Book note: "Universal methods of design"

I just got a copy of the book "Universal Methods of Design" by Bella Martin and Bruce Hanington. It is a book that presents a collection of 100 design methods. Each method is presented in brief and clear way on two pages with great images and graphics. Each methods is categorized in a straightforward and simple way for when during the design process it might fit and for what aspect of design. The explanations of each method are short, to the point and instructive. I find this to be an excellent handbook of design methods. The authors takes a great position in relation to methods. They write

"Consider these 100 methods and techniques just as means to get to a better design, rather than ends in and of themselves. Review them, try them, prioritize them, and sequence them based on the success criteria and focus of problems you want to solve. Treat them as conversations. We have." (page 7)

This is an excellent approach. Methods are only means to an end, they are to be used intentionally.  Measure of success are to be constructed by the user of the method. It forces each method user to take responsibility for the choice of methods. It is all good. Recommended!

Dewey, user experience, and design

I know I have written about this before, but yesterday I lectured in my course, "Experience Design", about human experience based on a text by John Dewey. The text is the chapter "Having an experience" from his book "Art as experience". Reading this text and explaining it, once again I realized how extremely rich it is. The way Dewey discusses human experience and what it means to have "an" experience is amazingly valuable to any designer.

It is fascinating that with the notions that Dewey develops to analyze human experience he reveals and opens up for so many questions that are not usually addressed when it comes to user experience design in our field.  For instance, it becomes clear that having "an" experience is in itself not a goal, and that "an" experience might be highly uncomfortable but still leading to intended results. Dewey makes it clear that we have to distinguish between the purpose (intention) of designing something to lead to "an" experience and the nature of the experience itself. His analysis also covers issues around what determines people's experiences, by bringing in aspects such as competence, background, and culture. He makes it clear that a carefully designed artifact by a thoughtful designer requires the same kind of carefulness when it comes to the perceiving and appreciation on the behalf of the "user". These are only a few aspects to be found in this great text.

Dewey also addresses the role of the designer versus the user, even though he is not using those concepts. He argues for prototyping (again not with that word), and he covers so many aspects of design and use that I think the text should be a core reading for any designer and maybe the only needed one. IT is also fascinating to see how much of Donald Schon's ideas are already present here. Schon did his PhD dissertation on Dewey and it is obvious how Dewey inspired Schon. That is why anyone who appreciates the work of Schon, should also read Dewey.

Interaction Design Philosophy & Interaction-Design.org

One of the most ambitious sources of (open) scholarship in the field of HCI and interaction design is today found at  Interaction-Design.org. This site is filled with content from some of the most distinguished researchers and designers in the field. I just got an email from interaction-design.org about their newest addition to the encyclopedia. It is an article called Philosophy of Interaction and the Interactive User Experience. The article is written by Dag Svanaes and has substantial comments from Don Norman and Eva Hornecker. Svanaes is ambitious in his approach to reveal the philosophy of the field. This is highly recommendable even for those who might not agree with his analysis. We definitely need more texts like this in the field. Many more.

It is great that we do have interaction-design.org as a source of quality materials that is also free to anyone interested. The site also includes a great calendar of conferences and deadlines and bibliographies of many researchers in the field. Mads Soegaard who is the Editor-in-Chief for this endeavor is doing a great job.
 

Book note: Donald Schön "Technology and Change"

In my quest to read (or re-read) all the books by Donald Schön I am at the moment re-reading his "Technology and Change--The New Heraclitus", published in 1967. I really liked this book when I first read it many years ago, but in a way I think it resonates even more with our present time. It is both possible and easy to read this book as a strong argument for what is today called "design thinking".

Schön builds the whole reasoning in the book around how humans relate to stability and change. Parmenides and Heraclitus are presented as advocates of two archetypal ways of understanding reality in relation to change. Parmenides represents the view where "stability was the only reality; being was continuous, changeless, one; change, in the form of creation or passing away, was inherently contradictory and therefore illusory". On the other hand, Heraclitus saw change as "the only reality" and to whom stability was illusory.

Schön makes the case that society still hangs on to an understanding that is basically Permenidian, even though such a view do not fit with the radical and constantly ongoing  technological development that defines our society (and did already in 1967). To cope with such an environment, innovation becomes a core activity and road ahead. Schön writes something that could be written today "Creativity, for the scientist, engineer and marketing man, and generalship in innovation for the manager, now rank with such traditional corporate virtues as loyalty, steadfastness and financial shrewdness. Increasingly, performance in the corporation has to do, in one way or another, with invention and innovation". 

In the book Schön dissects what he sees as the dominating understanding of innovation which he calls the "rational view" based on a Parmenidian understanding of reality. He then presents an alternative and Heraclitus inspired view of change, hence the title of the book. It is fascinating to see how in this early book he already have a "theory" of change that later becomes the foundation of his more known work on reflective practice.

Maybe the least known and also most exciting part of the book is when Schön develops what he sees as an ethic of change. In this part of the book he is not as clear as he usually is, which I see as a sign that these ideas are work in progress. Strangely enough, this work on ethics in relation to change and design is something he never really came back to, maybe with an exception of the last chapter in "The Stable State" and in some way in his "Frame Reflection". This is definitely worth some more studies....

Ok, that is it for now....and to repeat myself from some earlier posts. To read Schön is highly recommended. His ideas are extraordinary grounded in solid philosophical reasoning while also based on his professional practice in industry. When a book about technology and change from 1967 feel fresh and exciting to read it is a sign that it contain some great and timeless ideas!

Book note: "Design Research Through Practice-from the lab, field and showroom"

I often complain in  this blog about the lack of books in the field of design thinking and research. I know that many would not agree with me since they would argue that new books about design are published all the time. That might be true, but at the same time very few of these new books contribute to an overall understanding of design, even though they can be both interesting and useful on a more concrete and practical level.

A new book that tries to do both is the book "Design Research Through Practice-from the lab, field and showroom" by Ilpo Koskinen, John  Zimmerman, Thomas Binder, Johan Redström, and Stephan Wensveen.  The authors have taken on the task of putting together knowledge that take "a bird's eye perspective" on the growing academic design research field, while at the same time being useful in the practical teaching of design at a more advanced level, and to add some understanding about the scientific method in relation to design. This is a very ambitious goal or goals.

With such ambitious goals it is difficult to fully succeed. To be both theoretically informed, rooted in practice, and relevant to both research and practice is challenging. I admire the project and find it highly inspirational.  I find that overall the authors have been able to do what they set out to do, even though I find the book to also have some issues. The book answers to some extent to the purpose that the authors mention. It is highly practical and it does relate and ground the text, concepts, and suggestions in research.  However, it is also the case that many things are very briefly introduced, defined and explained. Many sections are so short that when reading them it feels as if you only got the abstract. At the same time, the book covers many different aspects of design research.

The authors introduces many highly valuable ideas, concepts and techniques that are all clearly based on practical experience and they situate them in a larger context. They discuss the value of lab and field research and they introduce the notion of the showroom, all as valuable tools in constructive design research.

Overall, I find the book to be valuable, especially for MS and PhD students who are engaged in some kind of design research. The authors offer good arguments and support for using methods and techniques that are not necessarily common and accepted in more traditional research but are useful for design research.

The need for theoretical and philosophical books on design as a "big" thing and the passing of Kees Overbeeke and Steve Jobs

I have earlier written on this blog on topics similar to this post. The reason for writing about it again is my four latest blogposts. They are all about books that approach design as a "big" thing. These books examine design as something at the same level as science and art and of the same importance. There are of course many books out there about design and that has the word design in the title, but so many of them are about some specific approach, skill, competence, or tool. This is all good and well but in times when design is seen as the approach that will save business, a much deeper understanding is needed. And we do not have enough books at that level. We need many more. Write one.

When Steve jobs was asked about what design is and what his "obsession" about quality was all about, he answered something that supports the idea that we need more books that can provide a language and an understanding. Steve Jobs answered "“We don’t have good language to talk about this kind of thing,”

and he continued

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together. ... That is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started. This is what customers pay us for — to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.” [my italics]

Jobs gives a condense and distinct definition of what design is all about in this quote. To me, this is an extremely brief theoretical and philosophical formulation of design at the level we need to see more of.

My post is also triggered by the passing of Kees Overbeeke. Kees was one of the most influential thinkers when it comes to design as a "big" thing. He did see design as an alternative approach to change in its broadest sense. He did not hesitate to take on big questions and topics, such as "fun", emotion, or aesthetics. He did inspire many and we will miss his insights. He did write about his thinking but unfortuntely what could have become his major book presenting his understanding of design in its deepest and broadest way will never be written. And this at a time when we really need books from thinkers like Overbeeke.

New MIT Press Book series on Design Thinking/Design Theory

For quite some time, my colleague and friend Ken Friedman and I have worked as Book Series Editors for a new book series with MIT Press. The book series is called Design Thinking/Design Theory. This is an exciting project. Ken and I have read many proposals and discussed many ideas for books from prospective authors. It has been fascinating to see what authors want to write about and how different the notion of design can be approached. Many are willing to propose a book, but few have what it takes to actually finish a manuscript.

So, today I got the first published book in the series in my mail. It is a highly interesting book by Thomas Binder, Giorgio De Michelis, Pelle Ehn, Giulio Jacucci, Per Linde and Ina Wagner. The title is Design Things.

More books in the series are on their way. If you have a book idea that would fit this series, let me know.

How to define design

I have mentioned here before that all signs are telling us that our reality is becoming more complex. While we humans spend more and more time making our reality into something that resembles or fulfills our dreams, it becomes more connected, more intertwined, more complex. The question is if this new reality, this complex mess, is easier to understand and to design for than the old "natural" and "simple" environment.

It is clear that complexity is quickly becoming the new research front in many disciplines. Complexity is the new challenge. It seems to emerge anywhere and all the time. There are of course also many ideas on how to approach complexity in a way that can "tame" it and make it manageable, maybe even possible to manipulate and work with (for a good discussion of the "nature" of complexity see Donald Norman "Living with complexity"). This is all good and well as long as the purpose is to study, describe, and maybe predict the structure and behavior of complex "things". But when it comes to design, complexity has a different meaning and practical consequences and has to be dealt with in a different way.

In the article "The Nature of Design Practice and Implications for Interaction Design Research" I argue that there is distinct difference between what is commonly seen as complexity in a scientific way and what can be labeled design complexity. I also develop the argument that we make a huge mistake if we try to solve design complexity by applying the methods used in science. In the article I show why a design approach is needed when we attempt to design for and within complex systems.

One reason why a scientific approach does not work when it comes to design complexity is that by reducing a problem at hand to something possible to deal with, with the general principles of the scientific approach, we will not reach a rich enough understanding of the whole "system" from a design perspective. There is no possibility to be comprehensive in design or science, which of course mean that we always will deal with some unpredictability. The more we try to handle complexity by making it "tame", contained, or less complex the more we might end up designing based on an understanding of reality that is way too simplistic.

Design is always about the whole, it always involves all possible aspects of reality. It can never be reduced or limited in order to be more precise or "correct". A designerly approach to complexity is therefore very different from the scientific. This insight seems to lead to many definitions of design where design is described as the opposite to the scientific approach, that is, what it is not. This is why we can find so many definitions of design that defines a design approach as not rational, logic, and linear. This is very unfortunate. Design is rational. Design has a logic. Design is linear. That is not the difference. The difference is that design has a different rationality, a different logic and linearity. To advocate design  should instead be done in a positive sense, that is, what it is. In the article mentioned above, I make some attempts at doing that.

I is definitely possible to define the logic of design and the rationality of design. It is also possible to define what validity and rigor means when it comes to a design approach. Any designer knows that you have to be rigorous in your approach. More work needs to be done to formulate design as a rigorous, logic and rational approach.

Book Note: Donald Schon "Beyond the Stable State"

In 1971 Donald Schon published his book "Beyond the Stable State". Schon has since then been recognized as an impressive thinker in many different disciplines. His fame and reputation are based on some amazing books that still are read and frequently referenced. However, the "Stable State" is usually not among them. Recently I had the pleasure of re-reading some parts of the it.

As often when you go back to something you read a long time ago, you are intrigued by other parts of the text, other ideas stand out. Ideas that you do not remember being in the book. I must admit that "Beyond the Stable State" is one of the books that has had the most influence on me over the years. To me, the message condensed in the title is enough, and is an example of a great idea. 

Anyway, in re-reading parts of the book I realized that the last chapter contains a description of a form of research methodology or learning strategy that is resonating with my own thinking. The notions of "existential knowledge" and "projective models" are absolutely fascinating. Schon provides a clear and wonderful explanation of how to understand "case" studies, especially when the reason is to prepare for action. Schon's theory on how to approach "social change" is absolutely perfect for any professional working in any kind of design. Read the last chapter!

Manuscript of 2nd Edition of the Design Way sent

Yesterday Harold Nelson and I sent the final manuscript of the 2nd Edition of "The Design Way" to MIT Press. The book has gone through quite a lot of changes. Every chapter is edited and refined. Two chapter are fully re-written. One chapter is gone and two new chapters have been added. Hopefully these changes have improved the book... Anyhow it feels good to have sent it. It was a lot of work. The book will not be out until sometime late next year, it is a long production process. It also feels great that this time the book will be published by a wonderful publisher, which will mean that the book will be available in a completely different way and also to much lower cost.