Meta-design and Social Creativity: Making All Voices Heard

Statement. This panel will explore the two innovative and interrelated HCI themes “meta-design” (design for designer) and “social creativity” (transcending the individual human mind). It will focus on the contribution of these two themes to socially-responsible interaction by bringing together researchers from different backgrounds to explore the controversial issues associated with this objective. Meta-design defines and creates socio-technical environments as living entities by extending existing design methodologies to allow users to become co-designers. It creates conditions to facilitate social creativity by supporting users as active contributors who can transcend the functionality and content of existing systems. Much human creativity arises from activities that take place in a social context in which interaction with other people and the artifacts that embody group knowledge are important contributors to the process. Creativity happens not inside a person’s head, but in the interaction between a person's thoughts and a socio-cultural context. Social creativity shifts from the idea of a tool—or set of tools—to the notion of a socio-technical environment in which all stakeholders have a voice. To sow the seeds of a more creative society, it is necessary to promote research methods and identify the unique challenges in developing assessment methods for creativity research. Social creativity needs the “synergy of many,” and this kind of synergy is facilitated by meta-design. However, a tension exists between creativity and organization [Florida, 2002]. A defining characteristic of social creativity is that it transcends individual creativity and thus requires some form of organization thereby possibly stifling creativity.