't been any distant collaboration design projects, or projects scarce with resources. there have been many of them.

the problem is that the combination that I have, is virtually impossible to find anywhere else. even remotely close to it. I was hoping to be able to finish my background report today, trying to write something about distant groups and their collaboration problems and such, but I just can't find any literature that accurately fits into my problem. much of the distance-relevant stuff builds on the problem of trust and personal gain (such as the prisoner's dilemma or similar), but that is simply not an issue here, as everyone wants the best of the project and contribute what they can.

there have been distributed participatory design projects, but they've had access to video cameras and the participants have had some sort of gain of participating, either monetary reward or simply it being part of their work. in my project, my group members are doing this in their spare time. I'll see what I can dig up, but I want to be able to write at least 3-4 pages about this, because it is quite a big and unique issue in my project... of course, I'll have to expand and elaborate on what I've done myself in the actual method part, but it doesn't hurt to have some background on what others have done... we'll see.

forum

login and forum fixed and working... doesn't look all that pretty yet though...

wrote a page on the report, one major (distant groups) and two minor (PD today and methods) parts left. finished by thursday perhaps?

security

been sitting and working with the login and security of the page... can't have it open for everyone as there will be information about people and stuff there... and I feel I have to get this to work first, so I know how the rest will be implemented.

it's not working 100% yet, but I hope to be there soon... tomorrow I'll be writing on my report though.

requirements specification

to get a bit more clearer view on what exactly the requirements of the system are/were, I decided to meet up with a friend, my personal consultant :), and specify them a bit more clearer, independently of what I had reached with the coordinators. this way they could both complement each other, and I'd be sure that I hadn't missed anything.
the meeting went very well, and together we managed to specify quite many new things that I and the coordinators hadn't thought of. we also were able to write them down on big sheets of plastic, and these I've put on the back of my door to always keep in mind of what I'm aiming for. here are the pictures:

first the two things we drew up, the first one represents the system and its different functions, whereas the other specifies what a studycircle and a person in the system should include:

lastly, this is how it now looks like, on the backside of my door. I've also added the Post-its from the workshop with the coordinators:

meeting booked

just booked a meeting with my tutor, 31st of january... gotta have my background written 'til then, so it gives me a little bit more time... will try and get it done within a day or two though; don't want it lying around for too long.

note to self

here are some notes to myself of what the coordinators have to report (which means the system should be able to automatically generate this):

• current study circles (book, tutor, name of participants, and any non-Bahá'ís)
• finished study circles the past 3 months (same information as above)
• planned/need for study circles

specification

just mailed my specification to my tutor, and tried to set up a meeting for next week. told her I'd finish up my background report over the weekend... hope that'll be ok.

whiteboard

I definitely need a whiteboard, the sooner the better.

slow day...

nothing much happened today... did some reading, printed an article that supposedly claims that participatory design is very important cscw (computer-supported cooperative work) which could give even more credibility for my project... so why not? :)

change of heart

decided rapid cd isn't interesting, as I won't have anything to do with it during my project... though it is an interesting method in itself, to be able to quickly produce results from user-centered projects and has some interesting and usable points... maybe for later in some other project or so...

today's progress

a bit more than three pages written about contextual design (it's up and readable). will probably try to write another page about the rapid contextual design tonight before heading to bed... hope to get another half a page or so done. that should be enough for the day.

still undecided about what to do with the other sections and if I will be able to finish it all before friday... might try to finish my specification (which should've been done a month ago) with all the articles and stuff that I will have and send it in to get it signed and all. and then write during the weekend as well (or at least on sunday) and then send it in for a meeting some time during next week. I'm afraid that this background will go up to about 20 pages... I think that's a bit too much...

and I'll probably try to keep 3 as the distant groups, and then add the methods either as 2.5 or 4. we'll see.

tomorrow I'm gonna read a few more articles, refreshen my memory on participatory design and figure out exactly what I wanna write. or I'll read something on the keynotes...

mail to coordinators

sent a mail to the coordinators telling them about my plans and when I'd need them... figured it'd be a good idea to keep them updated and also let them know what to expect and when I'd need them...

first section done!

three pages about the ISO standard 13407... was more than I thought it would be...
currently these are the sections I will have in my background:

2. Background – user-centered design
2.1. ISO standard 13407
2.1.1. Understanding and specifying the context of use
2.1.2. Specifying the user and organizational requirements
2.1.3. Producing design solutions
2.1.4. Evaluating designs against requirements
2.2. Participatory design/Scandinavian model
2.3. Contextual design
2.4. Key notes for user-centered design
3. Background – distant groups

I think this will be long enough... the report is available to read, here (can also be found from the link on the right). hope to finish it by friday... am a bit worried about the distant groups and what to write there... might even skip it if I deem the rest to be enough.

edit: depending on what I write in sections 2.2-2.4, I might change 3 into a general thing about methods of user-centered design, which has a bit more practical info on how to go about. this would naturally include methods such as the focus group and my design workshop... otherwise I might have to have another section about that...

writing day

today is writing day... hope to finish at least one or two sections of my background.

names!

I have to come up with a title for my report... the swedish one naturally doesn't work :)

and for the system, I decided to simply call it "The Coordinator" - sounds cool, huh? :)

a bit written

got a little bit written, so I am actually ahead of schedule... but was hoping to get more done. will probably put a working document link up just so others can see my progress... sort of forces me to also write more :)

but not today... sleep's calling!

design

from dictionary.com:

“To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.”

I like it.

whiteboard?

getting the feeling that I might need to get myself some sort of whiteboard... just to have a place to put all things relevant to this project, instead of trying to have loads of papers and post-its lying around on my desk... hmmm...

good design

what is good design? 2005 was the design year in sweden and apparently in norway too, so they had a small exhibition about some award-winning designs at the airport. here's an interesting paragraph which I found there on my way back home...

“Good design improves our everyday lives, by simplifying communication and creating products and solutions that are developed with our needs and wants in mind. Good design improves our everyday lives and creates clarity from clutter.
Good design solves problems, contributes to the effective use of resources, creates more functional solutions, unique experiences, and more effective communication.”

will probably use this somewhere in the introduction of my report, which I've started writing a little bit on today... nothing much, just trying to make an outline and bring up some of the points that I would like to have.

workshop pictures

here are the pictures from the workshop:

choices, choices...

so I have some choices to make... and quite big and important ones. here they are:

• english/swedish: my tutor said that I could write in whatever language I feel comfortable with, so it's up to me. here's the link to my original thoughts about it... can't decide, but it's leaning towards english right now actually...
• mysql/access database... there's a big problem for me... I'm used to access databases and can use it running locally on my computer, and can easily import the excel data that we're using right now into it. in a completely unrelated event, I created a forum a while ago (something they asked for in the workshop), which is using an access database, and that means I won't have to redo that one. however, the bahai.se-site uses mysql, and since the whole system will eventually be transferred there it's probably what I'll have to implement it in sooner or later... question is if I should do it already now or maybe wait and do it later? not sure how difficult it is to learn how to use mysql, but it's another extra thingie, beyond the other things I already have to learn...

oh, happy *week!*

just found out that I had actually planned this week as a vacation! thought it was already over... lucky me!

will probably do some work this week anyways though... better to be ahead than behind :)

design workshop

had a workshop yesterday... took about an hour, unfortunately only three of the coordinators were there, but I'd say it was quite good anyway. split it up into three parts:

• positive/negative things about the excel sheets, and how to fix the negative ones
• scenarios of use and some functions
• actual design of the system

got quite many pointers on how they want it to look like and what it should do, so it seems I will have a lot of work to do :)

next week will be spent on writing the background, and then I'll have a few iterative phases of design and implementation... gonna be interesting! and fun! and difficult!

post-it bought

just got my post-it stuff...
here's a pic:

wanted to get a couple of different colors, so I could use different ones for different functions during the workshop. 400 of them should be enough I hope... ;-)

and the receipt:

39 kr spent this far on my thesis... let's see how high it will go :)

back

home and all, but not gonna do much work. winter school coming up, and am gonna have a workshop with a couple of the coordinators, those that will be there... gonna try to have some sort of design session, along the lines of what gustav taxén described in his article introducing participatory design in museums, so I gotta read that again and plan what I want to do. probably going to need to buy post-it notes... they feel useful :)

this will happen 6th or 7th I think. other than that, nothing until the 9th, when I get back to seriously working and writing again...