Prototype #2: More Reflection and Evaluation
What was the strongest component of your prototype?
Looking back at my prototype now, after attending a restorative justice training and revisiting some of Nina Lysbekken’s work about designing conversational spaces for specific contexts and purposes, I think the Restorative Channel concept is pretty strong (again, working title). It’s a conversational space where the purpose is clear — this is a space where users go to solve problems they have with each other. Plus, both users have consented to being there. This is in opposition to most existing DCS’s, where the intended purpose is not clearly defined beyond, say whatever you want to whomever you want in any way that you want. Even when guidelines are set, people will still break them, and perhaps that’s because an internet without any guidelines is still very recent history, and has been largely left up to the users, experienced or skilled in this area or not, to determine what people can and can’t do. This as compared with physical spaces that have been designed with clear expectations for behavior, such as places of worship (Lysbekken used Catholic confessionals as a compelling example of a space with the widely accepted and respected expectation of trust, privacy, what is supposed to be done and said, and who is participating).
What was the weakest component of your prototype?
Regardless of whether purpose and expectations are clearly designed into a DCS, what if users don’t need that space, or it doesn’t serve them in any way? I think the weakest component of my prototype is that I have not yet been able to prove that this process is something users need or want, or that it will make sense for them to use along with the other tools the DCS already provides.
I’ve said this before, but this is also true about restorative justice in the physical world. It’s hard to prove that the process is something worth doing or that it makes any sense, because its impact can take time before it’s felt or visible. This isn’t a justification, but it’s something I always think about when I ask myself the use value question. I don’t want to ignore this question, because it’s a common theme in my feedback and it needs to be answered. It’s the hardest question and the one that gives me the most anxiety.
What are existing attributes of your thesis concept to refine and iterate on next?
I definitely feel that I need to better refine the specific problem I’m trying to solve. I think this will help me better define success metrics, and in general, make it easier to answer the question identified above.
I also want to keep iterating on what restorative justice principles I choose to adapt, especially in light of the distinction I now better understand between restorative circles and conferences. In the end, I can see this becoming less of an adaptation, and more of a “designing through the lens of restorative justice.”
I also want to keep iterating on how I present this process. One suggestion from my last presentation was to integrate the process into a more familiar or widely used platform, like Facebook. That might make the mechanics of the process more accessible to an audience that isn’t as familiar with restorative justice.
What new areas have you not yet explored that are really essential? If they’re not essential, can you rule them out to simplify your path moving forward?
I have not yet explored or specified what the desired outcome of participating in this process should be. I don’t think I can set long-term success metrics at this point, but I want to explore what are the feelings and thoughts that users should have that should indicate success, at least in the moment? One way I could do this would be to invite people in the IxD community to participate in a physical world circle, and survey them about their thoughts and feelings after. Then, continue prototyping and testing the process in a DCS with the same users (or maybe different users?), and then survey users’ thoughts and feelings after participating. I could then see if there are patterns and themes between the results of my survey of the physical world circle participants and digital world participants.
In thinking about the user’s experience what phases have you overly focused on? What parts of the experience have gone under-explored? As you consider this, identify which aspects are more beneficial as a research investigation or prototyping investigation.
In my prototype, I think I definitely under-explored the Restorative Channel interaction. As a concept I think it’s strong, but I need to flush out more what that conversation actually looks like. This could be done by user testing through a role play or creating a working looks-like prototype, so it would be more of a prototyping investigation as opposed to a research investigation.
I think I also over-explored the experience of the offended user in initiating the Restorative Channel conversation, and under-explored the experience of the offending user. In particular, how can I motivate the offending user to participate? I can definitely see how someone who gets a request to be confronted by someone who didn’t like what they said would be more likely to decline than accept. So perhaps there’s an incentive, such as a rating system, that could help with this. Or, perhaps the context, a disagreement over ideas in a DCS, where users are used to saying what they want and disagreeing with each other, is not the best fit for a restorative justice style process like this. I want to consider other DCS contexts, such as callout culture on Twitter and Instagram, as potential better contexts; this would be a research investigation as opposed to a prototyping investigation.
List the areas in your thesis concept to further explore for the following areas: interaction, design, technical
I think I’ve already addressed these above, so I guess to recap:
Interaction: Flush out the restorative channel interaction; flush out the problem space and the desired outcome of the interaction. Also flush out whether this is a plugin or a proposal for existing DCS’s to adopt (if the latter, get specific about which DCS’s it’s best suited for)
Design: Iterate and refine on visual depiction of the process.
Technical: This one is tough because I don’t see this become a working product; perhaps as a research investigation, explore tech requirements for web plugins.
