Research Questions

[xmatthewx]

@thomaspark - here's a thread we can use for small, open questions that might intersect Webmaker and your platform for journalism students. Loop in your group. We can keep this loose and informal.

cc @secretrobotron @flukeout

[xmatthewx]

Here a few questions to get us rolling...

• What elements or content types do people want and need to tell stories?
• What platforms do they turn to currently? What limitations do they hit?
• Can a GUI foster ambient learning? For example, can a color picker that also reveals hex and rgb values in CSS increase a users capacity to read and write CSS?
• Can a visual interface simplify the task of attaching an action or animation to a listener and target? Can it simplify the task while still revealing the underlying code?
• How can an code editor foster and support tinker, thrash & bricolage?
• Can a code editor provide mentor-like guidance around the most common errors?

[secretrobotron]

• What other projects allow people to code in "sections" (events)? What was learned from them?
• Is there a correlation between code access and project quality?
  • i.e. do projects made by people with similar ability differ qualitatively when access to code is easier? chunked? view-only?
  • of course, code availability might attract specific users and skew results

[thomaspark]

@xmatthewx, thanks for setting this up. Love the questions so far. We'll be adding a few more soon!

cc @brianlee389 @sukritchhabra

[thomaspark]

Adding a few questions of our own, I think there are two set of questions here. Ones looking at the current practices and attitudes of prospective users, which might be explored through survey or interviews right now:

• What elements or content types do people want and need to tell stories?
• What platforms do they turn to currently? What limitations do they hit?
• To what extent do people currently make stuff on the web? What forms does this creation take?
• What are the motivations for and barriers to making on the web?
• Where are people currently exposed to code? To what extent do they engage with it?

And ones that can be investigated when we have functional prototypes, through user tests or deployment in workshops/classes.

• Can a GUI foster ambient learning? For example, can a color picker that also reveals hex and rgb values in CSS increase a users capacity to read and write CSS?
• Can a visual interface simplify the task of attaching an action or animation to a listener and target? Can it simplify the task while still revealing the underlying code?
• How can an code editor foster and support tinker, thrash & bricolage?
• Can a code editor provide mentor-like guidance around the most common errors?
• What other projects allow people to code in "sections" (events)? What was learned from them?
• Is there a correlation between code access and project quality?
• How can we scaffold increasingly deeper engagements with web making?