Workshop: Design Concept Peer Feedback
Background
As a design student, you frequently attend presentations by peers on their design work, and you are often expected to offer feedback. Constructively critiquing designs created by others is an essential skill to develop. Good critique goes beyond mere opinion; it tries to understand what a design is trying to achieve, how it is trying to accomplish that thing, and what the shortcomings or unintended consequences of the approach taken might be. Critiquing responsible urban AI systems is especially challenging because we deal with many levels or dimensions: ethical, political, technical, and societal. This exercise is designed to practice giving good feedback while considering these different dimensions.
Learning Objectives
After completing this exercise, you can critique the design of a responsible urban AI system from several different perspectives.
Instructions
- Pair up with one of the other groups.
- Take turns presenting your design concept.
- While one group is presenting, the other group takes notes on potential feedback they want to give, keeping in mind the following roles:
- A civil servant employed by the city who is responsible for developing and executing policy related to the issue the design is addressing.
- An activist employed by a local civil society organization (e.g., Waag Society) working to ensure technology developed by government and companies respects human rights.
- A data scientist employed by a development company tasked with building the design is trying to ensure they understand how the system should work in terms of dataset and model.
- A citizen who has a stake in the issue that the design is addressing and is invited to a public participation procedure on the system’s development.
- Once both groups have presented, split up again and discuss your notes within your group
- Write a note on the other group’s Miro board that captures your feedback from each of the four roles
- Re-join your partner group and take turns to explain your feedback briefly
- Split up again, reflect on the feedback you received, and discuss it with your group members
Product
The outcome of this exercise is several feedback statements (one for each role) on your design concept from one of the other groups.
Follow-up
During the plenary following this workshop, you will summarize the feedback you received from the other group and give your perspective.