Democratizing Software Design Through Functional Individualization of Creative Software

The evolution of creative software is informed by the traditional computer-science methods of development. This results in creation of generic software with task-oriented perspective. User testing data and feedback that sampled from different individuals is used in a way that ignores people's individual differences. Creative software like Adobe Photoshop have become the digital toolboxes of digital designers, similar to the physical toolbox of a craftperson. While physical craftspeople have the liberty to choose and create each one of their tools to individualize the physical toolbox, digital toolboxes tend to be collections of immutable software tasks, packaged into user interfaces that allow for minimal amounts of customization. The creative software user is not involved in the part of the software development conversation due to high levels of entry to learning programming, apart from suggesting software features in crowded web forums. This issue has not been addressed by the existing open source software culture. This research contemplates a systematic approach for enabling all users to democratically participate in the design process of creative software, individualize and extend the application logic in order to bridge the gap between their intent and the output. A new creative software suite that is open to future appropriation through modularity and social extendability for the purpose of dynamically adapting to individual differences is designed and presented as a proof of concept.Submitted in partial fulllment of the degree of Master of DesignHCIAdaptive software learningDirect manipulationVisual programmingAppropriation of technologyFunctional individualizationOnline collaborationindividual differencesintelligent user interfacesOpen sourceCreative softwareFunctional modularizatio