User Design

User Designoffers a fresh perspective on how front-line learners (users) can participate in the design of learning environments. Author Alison A. Carr-Chellman, Ph.D. challenges the universal assumption that front-line users must be relegated to the role of offering input, and that the actual design activity of learning systems must still be conducted only by experts. The book presents a new set of methods and strategies that show how the tools of professional designers can be effectively shared with broad groups of users and other participants in the process of creating their own learning. Drawing on ideas from human computer interface design, stakeholder participation, critical theory, systems theory, change processes, learning theory, and basic design theories, this innovative work is organized around the major issues associated with user-design. Areas covered include: *differences between user-design, stakeholder involvement, and user-centered design; *historical perspectives and empirical research; *user-design tools and ways of facilitating user-design; *gaining leadership support in an organization; and *conflicts that arise during user-design engagement. Accessible to all audiences,User Designcan serve as a strong companion volume to traditional instructional design texts, yet is comprehensive enough to be a stand-alone text in design courses. It will appeal to instructional designers, curriculum developers, training managers/designers, community organizers, adult educators, as well as anyone interested in the dynamics of power and emancipation in learning.

Dr. Carr-Chellman is a full professor at The Pennsylvania State University in the College of Education's Instructional Systems program housed in the Learning and Performance Systems Department. Dr. Carr-Chellman earned her Ph.D. under Dr. Charles M. Reigeluth at Indiana University's Instructional Systems Technology program and her M.S. and B.S. at Syracuse University in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation (IDDE), and Elementary Education respectively. Her research interests include user-design, systems thinking, systemic change, e-learning, and critical perspectives on Instructional Systems. She is author to more than 100 publications in the field including a recently edited text, Global Perspectives on E-learning:  Rhetoric and Reality, and a special issue of Educational Technology magazine exploring the intersection of Instructional Systems and Learning Sciences. Dr. Carr-Chellman has worked in elementary schools, corporations, and higher education for two decades and has extensive real world as well as higher education experiences which inform her research and dialogue on user-design.