The Complexity of the Particular

While preparing for my teaching I am doing some reading and some thinking. I have this reoccurring idea that I know is not new to me but it keeps coming back, and that is the idea of the complexity of the particular. In our book "The Design Way" we use the concept of the "ultimate particular" when we discuss the nature of design. We write:

"The outcome of a specific design process, such as a car, a curriculum, or an organizational structure, is an ultimate particular. It is something unique. It is not the universal car, the universal organizational structure, or curriculum. We are creating a particular, which, when taken together with other particulars, makes up the whole of our experienced reality."

we also give some examples of this:

"Distinctions between what is true (e.g., universal or general) and what is real (e.g., particular, full particular and ultimate particular) can be made in the following ways. A painting by Cézanne is real; the atomic weight of copper is true. An experience is real; a scientific observation is true. An organization is real; a proven fact is true. An individual’s perspective is real; a predictable event is true."

This is to some extent obvious and most people would probably say it is so obvious that it is not even important. However, when we understand and accept that design is about creating particulars, we also create a philosophical foundation that have extraordinary consequences for how it is possible to understand the design process.

Even though this idea of the ultimate particular has been with me for many years, it continues to excite me. And I am constantly surprised by the fact that it is so difficult to grasp the idea. Why is it so difficult? And why is it so difficult to see that complexity is not to found in abstractions and descriptions of the world but in the actuality of an ultimate particular. One single design manifests infinite complexity. Each design has in itself or reflects all possible aspects of reality. It is so easy to reduce the complexity of particulars by making simple judgments where only certain aspects of the design is noticed. So, richness and complexity is inherent in any design, while so frequently absent in simplistic and reductive descriptions and abstractions of the same designs. This understanding of designs as particulars also explains why a single design (a building, a car, a pen, a pair of shoes, etc) can evoke all our senses and make us speechless and overwhelmed. It is because that particular design has an infinite richness that resonates with our own overall experience of the world. Enough for now....

A brief book review

I have for some time had on my desk the book "Design -- history, theory and practice of product design" by Bernhard E. Burdek. I have planned to read it since it seems to give a great overview of design history. So, now I have tried. Unfortunately, I found that the book is far from good. The structure is confusing, the theoretical discussion is quite shallow and without any rationale behind the way the content is presented. It jumps back and forth through history. It is illustrated with many images of products that is quite difficult to relate to the text and does not add anything extra to the content. So, overall it is not a book worth buying or reading. Sorry ....

Design, details and craft

Today I found this little video from Peter Belanger who has documented the process behind the design and creation of a cover of the magazine MacWorld. It is a fun and highly interesting video. It shows the high level of craft and detailing that goes into one cover and especially the photo. This is a reminder for all of us who have problems with doing things fast (and sloppy).

Take a look: http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/36-cover-creation

UXmatters

I have not written much lately which is of course a result of the fact that it is summer and I try to relax from work. However, today I found the UXmatters web site. I am not sure if I have seen it before, but I found some really interesting writings there. So, this short post is only a promotion of the UXmatters site at http://www.uxmatters.com/index.php

HCI online resources

Yesterday while looking for some HCI readings, I found a site called PhilPapers (http://philpapers.org/). It is a new resource for publications in philosophy. I really liked what I saw. It is a thoughtfully structured and designed site and it has a wonderful coverage of philosophical publications. It seems also to be quite easy to use (even though I did not try much). I would like to see something like this in HCI. There is no HCI resource site out there today. One of the reasons is of course that to create something like PhilPapers takes a lot of work and maintanance. PhilPapers just got a substantial grant to continue to build and develop the site.

There are of course some attempts in HCI out there. The most known is probably the HCIB managed by Gary Perlman. Degraaf is also doing a good job with his HCI Index. While looking for more resources I also found a number of web sites that since a few years are no longer being updated, but they all started out with good intentions and ambitions.

However, none of these attemtps can be compared to PhilPapers. It would be great for students and researchers to have a great resource site. I will wait for it.....or maybe there is something out there that I don't know about.

Limits of Interaction (Patti Maes & Andy Rutledge)

I have earlier written about the "cost of interaction" and on that theme I want to recommend you to watch this video from the TED conference by Pattie Maes, maybe some of you have seen this before, it is quite fun and interesting. The demonstration really does, what I also have recently written about, open new design spaces.

When you have watched it, you can read this highly critical review of Maes' demonstration by Andy Rutledge. He argues that Maes' "demonstrates a measure of irresponsibility, misrepresented facts, and shallow thinking".

The demonstration itself and the review taken together shows us what we will see much more of in the future since the imagination among designers and the development of technology seems infinite. It is inevitable that with such a development, questions will be asked. How interactive do we want our environment to be? In what ways can interactivity that helps me be intrusive for others? Who has the resposibility when it comes to our future interactive environment? What is the responsibility when designers excell in "exploring potential design spaces"?

Watch, read, and think...

Interactive Innovations and Design Spaces II

In my last post with the same title as this one, I discussed how new technology and new ideas opens up new design spaces. Today a student of mine, Sarah Reeder, tweeted about another example of new technology that also leads to new explorations when it comes to interaction design. And as Sarah wrote in her tweet, "flexible OLED displays excite me". I could not agree more!