Showing papers in "Design Issues in 2008"

The Interaction Design Research Triangle of Design Practice, Design Studies, and Design Exploration

Abstract: The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design exploration, and design studies

The Design of Implicit Interactions: Making Interactive Systems Less Obnoxious

Abstract: Introduction Imagine, for a second, a doorman who behaves as automatic doors do. He does not acknowledge you when you approach or pass by. He gives no hint which door can or will open—until you wander within six feet of the door, whereupon he flings the door wide open. If you arrived after hours, you might stand in front of the doors for awhile before you realize that the doors are locked, because the doorman’s blank stare gives no clue. If you met such a doorman, you might suspect psychosis. And yet this behavior is typical of our day-to-day interactions not only with automatic doors, but any number of interactive devices. Our cell phones ring loudly, even though we are clearly in a movie theatre. Our alarm clocks forget to go off if we do not set them to, even if we’ve been getting up at the same time for years. Our computers interrupt presentations to let everyone know that a software update is available. The infiltration of computer technologies into everyday life has brought these interaction crises to a head. As Neil Gershenfeld observes, “There’s a very real sense in which the things around us are infringing a new kind of right that has not needed protection until now. We’re spending more and more time responding to the demands of machines.”1 These problematic interactions are symptoms of our as-yet lack of sophistication in designing interactions that do not constantly demand the input or attention of the user. “Implicit interactions”— those that occur without the explicit behest or awareness of the user—will become increasingly important as human-computer interactions extend beyond the desktop computer into new arenas; arenas such as the automobile, where the driver is physically, socially, or cognitively engaged. Traditional HCI—that involving a commandbased or graphical user interface-based paradigm—has focused on the realm of “explicit interactions,” where the use of computers and interactive products relies on explicit input and output. The values and principles that govern good desktop computing interactions may not apply when we apply computing to the products that populate the rest of our lives. 1 Neil Gershenfeld, When Things Start to Think (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), 102.

The Designer's Role in Facilitating Sustainable Solutions

Abstract: Introduction Sustainability is rapidly becoming an issue of critical importance for designers and society as a whole. A complexity of dynamically interrelated ecological, social, cultural, economic, and psychological (awareness) problems interact and converge in the current crisis of our unsustainable civilization. However, in a constantly changing environment, sustainability is not some ultimate endpoint, but instead is a continuous process of learning and adaptation. Designing for sustainability not only requires the redesign of our habits, lifestyles, and practices, but also the way we think about design. Sustainability is a process of coevolution and co-design that involves diverse communities in making flexible and adaptable design decisions on local, regional, and global scales. The transition towards sustainability is about co-creating a human civilization that flourishes within the ecological limits of the planetary life support system. Design is fundamental to all human activity. At the nexus of values, attitudes, needs, and actions, designers have the potential to act as transdisciplinary integrators and facilitators. The map of value systems and perspectives described by Beck and Cowan 1 as “Spiral Dynamics” can serve as a tool in facilitating “transdisciplinary design dialogue.” Such dialogue will help to integrate the multiple perspectives and diverse knowledge base of different disciplines, value systems, and stakeholders. Further expansion of the “integral vision” by Wilber 2 consolidates a framework for understanding, acknowledging, and weaving together different perspectives and worldviews. Esbjorn-Hargens and Brown 3 describe the application of this framework to solving complex problems of local and global relevance, and to sustainable development. When applied to design, this kind of framework can help us to conceptualize how different value systems and different onto-epistemological assumptions change our experience of reality, and therefore intentionality behind design. This change in why we design things and processes in turn affects what and how we design. Since sustainability requires widespread participation, communities everywhere need to begin to shape local, regional, and global visions of sustainability, and to offer strategies to engage humanity collectively in cooperative processes that will turn visions 1 D. Beck and C.C. Cowan, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996). 2 K. Wilber, A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision of Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality (Dublin: Gateway, 2001). 3 S. Esbjorn-Hargens, “Integral Ecology: The What, Who, and How of Environmental Phenomena” in “World Futures,” Journal of General Evolution 61:1–2 (2005): 5–49; and B.C. Brown, “Theory and Practice of Integral Sustainable Development (Part 1),” AQAL Journal of Integral Theory and Practice 1:2 (2006): 1–39.

Surprise as a design strategy

Abstract: Imagine yourself queuing for the cashier’s desk in a supermarket. Naturally, you have picked the wrong line, the one that does not seem to move at all. Soon, you get tired of waiting. Now, how would you feel if the cashier suddenly started to sing? Many of us would be surprised and, regardless of the cashier’s singing abilities, feel amused. The preceding story is an example of how a surprise can transform something very normal, and maybe even boring, into a more pleasant experience. Analogously, a surprise in a product can overcome the habituation effect that is due to the fact that people encounter many similar products everyday. Colin Martindale describes this effect as ‘the gradual loss of interest in repeated stimuli’.¹ A surprise reaction to a product can be beneficial to both a designer and a user. The designer benefits from a surprise reaction because it can capture attention to the product, leading to increased product recall and recognition, and increased word-ofmouth.² Or, as Jennifer Hudson puts it, the surprise element “elevates a piece beyond the banal”.³ A surprise reaction has its origin in encountering an unexpected event. The product user benefits from the surprise, because it makes the product more interesting to interact with. In addition, it requires updating, extending or revising the knowledge the expectation was based on. This implies that a user can learn somethingnew about a product or product aspect. Designers already use various strategies to design surprises in their products. Making use of contrast, mixing design styles or functions, using new materials or new shapes, and using humor are just a few of these. The lamp ‘Porca Miseria!’ designed by Ingo Maurer that is shown in the left part of Figure 1 consists of broken pieces of expensive porcelain tableware, making it a lamp with a unique shape. The idea that another product had to be destroyed to make this lamp may inflict feelings of 3 puzzlement and amusement on someone who sees this lamp. The perfume ‘Flowerbomb’ (right part of Figure 1) designed by fashion designers Victor & Rolf is another example. The bottle is shaped like a hand grenade and it holds a sweet smelling, soft pink liquid. By combining conflicting elements in their perfume bottle, Victor & Rolf have succeeded in creating a perfume that attracts attention amidst the dozens of perfumes that line the walls of perfumeries.

On the Case Study Method of Research and Teaching in Design

Abstract: Case studies have a rich history for exploring the space between the world of theory and the experience of practice. It is one thing to have an idea and another thing to make that idea concrete and real. Designers, by the nature of what they do, must become skilled at moving between those two places. But recognizing and understanding the transition from the one place to the other, and back again, is difficult. Case studies are a useful tool for research and teaching that focus on the transition between theory and practice. The format has been widely used in other disciplines, and it can be used effectively in design. Law schools first showed the way for the case study approach, beginning in 1870.1 Before that, law was taught by the Dwight Method, which emphasized memorization and recall, and left much of the practical learning to apprenticeships. Christopher Langdell changed that way of teaching when he arrived at Harvard Law School. He believed that, at its root, the art of practicing law involved understanding core principles and being able to apply those principles in different situations. Of course, the legal profession was fortunate in this respect, because there already existed an infrastructure by which cases were written to explain and interpret the principles used to reach legal judgment. When Langdell started teaching, he had his students read the original sources, which were the cases, and develop their own conclusions, guided by conversation and discussion in the classroom. The dialectic of discussion, rather than simply memorizing the grammar of the law, enabled the student to better understand legal principles and their possible application in different situations. Langdell set in motion a teaching approach that initially was met with resistance but, by 1920, became the dominant teaching mode in law schools and continues to this day. Around 1920, the Harvard Business School began exploring the possibility of using the case study approach in their graduate program.2 They, too, realized the need to prepare students for the job of making and implementing decisions in a murky world. The biggest hurdle was the lack of existing case studies, so Wallace P. Donham, the dean of the Harvard Business School, created a group known as the Bureau of Business Research, which developed and wrote case studies from 1920 to 1925. These cases served as a starting place, and the writing of additional case studies became an integral part of a law professor’s duties. 1 David A. Garvin, “Making the Case” Harvard Magazine (September–October 2003): 58–59. 2 Ibid., 60–61.

“Arabizi”: A Contemporary Style of Arabic Slang

Abstract: Introduction "Arabizi" is a slang term (slang: vernacular, popular informal speech) describing a system of writing Arabic using English charac ters. This term comes from two words "arabi" (Arabic) and "engliszi" (English). The actual word would be "3rabizi" if represented in its own system, but due to the possible unfamiliarity of the reader with the system, it would be hard to pronounce the word. Thus "Arabizi" and not "3rabizi" will be used throughout this paper. Arabizi is a text messaging system used over the Net and cellular phones.

Managing as Designing: Lessons for Organization Leaders from the Design Practice of Frank O. Gehry

Abstract: In the summer of 2002, our school moved into its new home, the Peter B. Lewis Building, designed by Frank O. Gehry. (Figure 1) We are faculty members at the Weatherhead School who have become involved in studying Gehry’s unique design practices and their implications for managing and organization design. We had an interest in design and its importance for management before encountering Frank Gehry,1 but our involvement with him took that interest to a new level of commitment.

Design Thinking and the Experience of Innovation

Abstract: An Overview of Innovation Discussions on creativity, creative thinking techniques, social psychology, geography, and economic development inform much of the commentary on innovation. Such work usually focuses on techniques for achieving innovation; enhancing its role in increasing productivity, and contributing to the economic betterment of a given group or region. For instance, in economics, “clusters” often are associated with innovation. These are the “geographic concentrations” of companies and services that collectively link to focus on meeting the overall needs of a given industry sector.1 Often, such companies both compete and cooperate, enhancing the cluster. The California wine cluster is an example which includes several vineyards, wineries, and those companies that contribute to all aspects of productivity in winemaking. This list covers those we might expect to be involved with wine production such as the manufacturers of bottles, corks, labels, and barrels; and also those who can provide a specialized advertising and media presence, offering linkages to related agribusinesses, the restaurant industry, and winery tourism.2 Due to geographic proximity and a linked focus, clusters are useful in enhancing the microeconomic capability of a given region. This occurs through improvements in the productivity of cluster members which enables them to compete effectively in both regional and global markets. The geographic concentration allows for access to capabilities, information, expertise, and ideas. They allow members to quickly perceive new buyer needs, and new technological, delivery, or operating possibilities. This allows members to quickly recognize and identify new opportunities far more readily than those residing outside the cluster. Pressure also exists within clusters. Competition and peer pressure can drive an inherent need for participants to distinguish themselves, and proactively force the pursuit of innovation. Also cluster participants tend to contribute to local research institutes and universities, and may work together to develop local resources collectively and privately in a manner beyond the mandate of local governments and other organizations. Activities such as these can enrich the work experience, and enhance innovation and the quality of life within the cluster community. In 1 Michael E. Porter, “Clusters and the New Economics of Competition,” Harvard Business Review (November-December 1998): 78. 2 Michael E. Porter, “Location, Competition, and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy,” Economic Development Quarterly 14:1 (February 2000): 15–34, 17.

User Interface Design Principles for Interaction Design

Abstract: In recent years, the number of computationally-based devices has grown rapidly, and with them the number of interfaces we encounter. Often, the face for today’s product or service is, at first touch, an interface. While the pervasiveness of the interface might present a minor challenge for the majority, for those with little previous knowledge or accessibility limitations the challenge can be insurmountable. In many cases, the way we access and use, and even the degree to which we rely on technology, may be vastly different from generation to generation. As the number of interfaces and the diversity of users grow, the need for effective interface design increases. Clocks on VCRs and DVD players flash at users insistently demanding to be reset, a mute testimony to the failure of the interface. Designers commonly mimic standard interface design elements such as icons and metaphors, or create flashy interfaces that may appeal visually, but often at the expense of user understanding and functionality. Despite mimicry, creativity, new technology, and a steadily growing need, interfaces are mired in paradigms established decades ago at a time when user interface was more a computer novelty than a part of everyday life. Thus far, pundits, consultants, and authors have attempted to improve interface design primarily by exploring and analyzing existing patterns of interface design, or by defining desirable enduser experiences. One example of a detailed analysis of an existing pattern is the Nielsen Norman Group’s 106-page report, “Site Map Usability.”1 A site map is a means for quickly gaining an overview of a Web site. The report mentions a principle in the first sentence of the executive summary: “Help users understand where they are”; then analyzes in great detail a specific means or pattern for meeting that need such as “Web site maps,” delivering twenty-eight guidelines “to improve site map usability.” Another recent example is Duyne, Landay, and Hong’s book The Design of Sites,2 which focuses on using existing patterns to improve Web interface design. As helpful as such approaches are, the examination of an existing pattern such as the site map, and a detailed recipe for the execution of that pattern, is not designed to stimulate innovation. 1 Nielsen Norman Group, Site Map Usability (Fremont, CA, 1998). 2 Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, and Jason I Hong, The Design of Sites (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2003).

Product Development as a Vehicle for Organizational Change

Abstract: Introduction In its essence, product development is all about change. And yet product development has been ignored for its role in changing the organization. Why is this? Today’s organizations value product development for its ability to realign a business with its external environment, consumers, and markets. Product development has become synonymous with the creation and production of goods people want to buy. It has turned into the corporate response to challenges posed by social trends, economic forces, and technical advances.1 As a result, organizations think of product development when they think of external change. This essay explores how product development might be a way to think about internal organizational change.

Prototyping Social Interaction

Abstract: Introduction Recent changes in information technology have made social interaction an increasingly important topic for interaction design and technology development. Mobile phones, PDAs, games, and laptops have eased interpersonal communication and brought it into new contexts such as bus stops, trains, cars, and city streets—in fact everywhere people find themselves and move about. In these situations, the old paradigms of one person interacting with technology, or a group at work in an office or collaborating over a shared system, are inadequate for guiding the design of such systems. For interaction design, these technologies represent new kinds of challenges. Interaction design has inherited its methodic baggage mainly from three sources, none of which specifically focuses on how ordinary people use social technologies. Usability research and human-computer interaction (HCI) seldom quote sociological theory in their premises.1 While research in computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) increasingly has focused on questions outside of the workplace, the basis of this field of study still stems from studies of the workplace, in which social organization is devised to support work rather than ordinary activities.2 New articulations of methods and frameworks are required for designing interactive technologies for social interaction in ordinary activities. This paper describes a series of studies conducted in Helsinki that focused on prototyping how people interact with each other using mobile multimedia. The central claim is that a prototype is not only a representation of a product or technology—such as a paper prototype, a software prototype, or a physical mock-up—but that it consists of both the representation and the social interaction the participants create together. For convenience, we talk about “prototyping social interaction.” The argument of this paper applies in particular to small communication devices meant for everyday life, but it also can be used with other products and services. Social processes inevitably affect the way in which technology is perceived, accepted, and used. If these processes are neglected, designs face risks. In our opinion, there ought to be ways to anticipate at least some of them. 1 Jenny Preece, Human-Computer Interaction (Harlow, England: AddisonWesley, 1994). 2 See Andy Crabtree, Designing Collaborative Systems: A Practical Guide to Ethnography (London: Springer, 2003). Acknowledgement We would like to thank the Ministry of Trade and Industry for funding Mobile Image, Radiolinja for continuous cooperation and support, and Nokia Mobile Phones for funding Mobile Album.

Crafting a Place for Interaction Design Research in HCI

Abstract: In recent years, a number of academic institutions around the world have worked to integrate design practice and thinking with engi neering and behavioral science in support of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education and research. While the HCI commu nity generally has been enthusiastic about the benefits that design can bring to this developing interdisciplinary field, tension exists around the role of design in research, because no agreed upon model for a design research contribution exists. Over the last three years, we have undertaken an inquiry to understand the nature of the relationship between interaction design and research in HCI, and to discover and invent methods for interaction designer researchers to more substantially collaborate and contribute to HCI research. Through our inquiry, we learned that many HCI researchers' commonly held view of design is focusing on the surface structure of products. This echoes Ble vis et al's claim that most people in the world view design as adding decoration.1 This limited view of design makes it difficult for HCI researchers to articulate how they would like designers to participate in research. In addition, the interaction design community lacks a unified vision of what design researchers can contribute to HCI research, and to interaction design at large. The current lack of design participation in HCI research represents a lost opportunity to benefit from the added perspective of design thinking in a collaborative, interdisciplinary research environment. The HCI research community has much to gain from the addition of design thinking; a design perspective that employs a holistic approach to addressing under-constrained problems, and that adds a needed counterpoint to the reductionist approach favored by the scientists and engineers. To address this situation, we have developed a new model of interaction design research in HCI intended to allow designers to participate more evenly. While this is not the only way for designers to participate in HCI research, we wanted to create a method that allowed designers to make a design contribution without imitating the methods of other disciplines. Our model builds on Frayling's2 idea of "research through design," stressing how interaction design

“Models of Man” in Design Thinking: The “Bounded Rationality” Episode

Abstract: The “Generation Game” in Design Thinking Design thinking—“the study of the cognitive processes that are manifested in design action” 1—has been mostly described, from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, in terms of what is largely accepted today as the “generation game” (i.e., first-, second-, and third-generation design methods).2 Proponents of the first generation; based on a strong reaction against the intuitive, artistic, and “beaux-arts” vision of the design process, which was largely diffused since the nineteenth century in design professional education; have supported, between the late 1950s and 1967,3 a very logical, systematic, and rationalist 4 view of design activities (see figure 1). However, difficulties and a huge resistance met by this rationalist and logical trend led some major proponents of the design methods movement to fundamentally change their theoretical perspective from 1967 to the early 1980s. Horst Rittel proposed the idea of secondgeneration design methods5 oriented towards more participatory and argumentative design and planning processes. In a similar participatory perspective, Christopher Alexander also experimented with a new approach to design based on the idea of the “pattern language.”6 But according to Nigel Cross, “...it has to be admitted that, like the first-generation methods, these second-generation methods have also met with only moderate success.” 7 Therefore, simultaneous to this period, a third-generation view emerged whose proponents8 were devoted to studying and acquiring an increased understanding of designers’ cognitive behaviors as they simply occurred in the traditional ways of their practice.

Introduction: Design and Organizational Change

Abstract: In June 2004, the Stern School of Business at New York University hosted a small working conference on the theme of “Organization Design.” The National Science Foundation sponsored the conference for the purpose of developing a scientific base for organization design, broadly defined as “explicit efforts to improve organizations.” Like “Managing as Designing,” the groundbreaking conference held at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in 2002, the NYU conference was part of the growing trend in business schools to investigate design—often under the term “innovation”—and its role in management and organizational change.1 For designers who have begun to explore the impact of their work on organizations and organizational life, as well as the impact of organizations on their own work, the trend and the conferences are important. They further elevate the idea that organizations are products, as well as the idea that, like other products, organizations can be designed by intelligent forethought and appropriate action. The idea that organizations are products of design is not entirely new. The rise of management and organization theory in the twentieth century is, in essence, the history of the rise of an important branch of design thinking, based on the broad goal of finding ways to improve organizations and their effectiveness. However, an explicit concept of design emerged only slowly in this area, and in isolation from the development of design in other applications. Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior (1945) was the first major work to make design an explicit concept in management.2 It focused on design as an activity of decision-making and advanced ideas about communication and information that revitalized the field of management and organization theory in many ways. Indeed, the ideas developed in this book also were the genesis of The Sciences of the Artificial and the concept of “design science,” as Simon understood it. Subsequently, Jay R. Galbraith’s Organization Design, a book that applied some of Herbert Simon’s ideas about organizational design, offered a concrete method of “structural design” based on information and decision-making that continues to influence management practice. For the most part, however, the study of organizations focused on theory and empirical research. The idea of transferring research results into practical action was, as noted by Roger Dunbar, William Starbuck, and the other organizers 1 Richard J. Boland and Fred Collopy, Managing as Designing (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). 2 Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization (New York: The Free Press, 1945).

Design—Indicating Through Signs

Abstract: Introduction Different disciplines have different concepts of “design,” so our understanding of design varies according our particular field. The development of the design concept in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field has inherited approaches, methodologies, and theories coming mainly from Information Systems (IS), Software Engineering (SE), Behavioral and Social Sciences and, more recently, from Design Studies. The rationalist tradition has dominated thinking regarding the design of interactive systems in the Information Systems and Software Engineering fields. As discussed by Ehn and Löwgren,1 the first approaches to IS development can be characterized by a strong belief in systematic design methods founded in mathematical-logical theories. Research interests in accuracy and technical control guided these approaches. The main assumptions behind them, as suggested in some methods of SE, seem to be that the users (end-user, client, customer, stakeholder, or problem owner) are supposed to give complete and explicit descriptions of their demands in terms of the system to be developed. Within the rationalist view of IS development, reality is objectively ascertained, is the same for everyone and is composed of entities, their properties, and relationships. Data is understood as a means of representing the truth about reality, and truth is the correct correspondence between some real entities. An information system is a kind of “plumbing” system through which data flow and, within this perspective, the role of the designer is to specify the truth data structure and functions of the system needed by users.2 According to this view, interface design is just a matter of providing access to the underlying system functionality. In the 1990s, this picture changed and one of the major sources of inspiration was the theoretical discussion on the actual nature of the phenomenon of designing computer artifacts. A reframing of the rationalistic understanding of computer systems started to consider reality as a social construction based on the behavior of its participating agents. Within this view, the role of the designer is to assist users to articulate their problems; discover their information requirements; and evolve a systemic solution. In other words, “design” is understood by Winograd and Flores,3 and Adler and 1 Pelle Ehn and Jonas Löwgren, “Design for Quality-in-Use: Human-Computer Interaction Meets Information Systems Development” in Handbook of HumanComputer Interaction, Martin G. Helander, Thomas K. Landauer, and Prasad V. Prabhu, eds. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier Science, second completely revised edition 1997), 299–314. 2 Kecheng Liu, Semiotics in Information Systems Engineering (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 3 Terry Winograd and Fernando F. Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition—A New Foundation for Design (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1986).

The Policy of Design: A Capabilities Approach

Abstract: ION Develop aptitude for analysis and contextualization of design work at multiple levels of abstraction, from low-level functional, behavioral, and structural aspects to higher-order aspects such as systems integration, lifecycle maintenance and operations, and disposal. EVALUATION Be able to engage in a critical evaluation of the implications of the design work on matters such as the welfare of the community, the health of the environment, and economic viability. The welfare of the community includes individual concerns such as cognitive and physical ergonomics and universal design. PARTICIPATION Be part of, and collaborate with, others in the design process; from early project defi nition stages, through to conceptual design, concept testing, prototype development, prototype testing, prototype review, full-scale implementation, and fi nal project delivery and validation. The formation of a shared understanding of all aspects of design work is paramount. AUTHORITY Have the power and right to enact a design work rather than token “paper studies.” Have the authority to commission reports and information. Have the authority to select and set criteria and requirements for design work. Table 1

Design in the Australian Taxation Office

Abstract: Use of Design in the ATO Paying tax is the same as purchasing any other product or service. We pay out money to receive goods and services as a community— just like any other payment that we voluntarily make. So why do people feel differently about paying tax? The difference is that the link between the money we pay out and the goods and services we receive is less direct than most transactions we undertake. And the price varies depending on what we can afford to pay. The goods and services that we receive include defense, policing, health care, education, roads, infrastructure, social, economic, and environmental programs, and income redistribution to those whose need is greater than others. The services are delivered at the federal, state, and local government levels but, in Australia, a large proportion of the taxes are collected at the federal level by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The ATO employs about 20,000 staff, collects more than ninety-five percent of the federal government’s revenue; and serves ten million individual taxpayers and three million businesses. The federal government depends on the taxation system to provide the revenue to fund economic and social systems. It wants the tax system to ensure that people pay their fair share. Most Australians agree that people should pay their fair share of taxes. An A. C. Neilson survey conducted in 2003 found that, in response to the statement “I think it is important that everybody pays their fair share of tax,” ninety-seven percent of respondents agreed.1 The government uses the tax system to impose additional costs or to provide benefits where it believes this is fair. This makes the tax system more complex to administer, but achieves the government’s desire for fairness. In recent years, the ATO has adopted a design approach to the development of the tax administration system. 1 A. C. Neilson, Community Perceptions Survey (unpublished, Canberra, June 2003).

De-scribing Design: Appropriating Script Analysis to Design History

Abstract: The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. "Make it evil," he'd been told. "Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sorts of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with. "1

New Pragmatism and the Vocabulary and Metaphors of Scholarly Design Research

Abstract: The pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Pierce is familiar vocabu lary to the philosophical, educational, social, and political landscape of North America. In its treatment of truth, action, values, and the theory-practice divide, it is particularly relevant to a range of fields including design. This pragmatist legacy is developed in Donald Sch?n's work, and Rittel's and Weber's metaphor of the wicked problems of planning and design?to suggest a distinctive disciplin ary vocabulary of design research and practice. Existing treatments of the relations between pragmatism and design disciplines such as urban and environmental planning, architecture, and interaction design highlight this expanded version. However, such treatments have not addressed how the neo-pragmatist account developed by Richard Rorty might enlarge design research. Combining particular readings of Dewey, James, and others with Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Derrida; Rorty offers an account which reinforces conventional pragmatist theses, but then looks beyond them in an environment where science and the humanities have equal claims to truth, mean ing, and representation. Reviewing existing treatments of these themes, including those in this journal, I trace connections between pragmatism and Horst's and Rittel's formulation of wicked prob lems and Sch?n's reflective practitioner. I examine the current use of Deweyan and new pragmatism in design fields, and suggest how Rorty's claims about redescription and vocabularies have some unex plored consequences for design research and scholarship. I close with some thoughts on how the expanded pragmatist approach might support the kind of epistemological and methodological perspective to benefit design scholarship.

A Bitter Pill to Swallow: The Rise and Fall of the Tablet Computer

Abstract: Tablet computers (or tablet PCs) are a form of mobile personal computer with large, touch-sensitive screens operated using a pen, stylus, or finger; and the ability to recognize a user's handwriting?a process known as "pen computing" The first of these devices, which appeared at the end of the 1980s, generated a huge amount of interest in the computer industry, and serious amounts of investment money from venture capitalists Pen computing was seen as the next wave of the silicon revolution, and the tablet computer was seen as a device everyone would want to use It was reported in 1991 that "Nearly every major maker of computers has some type of pen-based machine in the works"l Yet in the space of just a few years, the tablet computer and the notion of pen computing sank almost without a trace2 Following a series of disastrous product launches and the failure of a number of promising start-up companies, the tablet computer was discred ited as an unfulfilled promise It no longer represented the future of mobile computing, but instead was derided as an expensive folly?an irrelevant sideline in the history of the computer This article traces the early development of pen comput ing, the appearance, proliferation, and disappearance of the tablet computer, and explores possible reasons for the demise of this partic ular class of product

Emergent Interaction: Creating Spaces for Play

Abstract: Introduction Designers of technology always have designed for interaction. Everything in the built environment is made to be used in some way, by some people, for some purposes, irrespective of how peripheral any notion of “interaction” may have been during the design process. If the practice of interaction design deals with matters such as the determination of what interactive devices should be built, how functionality can be accessed, and how products can facilitate interaction, then among the questions that face interaction design “research” are methodological concerns such as how we should seek to understand what is built and how it is used—the implementation of technology and its appropriation. We will address these latter issues in this paper. “Interaction design” is a relatively recent term. In one sense, it is a document of the recognition of the importance of understanding the development and consumption of technology as being irredeemably situated in human, social, and organizational contexts. Yet it also is an acknowledgement of the central role of the designer in shaping human interaction with technology. As a disciplinary label, interaction design is a purposeful delineation from the more analytic discipline of human-computer interaction (HCI), a field to which it owes a historical and practical debt. This shift from HCI to the focus on the design of interactive systems carries with it familiar (to this audience) difficulties for the conduct of research. Only a few years ago, design research was characterized as an activity in search of a definition 1 in reference to the methodological pluralism and breadth of focus of research conducted within the field. Just how one should design, study design, conduct studies to inform design, and generate “design knowledge” continue to remain open questions for design research, with many competing perspectives being offered.2 These issues in design research are a more attenuated predicament for interaction design research, particularly when one considers the breadth of settings in which interactive devices are now used, and the topics of interest to interaction design. 1 Susan Roth, “The State of Design Research,” Design Issues 15:2 (1999). 2 Typically, design research has been informed by research practice drawn from other disciplines (e.g., psychology, physical and social sciences) with long, pedigreed and contrasting traditions of inquiry. There also have been moves away from established research models towards recasting design practice as a form of research itself, but this remains contested ground. See, for instance, Design [x] Research: Essays on Interaction Design as Knowledge Construction, Pelle Ehn and Jonas Lowgren, eds. (Malmo, Sweden: School of Arts and Communication, Malmo University, 2004); Bryan Lawson, “The Subject that Won’t Go Away, but Perhaps We Are Ahead of the Game: Design as Research,” Architectural Research Quarterly 6 (2002); and Darren Newbury, “Knowledge and Research in Art and Design,” Design Studies 17 (1996).

High-Reliability Organizations: Changing the Culture of Care in Two Medical Units

Abstract: “What the fire department does is solve problems the public cannot or will not solve themselves.” 1 The melodrama of a crisis easily distracts one from observing the organizational structure of problemsolving in emergencies, and can interfere with teaching new members desired behaviors. All emergencies, regardless of severity, are resolved by problem-solving. A critically ill patient, dying while the physicians work to make a diagnosis, must have urgent yet high-risk treatments performed to sustain life. Action must occur before the medical team can collect sufficient information, and before that information can reach the attending physician for orders. Decisions then made by a central authority (the physician) must be transmitted to the operations team (nurses and respiratory care practitioners) before further deterioration of the patient can cause sufficient change to, effectively, create a new patient. In these situations, the culture of medicine turns to experience and reason, particularly evidence-based medicine, to safely perform these functions. Within this culture, the physician has the role of decision maker and central authority in a vertical hierarchy. The intensive care unit (ICU) follows this medical model, which works well with deterministic problems, when the situation determines the intervention and the intervention determines the outcome. For example, the identification of a specific bacterium in sputum determines the diagnosis of a specific pneumonia which, in turn, determines the choice of antibiotic. The choice of antibiotic then determines effectiveness of the cure. Problems can develop when uncertainty (a poorly identified situation) has a time-dependent quality (demands intervention) with of a degree of risk (safety). Problems also develop when multiple interventions become available, each with unknown probabilities of success or failure. Experience and reason may not identify effective decisions in these situations, and the vertical hierarchy may not allow the responsiveness and flexibility necessary to manage evolving problems. The combination of uncertainty, risk, and timedependence (the indeterminate problem) vexes deterministic systems with rigid, vertical hierarchies. 1 William J. Corr, Captain II, Los Angeles City Fire Department, Retired. Personal communication.

Information Design for Strategic Thinking: Health of the System Reports

Abstract: Thinking Strategically in the Modern Organization One of the issues frequently raised by CEOs of large organizations is how to lift the level of strategic thinking among their senior managers. For all the mass of literature that has been produced about corporate strategy, many management teams still expend most of their energies on short-term, narrowly-focused operational issues rather than thinking more holistically about the overall health and long-term direction of their business. Too often, strategic thinking is seen as a luxury, indulged in infrequently at offsite retreats, rather than being an integral part of a senior manager’s role. This lack of capacity for strategic thinking is not simply a result of a lack of capability for strategic thinking among senior managers. What inhibits them actually is a set of circumstances endemic to the modern organization which together create a major barrier to any meaningful sort of strategic insight. Senior managers can’t think strategically because they can’t see the organization clearly enough to make good judgments and take good actions. One reason for this is that taking on a senior management role requires a significant shift in one’s field of vision. Most senior managers either started as technical experts in their relevant industry (e.g., banking, engineering, law) or as specialists in a specific management function (e.g., accounting, HR, IT). For much of their careers, they have operated within a single silo relevant to their core expertise, and their management focus is very much focused downward—that is, they immerse themselves deeply in the details of their functional area, and work to ensure that the teams and processes that sit beneath them function as efficiently and effectively as possible. When they are elevated to a senior management role, however, their field of vision needs a substantial reorientation across the entire organization. They now share responsibility for the organization as a whole, and not just a single area. In Elliot Jaques’s terms, the manager has moved to a higher level of work.2 This requires an entirely different mode of thinking—a multi-dimensional systems approach, rather than a more linear product or process approach. 1 I would like to thank Richard Buchanan for his valuable support in producing this article. 2 Elliot Jaques has developed his influential “levels of work” theory over the course of the last fifty years. For a general account of Jaques’s management theories, including “levels of work,” see his book Requisite Organization: A Total System for Effective Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (Arlington, VA: Cason Hall, Second Revised Edition, 1998).

Christopher Alexander: A Review Essay

Abstract: 93 site; a pattern book is speculative, flexible and potentially income-producing. Davies seeks to undo another myth in chapter six when he examines the concept of modular coordination. He argues that since the early twentieth century, architects have confused “the productive and aesthetic aims” of standardization (133). This led to a misunderstanding between architects, who were looking for an abstract system for designing, and the building industry, which wanted to use technology to save time, money, and materials. The final and shortest of the three parts is “practices,” which offers examples of contemporary prefabricated homes from around the world. In Davies’s terms, this is a “non-architectural history” that exemplifies everything that is wrong with the architectural profession. Chapter seven focuses on the phenomenon of the small “ideal” house and European pattern books, housing expos and corporations that specialize in the mass production of modest, traditionally-styled family homes. Davies stresses the dichotomy between “the appearance of private housing estates ... and the way they are built” (167). Chapter eight considers how the box can be the primary unit of prefabrication; examples include shipping container architecture, bathroom pods, and stackable modular apartment units. The final chapter discusses the massive Japanese manufactured housing market and the popularity of retail shops and show villages designed to help consumers choose the features they want in a new home. Davies links Japan’s widespread acceptance of manufactured houses to the traditions of the Japanese house such as tatami mats, shoji screens, and modular wood construction methods. The Prefabricated Home also has some limitations worth noting. This is a synthetic text that relies primarily on English-language secondary sources. Accordingly the selected bibliography runs less than two pages and the footnotes are sparse and unremarkable. Most of the examples are drawn from America, Western Europe and Japan; colonial examples and projects from the developing world are largely missing. For instance, Jean Prouve’s work in France is discussed briefly, but there are no references to his projects in Africa. Finally, readers may question the fundamental premise of the book—that some homes qualify as “architecture” and others as “non-architecture.” If, according to Davies, architecture will benefit from broader knowledge of the history of the prefabricated house, it only makes sense that the “field” of architecture cannot be defined in such narrow terms, but must be expanded to include the range of practices examined in The Prefabricated Home. Ritu Bhatt and Julie Brand

ZIBA Design and the FedEx Project

Abstract: This paper starts with the question of how great products get made. While the question may not be entirely answerable, the exploration provides a useful understanding of how the art of design unfolds in practice. The vital connection between theory and practice is not immediately evident to all in the design community and, as a result, it often has gone unexplored. This paper seeks to rectify the situation, at least in one example. Building upon the model of the case study, which has proved a useful tool in connecting theory and practice in fields as diverse as law, business, and medicine, this paper uses an original exploratory case study on ZIBA Design (a product design company) and a series of projects they did for FedEx as a starting point for thinking about how design works in practice when it moves from traditional areas of communication and industrial design into human interaction and organizational change, what Richard Buchanan calls the thirdand fourth-orders of design.1 Anyone who has had to send a package and waited too late for a scheduled pickup by an express delivery service may have found himself or herself in a FedEx retail center. These centers, which FedEx calls “World Service Centers” (WSC), display the chaotic nature of their business right where everyone can see it. Enter close to cutoff time, and one finds lines of people, questioning looks, hurried scribbling, and stacks of boxes rising towards the ceiling. FedEx was going through a process of updating these facilities in November 1998. The WSCs typically are updated every seven to eight years, and this was the first redesign since FedEx’s big branding evolution in 1994, when they officially changed the name of the company from Federal Express to FedEx and redesigned the logo. As part of a company review, the brand identity group at FedEx was invited to look at the plans. The redesign was spearheaded by the Facilities Division, which put most of the emphasis on logistical and technical updates designed to get customers’ packages to where they were going faster and more efficiently. For a long time, the fact that FedEx could deliver a package overnight was all it needed to set it apart. But in the years since its founding in 1971, the company had seen an increase in competitors such as the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, and Airborne Express, as well as changes in the marketplace from new technologies including fax, e-mail, and the Internet. When the brand identity group reviewed the new plans, they were not focused on the myriad of new ways FedEx was improving the shipping business. 1 Richard Buchanan, “Design Research and the New Learning,” Design Issues 17: 4 (Autumn 2001): 10–12.

Stanley Morison's Aldine Hypothesis Revisited

Abstract: Admiration for the graphic vigor of the past brought historic fonts back into use in the modern period and renewed scholars' discus sions of stylistic influence in type design. In this context, the British type historian, Stanley Morison, proposed in the 1920s a hypothesis that was to alter the writing of typographic history in the twentieth century. Then at the beginning of his career, and busy scouring ar chives for examples of fine printing, Morison observed that, at origin, the French roman types of the early sixteenth century shared traits with the romans used by the Italian Renaissance publisher, Aldus Manutius. The observation was at variance with the scholarly opin ion of the period. Aldus was known for his Greek type, and for hav ing had Francesco Griff o cut the first italic in 1501. Aldus's roman, by contrast, was overlooked by historians as they assessed the influ ence of Italian fonts on later French ones. Nicolaus Jenson's 1470 ro man was heralded instead as the most likely model for the designs. Praise for Jenson's roman was rampant in the literature. The most recent volley had come in 1922 with the publication of Daniel Berkeley Updike's landmark study, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use.1 Updike identified the strengths of Jenson's font as "its readability, its mellowness of form, and the evenness of colour in mass," and continued: Jenson's roman types have been the accepted models for roman letters ever since he made them, and, repeatedly copied in our own day, have never been equalled.... No other man produced quite so fine a font, or had better taste in the composition of a page and its imposition upon paper.2 Updike went on to characterize the Aldine roman as "distinctly inferior to Jenson's."3 Even so, with little debate, Morison's Aldine hypothesis was quickly considered proven. It was supplemented by others, and is incorporated as fact in the modern literature on the history of typography. Scholars who work in the area, however, constantly encounter both the value of Morison's insight and the limitations of his construct. My work on some of the principal theorists and prac titioners of French Renaissance typography,4 for instance, has raised many questions about the utility of the hypothesis, suggesting that it needs to be rethought and, if necessary, revised. 1 Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use, A Study

Where the Future Doesn't Come From: On the Logic of Naturoids

Abstract: Towards a General Framework for the Design of Naturoids Throughout the whole history of human technology, one of man’s most persistent ambitions has been that of reproducing natural objects, systems, and processes. In order to understand the real possibility of such technological attempts to approximate natural systems, including the human body itself, we would need to discover what common construction rules, power, and constraints characterize them, irrespective of the technological fields within which they are designed. The term “naturoid” introduced here refers to all devices that are designed with natural objects in mind, by means of materials and building procedures that differ from those that nature adopts. The field of naturoids includes humanoids, animoids, plantoids, and organoids, but also many other classes of objects or processes, such as artificial stones, grass, flavors, odors, light, landscapes, and so on. The technological field of naturoids is sufficiently extensive to make interesting the search for the common features that underlie the very heterogeneous devices that arise within it. This becomes more important if one considers that, as a matter of fact, designers and scientists working in the several sub-fields of the whole field of naturoids generally do not communicate with one another. For example, bioengineers have no serious contact with artificial intelligence researchers; roboticists have no serious interest in the work of designers of, say, artificial skin; and designers working in fields devoted to emulating natural phenomena such as flavors, perfumes, snow, or landscapes relate only occasionally with the materials scientists; and so forth and so on. This partially explains why, working in their more or less narrow field, designers of naturoids often tend to predict future scenarios for their products that are completely unfounded. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that they neglect, or ignore, some of the constraints possibly already encountered by designers in other fields that are implied by a given naturoid design. To state it differently, our assumption is that there are no fields in which the advancements in naturoid design can approximate nature more easily than in others, because the main difficulties

Eating Architecture [Review Article]

Abstract: 88 female body diced by mathematical coordinates through the application of the grid, Format and Layout picture the many contradictory and reinforcing fragments of the culture industry as a coherent, massive, global whole. The most forceful expression of the production of a coherent “world picture,” to borrow a term from Martin Heidegger, can be found in Bruce Mau’s recent Massive Change exhibitions where the designer has transformed the political economy of design into the managerial reorganization of the world from the castoff byproducts of catastrophe.

An Introduction to This Special Issue on Interaction Design Research in Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract: Interaction design, as a field, has made great strides towards understanding and improving our interactions with technology products. From early explorations with the Web as an interactive structure, we now have reached the point where interaction design encompasses understanding the behavior of many types of technology products. The expansion of the field and associated conferences, publications, and journals are evidence of this growth. Topics for research and discovery include artifacts that are intelligent, autonomous, mobile, social, and embodied: artifacts and services that exist ubiquitously in the environment. Design Issues last examined design research in 1999 (15: 2). In planning this issue, we noticed that, despite the fact that many advances in design research related to interaction design and complex technology products have occurred, few have been published as such. Most of the published literature in this area has been relegated to process discussions in technical conference publications. Our goal for this issue was to provide a structure for reporting some of this new work, and to stretch the field of inquiry by focusing on emerging themes in interaction design, models of design research, the role of theory both in and outside of the field of design, and communicating the methods and processes inherent in our design research activities. We invited work that would represent how design researchers produce knowledge that effectively contributes to the design process, and becomes an integrating force for teams. We also hoped to better articulate how interaction design research is differentiated from the research produced by the other disciplines.