AtGentive
WP2 Design Principles
AtGentive; 2nd General Meeting;
21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Thierry Nabeth, Yé Deng & Pradeep Kumar Mittal
INSEAD CALT (Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies)
http://www.calt.insead.edu/
2nd
WP2: Design principles;
AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Table of content:
The Wish list.
Flexible architecture
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The Web 2.0 principles
Adaptation / adoption in the AtGentive design
How to proceed
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The “Wish list”
The “have to” and “nice to have”
2nd
WP2: Design principles;
AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
What we want

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Modularity, flexibility, simplicity. We want to focus our
attention on improving the support for attention, not
on solving technical problems.
Possibility to reuse the work into individual
applications (all the partners –and not only the
partners involved in the platforms- should be able to
take advantage of the output after the end of the
project)
Reduce the dependence between the partners (we
have different agenda, priorities, styles, …).
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
What we want (2)


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We want to work on things that make sense
to us personally, and that we believe are
useful. We would like to be the users of the
tools and approaches that we develop.
We want to design innovative things that have
high added value.
We want (and we need) that our deliverables
are accepted by the EC
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The flexible architecture
The Web 2.0 principles
Adopting web 2.0.
2nd
WP2: Design principles;
AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The Web 2.0 principles:
Principles
Rich user experience; User participation; trust the users
(Wikipedia); radical decentralisation (blog); emergence;
more people use them the it is useful; fun to use; attitude;
culture (community, versus process oriented, corporate and
bureaucratic); navigation & serendipity.
Approaches.
Small pieces loosely joined; Mashup (combination); perpetual
beta; granular addressability of content; tagging (not
taxonomy. Folksonomies are not planned in advance); ideas
originates from the “leisure Internet”.
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Ye Deng Presentation of Web 2.0:
Presentation Web 2.0
Any Question?
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Web 2.0: The technical aspects
The technicality of Web 2.0.
A Different architecture. More distributed,
loosely coupled, bottom-up, accessing
external components.
New technical mechanisms (web services,
plugins, Ajax) and approaches (trackback,
…)
Rich client (Dhtml/Ajax, flash, …)
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The Adoption / adaptation to Atgentive:
Components. Components are independent, simple, and
have a very clear interface (web services, rich-client /
server)
Open Application / platform. Net API, plugin
mechanisms.
Open to external services. Instant messaging (Skype?,
MSN), Tagging (Del.icio.us, Flickr), bloging, maps
eXtreme Programming principles. Bottom-up, user
centred, continuous improvement
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Web 2.0: The issues
The issues related to Adopting Web 2.0.
Need to open the architecture. Additional layer. Services
exposed via a clear Interface (API, plugins). This interface
exists for both the applications & platforms, and the
components. What should be this interface? Can we express
everything (complex things?).
More distributed architecture. We can not really assume
what it will be used for. Feeling of lost of control.
More complex clients (Dhtml/Ajax, flash, …)
Bottom-up / user-centred / incremental – continuous
improvement (release often). Perpetual Beta.
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Adoption / adaptation
to AtGentive
What is web 2.0 for us?
How can we adopt web 2.0 principles
2nd
WP2: Design principles;
AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The Adoption / adaptation to Argentive:
Open Application / platform. The different platforms (ICDT,
Ontdeknet, others?) should be opened (API / web services, plugin
mechanisms). Ideas introduced by Claudia. We have to find some
way to easily combine/glue the components (mashup).
Note: Probably some commonalities, but most probably this work
will be platform specific.
External Components. External components will have to be
selected and wrapped. Examples: Instant messaging (Skype?,
MSN), Tagging (Del.icio.us, Flickr), blogging, etc..
Work: Some rich client interfaces will have to be created.
Specific AtGentive Components. Difference specific AtGentive
components will have to be created.
Work: Creation of small server components (exposed via web
services, or incorporable into plugins) + Rich client part.
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
The artificial Characters ?
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The character should be considered as a rich client
A server component for piloting this client will
probably have to be designed. (suggestion: this
server will be piloted via a high level API accessed
via simple web services?)
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
How to proceed & conclusion
2nd
WP2: Design principles;
AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
How to proceed:
Identification of the components. Specification of the
functional specification according to a user centred perspective
(Not a detailled technical description !). Alignment of these
components to the Conceptual framework.
Definition of the technical framework. Clarification of the
different mechanisms and approaches to be used. Plugin, API,
etc.
Definition of a common API. (not too detailed, with the
objective is to sketch the principles, and be ready for easy later
additions)
Architectural definition of the AtGentive Components.
Definition of the server part and of the Rich client part.
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK
Conclusion:
Key Challenges:
 Alignment with the conceptual
framework, and guidance of this
framwork
 Generate something useful, innovative
and of high added value
WP2: Design principles;
2nd AtGentive GM 21-22 May 2006, Oxford, UK