Lab7

Describe how Bill Moggridge defines 'design as a collaborative process'. (3 paragraphs)
 * CCT333 Tutorial 7 Wiki Questions: **

How does Tangible Earth represents a real time interface of data visualization? (2 paragraphs)

(Hint: Bruce Mau's Massive Change web site at [] also presents examples of these principles of using 'a shared mind'.)

Bill Moggridge describes design as a collaborative process. What he means is that good design involves the work and support of a team and the integration of individual ideas into one shared mindset. The practice of design involves understanding the physicality of the object you design and understand how they would be integrated with people, such as their physiology, psychology, human interface and interactive design. Collaborative design is also affected by culture an the sociology of the intended audience. Problems such as these cannot be tackled effectively as an individual.

Collaborative design requires the collaborative work of teams as numerous factors must be taken into account. The teams involve people of different backgrounds with different design, engineering, business and social disciplines. In order to get this togetherness to work, people must be willing to share effort and ideas. Another very important aspect is involving the people that we are designing for. Designers must be aware that what they are designing must be suitable and wanted by those they are creating it for. Moggridge terms it as 'Participatory Design'. This makes the design team much more effective as the target consumer would be part of the team.

In these competitive, organizations need the flexibility in design to meet the customers' demands. Group working is an important strategy. Business practices have proven numerous time that awareness and collaboration can improve the way participants face and feel towards their work within the organization as well as towards members. Collaboration can be systematically encouraged in organizations by simply applying it in process modelling and turining the process into a more adequate, collaborative design.

Tangible Earth is the world's first fully interactive globe. It is interactive in the sense that it can be spinned and rotated in any direction. It also shows the borderline between daylight and night time in real time so you can tell which areas people are just waking up, enjoying the sunlight, and which areas people are sleeping. The scale of the globe is 10 000 000:1.

Real time data visualization is also represented by showing current wind speeds, cloud movements and hurricanes. The globe also shows thermal images, ocean currents and tidal movements. You can observe the sea surface temperature and how they change during the seasons. It also visualizes seismological events and the borderlines of the tectonic plates. You can also see the displacement of air pollutants as it color classify the different air molecule compounds. The virtual globe also shows the process of global warming since the early 1900s and up to 2050.