Meta-design and end-user development AI
Meta-design concerns creating the conditions in which further design can happen. In Gerhard Fischer’s account, a system’s original developers cannot anticipate every future use. People discover mismatches between their needs and the system while working with it; those encounters can become opportunities to change the environment.
End-user development makes some of that change available to the people doing the work. Consider a researcher who begins with a document viewer, then adds a comparison view after finding that the original interface obscures an important relationship. The tool changes because the investigation reveals what is missing. This example illustrates the connection to the essay, rather than describing a study from Fischer’s paper.
For Building Environments for Thought, the useful distinction is between using a finished tool and participating in its continuing development. Generative assistance may make some modifications easier, but the broader idea predates language models. It still requires ways to inspect changes, retain useful work, and recover when an adaptation fails.
Further reading
- Gerhard Fischer, Meta-Design: A Conceptual Framework for End-User Software Engineering (2007).
- Engelbart and intellectual augmentation, for an earlier account of developing the wider conditions of intellectual work.