Overview (1 pt)

Furniture is all around us but not many take time to consider what it takes to create these essential components of our homes. To create useful and strong furniture a carpenter needs to get the best raw materials for the project, taking it from a mere woodwork project to an art. A good organizing for these raw materials enables the carpenter to achieve these goals. Wood shops go some way into trying to achieve this with organizing systems that enable interaction between the customer and resources, and I will try to analyze how they try to achieve this.

 

What resources are being used? (2 pts)

The resources being organized are physical wood pieces. Customers visit wood shops with various woodworking projects they intend to do and hence need varied types and sizes of wood pieces for each. Woodworking projects range from flooring, tiling, roofing to creating cupboards or bookshelves. The resources, i.e. wood are passive and need interaction initiated on them by staff or customers.

 

Wood in the shop consists at the most abstract level, the type of wood i.e. natural wood blocks, which are mostly used for framing. The other type is wooden boards which are manufactured and are mostly used for making surfaces. Natural wood contains categories for hard wood and soft wood that is then followed by categories based on the names of the tree e.g. mahogany or teak. Wood boards are mostly manufactured to serve different purposes and thus are categorized on their use such as block boards, hard boards and vinyl

 

Why are the resources organized? (2 pts)

Resources are organized primarily on the use warrant to serve customers and staff in the shop. The shop intends to sell the wood to customers hence it must provide a system which allows them to interact with the resources. For customers resources are organized so that it is easier for them to select the wood they want to use and also know the other types of wood that is can substitute the one they originally wanted. The vocabulary problem where differently descriptions are used by customers and the shop has to be addressed necessitates the need for an organizing system which allows customers to easily find the wood they want based on the physical properties.

 

Since customer transactions are usually infrequent the organizing system can often be seen to have intentional arrangement to make it easier for staff to interact with resources. For staff they would want to organize resources primarily on the basis of the interactions they want to have with the resources. Wood pieces that need to be replaced often will therefore be organized strategically to enable this interaction. Those that may need other interactions such as cutting or modifications will also need special organization that will enable the achievement of this requirement.

 

How much are the resources organized? (2 pts)

Abstraction is of little concern in the system with granularity being more pertinent. Customer requirements for resources differ greatly between projects, making precision a key factor in the system. A granular organization is thus implemented as they speed at which resources and recall are weighed less. The organizing principles of the system are based on the physical attributes facet. Wood shops usually implement multi-level hierarchical categories in their organizing system. Firstly the type of wood needed for each woodwork project requires hence that the resources be categorized on this property. The dimensions needed for the project also entail that the same wood be categorized differently on many properties of dimensions such as length, width or thickness of the board. Organizing systems for wood shops are very flexible to allow new categories to be accommodated because requirements for wood change greatly over time coupled with changes in supply. Other interactions that can happen on the resources will also affect organization. For example, wood planks may need to be cut for the customer thus this will affect the organization.

 

When are the resources organized? (1 pt)

Organization usually occurs at the start of business day where staff replenishes stock levels of wood in the shop to desired levels. Replenishment can also occur during the day if stock of a particular wood runs out or goes beyond a minimum set level. Resource organization also occurs every time when new resources are created in the system. This is when the shop either buys a new type of wood or when resources are added to the system. Interactions with the resources can also result in organization of resources. For example, if a wood plank is cut into smaller pieces, the new resources created will result in them being organized in different places or into one place where customers can get random pieces.

 

Who does the organizing? (1 pt)

The staff at the wood shop organizes the resources. They are expected to hold some special knowledge of the various types of wood in the shop together with some understanding of the uses of the wood. Since they are expected to move the wood for checking out, they can help decide where the resources should be located with the manager at the shop coordinating. They have to take into consideration the ease at which customers can interact with the resources whilst making sure they are able to navigate and select resources to checkout. Safety for customers is another consideration they factor in thus health and safety monitors can influence organization in a system.

 

Other considerations (1 pt)

The traditional wood shop consists of a medium sized shop, which can store all the wood in one area, however as some changes are happening to bigger shops were customers only see samples of the wood in product catalogs with well-defined resource descriptions. As such these systems are organized have catalogs as the different organizing system from the warehouse where the actual wood is stored and selected for delivery to the customer.

Domain: My Kitchen

Overview (1 pt)

I have selected my domain to be my kitchen and will be addressing the resources, mainly food, kitchenware, and utensils that are kept and used in my kitchen. I live in an apartment with two other roommates and the resources are most often utilized by a total of 3 users. In terms of scope, the organizing system holds a fair variety of resources, ranging from perishables to non-perishables, delicate glassware to non-delicates, utensils and kitchenware.

The overall scale of my organizing system is limited by the size of the kitchen and the amount of resources needed by the users. This is because the physical environment of the collection is the biggest constraint on the growth and scale of the organizing system. In regards to the number of resources selected depends on the requirements needed by the user, which are fairly low because most users are not frequent cooks. Overall, the system will support interactions designed to create value to the organizing system, but the priorities of the different interactions are more often determined by decisions about intended users.

What resources are being used? (2 pts)

The kitchen will hold resources shared by my roommates and I, but also have resources used exclusively by me or my roommates. The collections of resources will include perishable and nonperishable food, kitchenware, utensils that belong to at least one of the three users. Since my roommates and I did not conduct any group purchases, there will be no resources owned by more than 1 user.

Since the resources must be owned by one user, the same user must have selected the resource for the system. Some of the roommates might have resources that are personal to them and that they do not want to share the resources with others. Therefore, the resources that are selected are owned by a maximum of 3 users, but not all the resources added into the organizing system are allowed to be used by every user. For example, my roommates might have bought food for themselves and are not planning to share the food. In this case, the resources are only specific to them.

When a user adds resources to the system, other users learn about the new resources too when they interact with the system. Since this addition and removal of resources is rather explicit, all the roommates must be explicit in terms of their resource permissions if he/she does not want to share select resources. As an alternative, users can abide by the rules of the organizing system, such as putting non-sharable resources in specific locations to make sure that others know that the resources cannot be used.

The lifetime of the entire resource organizing system is dependent on the physical and technological constraints because these constraints are difficult to change for the resources that are being organized. The kitchen, for example, contains multiple cabinets, drawers and shelves. The upper shelves have certain affordances making it inappropriate to hold heavy objects. In addition, the cabinets and drawers are only of certain size, and will constrain the size and dimensions of the items to be added.

Why are the resources organized? (2 pts)

The resources are organized by select principles. Some of this organization is required due to the resource’s properties. For example, perishable food products need to be organized into the fridge because of it’s properties require them to be stored in an environment under a certain temperature.

Resources that are shared among all the users will need to be organized in certain drawers and cabinets to ensure there are no conflicts in organizing. During the first week when I was moving into the apartment, there was a discussion among all the roommates concerning he placement of utensils, frequently used resources (cups, utensils, pots), delicate and less frequently used items (sauces, garbage bags, wine glasses,) and the non-sharable items (pressure cookers, spice selection.) This discussion, most generally a highlight of the existing principles, set an agreed standard on the existing system and that any changes should allow some sort of interoperability.

Resources are also organized to support easy access, retrieval and user-interactions to provide value. Some of these kitchen resources are needed on a daily basis, such as cups, forks and spoons. The retrieval and maintaining processes have to ensure that these resources continue to be utilized and then curated in the system or else the resources will be lost or misplaced.

How much are the resources organized? (2 pts)

The resources are mostly organized by its general perceivable properties, the affordances of the actual resource and frequency of use by the user. Resources, such as food items, are organized in an ownership or resource property. For food that share the same ownership or properties, such as my own tub of ice-cream and a bag of frozen peas, the organizing of the resources is not that complex. The organizing principle might simply be collation, since the grouping of the two resources can be considered ‘together’ and makes sense in terms of resource retrieval.

While most of the items are organized by the specific properties of the resources, collections of personal resources where users are not keen on sharing, are organized or kept aside for highly individualized interactions. For this reason, specialized categories are created by the user that it is intended to serve. The adherences to organizing principles that support individualized interactions is only possible due to the size of the apartment. Larger collections need more people to design and organize, therefore it might create communication and coordination problems.

When are the resources organized? (1 pt)

The resources are mostly organized at the creation stage, where the organizing system was first established. For example, when the first roommate moved into the apartment, items were arranged or grouped under perceived properties from this first user. Since I was a late-comer to this apartment, the organizing principles in the kitchen were already defined. As a new user into the system, I had to learn the organizing principles, select my resources that can be arranged in the current organizing system and find out how to organize resources that do not fit.

Who does the organizing? (1 pt)

The organizing system mainly serves 3 users who are the residents of the apartment. While these 3 users are the main users, they will strongly shape the contents and the interactions that it must support. After identifying the main user categories, the organizing system can be designed with a user type that has been classified and define interactions with more precision. However, each user brings different biases, goals into what should be the supported interactions. This is not to exclude visitors, family and friends who might be visiting the apartment and will interact with the system at some point.

The characteristics of the small user group helps explain the selection and the interactions designed for the organizing system. Overall user base of the organizing system is rather homogenous, as the main user categories are master students at UC Berkeley and do not do a lot of cooking.

Other considerations (1 pt)

After the organizing system has been designed and implemented, the operation and maintenance of the system are crucial stages to ensure the system can continue to support its intended purposes. However, the change in the user’s schedule or habits will change the organizing system’s maintenance processes. The user might cook dinner, removes a pot and some bowls and plates from the system, but he/she delays the processes of maintenance and delaying the curation process.