Transforming Grounds

Micah, you will! Phoebe, thanks for the nice word...

2012-05-17T08:05:11.579-04:00

Micah, you will!

Phoebe, thanks for the nice words. I will hopefully be able to re-work some parts of it into something readable even for non-Swedes. Or maybe it is better to keep it as a more mysterious unavailable text :-)
Erik

The non-Swedish-speakers among us would also enjoy...

2012-05-16T13:07:29.481-04:00

The non-Swedish-speakers among us would also enjoy reading your dissertation!

I hope one day to share this experience!

2012-05-16T12:56:09.793-04:00

I hope one day to share this experience!

I was willing to read that book, when I looked at ...

2012-05-12T10:23:44.191-04:00

I was willing to read that book, when I looked at it cited in the several papers that I read. But I have forgotten it for a while. Thank you for sharing your thought of it.

As you recommended, this book seems to be very helpful for those who have concerned with constructing a common ground among many others, especially for designers who always have to juggle the complex matter between aesthetics of individual users and production system of products. I think they can have principle of making good reasoning of their design.

The emergent of new technology systems (e.g., things of the Internet) spurs diverse thinking and catalytic conversations among different groups and members without physical limitations. My own intuitions resonate with Karl Popper's words at this point. In his theory, this phenomenon could be the World 3, which is the world of objective knowledge, the products of the human mind as recorded in language, the arts, or the sciences, the technologies, in all the artifacts humans have stored or scattered around the Earth.

In my opinion, nascent stage of HCI design’s diverse paradigm or patterns will go into the discussion of what is meant by objectivism of knowledge or reasoning of their products. So, any line of thought which claims to be logic of scientific reasoning or designing should be dealing with objectivities as preconditioned knowledge for users rather than with subjectivities, but the objectivities come from the interaction with physical world and subjective world.

Actually, I don’t exactly understand what is meant by the notion of objectivism. (Still hard to understand what it is) Of course, I do believe there is definitely a common ground among many others. For example, with relation to objects or artifacts, I have seen that archaeologists, HCI researchers, and industrial designers have their own perspectives and offer their own terminologies of a certain matter, but for me, they are similar to each other, which means people tend to think in similar ways to some extent. Perhaps, some people like me would reluctant to use the term ‘objectivism’ of a certain matter. Instead, we have many other terms, such as rhetoric, politics, inter-body, inter-subjective or more broadly, inter-objective, consensual domain, or collective thinking like you said whatsoever.

I think I need to read this book seriously. Thank you!! :)

Hi! I wonder if will be a vertion of this book in ...

2012-05-04T11:02:19.500-04:00

Hi! I wonder if will be a vertion of this book in spanish. Thanks!

Hi GK and Bala Thanks to both of you for writing ...

2012-04-12T11:58:01.809-04:00

Hi GK and Bala

Thanks to both of you for writing comments. I very much appreciate it. And I find both of your comments valuable. The notion of apprenticeship is so important and unfortunately not today included in higher education except maybe at the phd level. And Anderson's reflections are quite insightful.

Thanks
Erik

Hi Erik, How are you doing? Nice post! I find i...

2012-04-12T10:54:23.400-04:00

Hi Erik,

How are you doing? Nice post!

I find it's the same with interaction design patterns. They are best to educate yourself, but once you know them, they are of lesser value.

Stephen Anderson wrote this article that is relevant about the difference between skipping a phase versus internalizing a phase. http://the-pastry-box-project.net/stephen-anderson/2012-april-4/

Regards,
Bala

Thanks for the list Erik. It looks as though my r...

2012-04-10T10:40:00.510-04:00

Thanks for the list Erik. It looks as though my reading list just got longer. For those of your readers who have not read Fleck's book, i would highly recommend it. I have found his ideas very helpful. In fact, i tried using Fleck's five stages of resistance to new ideas i a quick exploration of the ongoing clash of though styles with regard to the intersection of digital technology and organizations: http://www.socialens.com/blog/2010/11/24/changing-thought-styles/

I think the same could be done to examine the ways that ideas about design, complexity, etc. are changing as well.

Thank you for writing this. This has been on my mi...

2012-04-10T10:36:03.233-04:00

Thank you for writing this. This has been on my mind lately as well. I still am not clear as to what we mean when we say systematize. This might be because I haven't read Alexander. That being said, I have two things that might be relevant to this notion of systematizing. The first is to dispel the myth that design just springs out of creative fountainheads who sit down scratching their chin - the 'Eureka' trope. That being said, my stance is that we cannot and should not attempt to make design "scientific". As you have mentioned during the lectures, design is not a science but can be informed by science. Trying to make it a science just results in off-the-shelf, plug-and-play template designs which have very limited scope of application. While we are trying to solve wicked real world problems, these just fall apart. The word systematize connotes notions of "science" since it implies predictability and generalizability. While these are useful qualities to have, they alone are not sufficient for the goals design sets itself up for.
The second point I want to raise here has been on my thoughts a lot recently. The notion of providing systemic structures that help promote design as an inherent and important activity in day-to-day life as opposed treating it as spurts of creative genius. One of this structure, which I believe is terribly lacking, is the notion of apprenticeship. The capitalist mode of production sees apprenticeship at its best as a resume building activity and its worst as non-existent and discards it as an extravagance. Tutorials are seen as a replacement for apprenticeship. Just to be clear, I am not questioning the value of tutorials. But, IMO, they can never replace the knowledge that can be obtained through apprenticeship.

Hello. :D I am so glad to see what you are readi...

2012-04-06T22:28:25.711-04:00

Hello. :D

I am so glad to see what you are reading, and also very glad to see the names of outstanding thinkers mentioned in this posting. (Almost crying like when I read Krippendorff's book, the semantic turn.)

Bruno Latour is my favorite these days as well. In fact, I am comparing ANT and AT to avoid mono-casual analysis of my perspective. Both theories have their own deep history so that it is not easy to do compare to me. (In other word, I am Unnecessarily bothering myself.) I saw that several Korean scholars also mentioned him and teach students his theory. Korean students seem to like him and his colleagues, since their views offer the unique analysis in terms of the semiotic relationship between humans and nonhumans. But I have not had a chance to read his book that you mention here, I will read it once I finish the comparison task.

I am looking forward to see Verbeek's other invaluable views of new technology artifacts. I like his theory of the post phenomenology, but my unconscious thinking often say that we need to have someone who can offer other views of new technology systems that have more advanced and different abilities in human society. Perhaps, we are captivated in big theories and distinguished authors that we love to use them to argue and prove legitimacy of a certain discourse like HCI. But this is also dangerous to us since we cannot escape from them. I read that a French writer criticizes that this way is American writing strategy. Well, I don't know. I am still young to judge.

I have not had a chance to read the book, "(Re)Inventing the Internet" yet. This seems to be brand new. I will try to catch the book as soon as possible.

Thank you so much!!!

Erik, I'm not surprised the practitioners pref...

2012-03-18T23:55:39.028-04:00

Erik,
I'm not surprised the practitioners prefer focusing on the specific; this has been my experience too when talking to experts (as opposed to students). It seems students want to know how to do it and experts just want to know what they need to do/design.

Presumably, the experts were once students and, probably, thought like students. This raises the interesting (for me, at least) question: when did they change their thinking, and how did that happen?

I’m confused. Do you mean that designers believe t...

2012-03-08T10:10:59.621-05:00

I’m confused. Do you mean that designers believe that ‘process is more important than outcome, and that judgment is more important than method’, or that the students believe it? As a designer I believe that the outcome is ultimately more important that any process, but achieving a satisfactory outcome requires good judgment rather than mere application of a method. Thanks for your post—I love reading your work!

Philosophy & Technology doesn't seem to be...

2012-03-05T13:22:00.721-05:00

Philosophy & Technology doesn't seem to be a new journal. They are on volume 25 now. I believe the journal has just been renamed. It was formerly entitled "Knowledge, Technology, and Policy".

Hi Ashley Thanks for the information, I have inclu...

2012-03-05T12:29:24.900-05:00

Hi Ashley
Thanks for the information, I have included some of it in the post itself.

Thanks
Erik

Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology is i...

2012-03-05T12:05:54.236-05:00

Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology is indeed still publishing and remains the official journal of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT). It has been moved from the publisher Ejournals to the Philosophy Documentation Center.

Ejournals still has all the old content for open access in HTML format, but newer issues are available only through the PDC (old issue PDFs are also available). SPT membership or university subscription can allow you to access the new content of Techne.

A link to the PDC Techne page is here: http://secure.pdcnet.org/techne

If you have any questions about content or access, please feel free to email me at technejournal@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Ashley Shew
Corresponding Editor

To use a Latourian concept popularised by Harman i...

2012-02-29T02:13:52.646-05:00

To use a Latourian concept popularised by Harman in this book: you must be a Joliot joining design and Latour -- I love it.

I also echo your sentiments about the book: the first part is a brilliant overview of Latour, the second part loses the plot a bit in my opinion. I wasn't convinced; I'm still a pure relationist thinker (as Latour is).

Finally, I can't agree more that Latour's work (and Law's, for that matter) should be taken as a metaphysical ontology, not a interpretive lens for your pet research project.

Good review!

Hi Jeremy Thanks for the comments and for the link...

2012-02-21T06:53:38.713-05:00

Hi Jeremy
Thanks for the comments and for the link. I will take a closer look at that, it looks exciting. I am glad to see that there are more people out there who appreciate Dewey :-)
Erik

Hi Erik and Mads, …it is interesting that Dewey is...

2012-02-21T04:58:30.949-05:00

Hi Erik and Mads,
…it is interesting that Dewey is so prevalent in the US but quite unknown in Europe. There's some good stuff on Dewey by (of all people) Donald Schön… and perhaps my favourite paper that links him to continental philosophy (and HCI, to some degree) is one that looks at the concept of 'breakdown' in the work of Dewey, Heidegger and Leont'ev

http://www.mendeley.com/research/concept-breakdown-heidegger-leonev-dewey-implications-education/

I love chapter 3 of art as experience, and also think that chapter 5 (the expressive object) is really useful when thinking about the kinds of artifacts designers make during the design process. His 'statements - expressions' framework is very useful for thinking about (and discussing) concepts like ambiguity and designerly moves..

Dear Erik Thank you for introducing this book. In ...

2012-02-07T08:16:01.855-05:00

Dear Erik
Thank you for introducing this book. In my opinion, sometime,or maybe often, it is very hard to develop both comprehensive and flexible design methods that most people can apply the methods in their individual design thinking. To develop the kind of methods is my fundamental question. But I have realized that design methods are phenomenological as well. For example, designers tend to mix some methods with another one because of their epistemological perspectives of an ill-defined problem. So, I am not sure what I have to study yet. Philosophical theories always bother me, and even design situations are always complex though. Make me feel confused all the time. I need a magic book that helps me solve these difficult problems.

By the way, I am glad to see the readings on your desk. Your book lists are always interesting to me. I am enjoying to peek your books. Coincidentally, I am also reading one of Manuel DeLanda's books these days, which is a thousand years of nonlinear history. I think he is a great thinker.

Thank you.

Mads, Good to see you here. I appreciate your com...

2012-01-27T08:48:28.424-05:00

Mads,

Good to see you here. I appreciate your comments and I agree and hope that Dewey will become more recognized and influential.

Erik

I totally agree on that. Dewey’s text is also high...

2012-01-27T04:10:23.997-05:00

I totally agree on that. Dewey’s text is also highly influential for our understanding of aesthetics in relation to experience. This was actualized in Richard Shusterman’s 1992 book Pragmatist Aesthetics which took its starting point in a critical dialogue with Dewey. Art as Experience (and the chapter you mention) is a very rich text – a text that opens up ever new perspectives. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is only little reception of Dewey’s Pragmatism in a European academic context, where e.g. continental phenomenology has played a major role in some of the same fields as Dewey has worked with. If I am right, Dewey is still to be discovered.

Dear Erik, Thanks so much for your kind words - t...

2011-12-15T17:23:42.038-05:00

Dear Erik,

Thanks so much for your kind words - that really means a *lot* to us!

All the very best wishes from the team behind Interaction-Design.org !

This is really a great article. I think I need to ...

2011-12-15T05:32:50.143-05:00

This is really a great article. I think I need to rewrite my paper of the bodily interaction. I am embarrassed. Thank you for letting me know this article. When it comes to the matter of the phenomenology that the author mentioned, designing something is always challenging for me. I feel like I have to be very knowledgeable to capture everything about users and technology systems. Perhaps, good designed artifacts (interactivity and interface in either tangible or intangible aspects) are not ideals forms, but fitting forms which have evolved through adaptation processes within certain socio-cultural, economical, and technological contexts. From my limited view, the cognitive perspective in the early age of HCI discourse represents one of the main prejudiced perspectives that we had interested. So, we can criticize it now based on the knowledge and look for other theory to make up the limitation of the previous one. Then, we can move on toward designing better things. Sorry for that my idea is too long here.

Hi Erik, Thank you for the book note. It is not th...

2011-12-05T04:56:25.345-05:00

Hi Erik,
Thank you for the book note. It is not the easiest book to get your hands on, but I just found it on a library sale.
Speaking of rare books – Will the new edition of The Design Way be ready for Christmas shopping, or is it more a 2012 wish?
(edit: spelling)

2011-12-05T04:54:47.135-05:00

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