The iterative design of a virtual design studio

Abstract

Our journey in the development of the Design eXchange has taken us a long way and there is a long way yet to go. We began with a vision for encoding design knowledge and creating online virtual design studio culture and found the wiki technology to be an exciting way to make progress towards many of our goals. On the other hand, our use of the wiki technology has itself inspired us to think differently about our original goals for the Design eXchange. Especially as a result of our experience with the wikis, we now realize the importance of allowing for analogies of public and private spaces in the virtual world to reflect physical world design culture and practice. We have understood the need for an ecology of wikis to support communities of virtual design studios and we have understood the need for thinking deeply about permissions in order to create circles of influence and awareness among designers in our online community.