Crowdsourcing Within the Sphere of Interface Design
The term 'crowdsourcing' was coined in 2005 by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson, editors at Wired, to describe how businesses were using the Internet to 'outsource work to the crowd', which quickly led to the portmanteau 'crowdsourcing'. However, first published a definition for the term crowdsourcing in a companion blog post to his June 2006 Wired article, 'The Rise of Crowdsourcing', which came out in print just days later.
Crowdsourcing is becoming one of the most increasingly popular uses by consumers as well as businesses, and has been studied as a usability engineering method, which in turn has become popular because of the crowdsourced usability testing, and has proven that one can tap into a wide diversity of users to test an online website or application. The invention of and growth of crowdsourcing in the field of interface design has grown incredibly. According to Alsever who states that the basic idea of crowdsourcing is to “tap into the collective intelligence of the public at large to complete business-related tasks that a company would normally either perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider”.
Unlike outsourcing, crowdsourcing utilizes the resources that can be found in the United States Small businesses, in turn this allows for a with tighter budget that can be utilize as a method of crowdsourcing to obtain new and old ideas for their own user interface at a fraction of the cost. It is essential to understand that the invention and growth of crowdsourcing is needed in the field of interface design, by allowing this link one can be clear of the link that will be established even with the age of the internet. The impact that crowdsourcing has not only n the field of interface design has had not only a positive impact but a negative impact as well.
According to Gonzales, “It is, in essence, an open (or semi-open) invitation to a “crowd” or community—usually a wide and public one, such as online communities of graphic artists—to solve a problem or create a product, with or without monetary compensation. Most often though, prize money is dangled like a carrot”. In a positive outlook, this gives new players in the game the chance to win contests and get their name out there. In a negative outlook, it gives players that have been in the game unwanted competition. Gonzales states that crowdsourcing has closed the gap between professional artists and the amateurs, as well as the seasoned designers and the hobbyist.
The Impact That Crowdsourcing Had on the Interface Design
It is important to understand the connections that are established between the graphic designer and client and even though this connection often comes at a price, it is understood that any company will often pay for the cost if they have established a repour with the designer and the company. So even though there is an impact, crowdsourcing has had on the field, it is essential to remember that interface design has been both positive and negative to all parties involved.
As I read deeper into the topic, I found that there are three benefits of incorporating crowdsourcing in a design project are productivity, creativity, and minimizing labor and research expenses. When it comes to crowdsourcing the, the internet is a source that taps into the realm of the World Wide Web, and according to Alsever, “Using the internet to solicit feedback from an active and passionate community of customers can reduce the amount of time spent collecting data through formal focus groups or trends research, while also seeding enthusiasm for upcoming products”. This helps increases productivity because hiring a team to collect data and number of subjects takes a great deal of time and money. Alsever also states that by “involving a cadre of customers in key marketing, branding, and product development processes, managers can reduce both staffing costs and the risks associated with uncertain marketplace demand”. This increases the creativity and minimizes the labor and research expenses that would otherwise be accrued through professional services. By utilizing a broad base crowd, companies can obtain creative ideas that are usually offered at a much lower rate than a professional would charge.
The three benefits of incorporating crowdsourcing in a design project are as follows:
- productivity,
- creativity,
- minimizing labor and research expenses.
One of the advantages of crowdsourcing is the fact that it does include cost savings, this allows for companies to know what type of budget to use and how to implement and allocate that money through-out the project. Speed is another factor that is looked at favorably as well as the ability to work with people who have skills that an in-house team may not have. If a task can be accomplished in a short matter of time, this can be looked at as favorable to the client and to the employee performing the tasks. Speed also helps in the company business when it can cut the turnaround time to a matter of hours, when this can be done, the project is then broken down into smaller parts and it is distributed amongst the employees that will be assisting with getting the job done. A lot of companies nowadays that only need few jobs or at time just something for special occasions, will of course use coding or graphic design, this will allow for those tasks to be crowdsourced which in turn will avoid the expense of a full-time employee.
The three challenges that I read about when incorporating crowdsourcing in a design project are simple yet complex, the one I would say I agree with the most would be the costs involved when reviewing ideas on how to organize and distribute the innovation process, as well as determining how the success of the idea will take place. It must be clear that it is essential to know when to determine the cost and where the cost allocation of funds will be placed and prioritized in the implementation of the idea. It is also very important that the client determine whether to use any approach towards the screening and usage of the ideas. In other words, this means that the costs that will be used to screen the ideas that can come in different cost ranges must be screened since they can go from cheap to expensive. So it is important to keep those things in mind at all times.
Solution for Generating Interest in a Design Project
As we look into different types of processes that can be used to organize the distributed innovation process, we must also take a look at the number of applicants that can provide the necessary tools and the necessary documentation in order to participate in the study. According to Aitamurto, Leiponen, & Tee, “communities are especially useful when an innovation problem is based on cumulative knowledge, i.e. when it continually builds on past advances”. The third challenge of incorporating crowdsourcing in a design project is to make sure that we determine the success of the idea. Aitamurto, Leiponen, & Tee stated that “Many participants involved is also a key feature of crowdsourcing.
We must always remember that many ideas are not always necessary or beneficial to the firms involved, and in some cases constitute a major issue”. This is truly based on the fact that the number of participants range from the entry level to the professional grade levels and above. As I have made progress in my research I found that both the growth potential as well as the process of crowdsourcing in the field of interface design can be challenging to anyone that is not familiar with the process and the cost involved to get the job done. It is important to remember those things as the design manager as well as the project manager.
A solution for evaluating the skill set and quality of the applications submitted by potentially unknown users would be a service if it was to be deemed necessary. Crowdsourcing may affect the budget cost as well as the timelines used on the designs and the projects at hand. One must understand that depending on the size and timetable that companies are working with the budget may affect the timeline of a design project. It is important to remember that reliable crowdsourcing takes time, and money. According to Livingston, “It takes time to crowdsource effectively, and even though an organization might outsource innovation, it cannot outsource the labor and the cost necessary to be successful”. Many projects have been outsourced in order to ensure that the tasks meet the timelines as well as the budgets. When creating a well thought out plan, crowdsourcing can be a great and useful tool when the need arises. Livingston also states that, “In spite of well-stated and published rules, an organization still needs to provide community management resources if it expects to sustain community interest. If there is a lack of structure, you can expect to invest even more time”.
Conclusion
Rosenberg states, “we are mainly interested in what crowdsourcing can do to help civilians contribute to social change in a way that is both useful and emotionally satisfying”. But if we look at the bigger picture, we can see how people today can provide useless input for completing a project and that is mainly due to the openness of crowdsourcing.
It is important that when crowdsourcing we remember the do’s and dont’s so that the project can be a success. We must remember that in crowdsourcing the 'crowd' component is at least as important as the 'sourcing' component. In order to be successful, you must build up this community and win it over. This is where the challenge lies: the crowd is not an anonymous, mass but a collection of individuals and sub-groups.
