Design Judgment: Decision-Making in the 'Real" World

What is design judgment? What is that ability that designers have to have to be able to make decision when they face overwhelming but incomplete information and conflicting goals and desiderata? How do you as a designer know what to focus on and what to leave out? Designers always engage in making judgements: design judgments.

Yesterday I found an article that Harold Nelson and I wrote in 2003. It was published in the Design Journal, and I have not seen it since then. The article is partially built on a chapter in our book 'The Design Way' where we have a chapter on judgment.

The title of the paper is Design Judgment: Decision-Making in the 'Real' World. The title reveals that design judgment is not about how to make decisions in a perfect or ideal world, instead it is about being in the real world with all its richness, contradictions, dilemmas, insufficient knowledge, etc. It is also about making decisions that has a real impact on the world we all live in.

Even though Harold and I have 'preached' about design judgment for years (together with some other design scholars) it is still not a concept that has  received enough attention. It seems as if most design research, especially research with the purpose to support designers, instead takes the approach to reduce the dependency on judgment by introducing methods, techniques and tools that will let designers do a good job without being required to make judgments. It sometimes even looks as if the ideal solution would be to have a design process with methods and tools that would be indifferent of who is the designer is, that is, a process that is independent of the designers ability to make judgment. However, the road to design success can only be reached when design judgment is seen as an unavoidable and crucial aspect of the being a designer and enough attention is payed to the development of it. In this article we take some steps towards such a position.

You can download the article here.

What makes a prototype novel?

At the NordiCHI  Conference in October, Mikael Wiberg and I presented a paper:

Wiberg, M. & Stolterman, E. (2014) What Makes a Prototype Novel? – A Knowledge Contribution Concern for Interaction Design Research. NordiCHI '14, October 26 - 30 2014, Helsinki, Finland.

The paper is about something anyone engaged in HCI research is familiar with. Here is how we present it in the introduction of the paper:

"Every time we review a paper describing a new interactive system, every time we go to a conference or when we are presented with a new interactive system from industry we repeatedly find ourselves asking “Have I not seen this system before?” or stating “This system does not remind me of anything I have ever seen...”. These questions are related to a fundamental research consideration concerning how it is possible to conceptualize and relate different designs to each other and to the existing body of knowledge. In short, we address the question “what makes a prototype novel?” and accordingly a manifestation of something new, a knowledge contribution to our field. "

This is both a simple and difficult question. How do we know that a new design actually represents a new knowledge contribution or not? Most of us in the field agree that prototypes are crucial as part of the knowledge production process, but in what way? In the paper we discuss some of the earlier attempts that have been made to solve this question. We also propose some potential ways to move forward in a more structured and formal way. We propose the notion of generic design thinking or concepts. 

Below is the Discussion section from the paper. Of course it is not easy to understand just the final section of a paper, but it may give a sense of what we are trying to do. If you are interested in these questions, let us know.

"DISCUSSION – WHAT IS A ‘NEW’ DESIGN? AND HOW CAN WE ADVANCE HCI DESIGN RESEARCH THROUGH GENERIC DESIGN THINKING?

When generic design concepts are used in architecture, there are two ways of handling designs that are new: as novel or as unique. Importantly, for something to be considered new it is not sufficient merely to be novel in the sense of having “odd properties”. Instead, for a design to be unique or new, it must involve at least one of the following criteria: 

• the application of an established generic model to a new problem or in a new domain 

• a design that combines elements from multiple established generic models 

• the addition of a new element to a known generic model manifested in a design 

• a combination of a new generic model and a design that defines a new design space such that the design demonstrates the potential scope of the new space. 

In this context, novelty that stems from an evolution of a design’s underlying model reconfigures the landscape of design spaces; if done particularly well, it creates new space within this landscape that others can join and exploit. 

We see several important implications of this suggestion for the advancement of HCI design research. 

First, generic design thinking reject designs that are not properly situated within a web of existing and already known design ideas. The new cannot be advanced without understanding how it relates to existing design ideas. That is to say, a new ultimate particular (a concrete design) needs to be anchored in the general (that is, in some theoretically articulated idea). 

Secondly, generic design thinking implies a shift in focus away from specific properties of a given ultimate particular towards generic dimensions in new designs. This shift has implications for what we need to express with a particular design. It also raises questions about which factors should be incorporated into a design and which can be omitted when designing prototypes during the research process. This could potentially reduce the difficulty of developing research prototypes as fully implemented systems (and the need to include a lot of specific system features, etc). 

Thirdly, generic design thinking implies the need for more deliberate work in HCI on the formulation of classes of interactions. Today, direct manipulation, embodied modes of interaction, and agent-based interaction models could be seen as some relatively stable classes that are important for the formulation of generic design principles in HCI. But what other kinds and ways of grouping interactions and interaction technologies can we imagine? And how can we move forward and become more specific? And what are the existing good examples? 

Finally, generic design thinking provides a practical tool to improve our ability to compare and evaluate different designs. In this way, it could provide a foundation from which to address design quality and to make judgments about designs that are rooted in more than just the opinion of an individual designer. This aligns well with the proposed concept of interaction criticism [2]. 

In this paper we have proposed, described and exemplified generic design thinking in the format of a four-step method and approach to systematically move forward (design) while also more systematically understand and learn (analyze) from past designs. Although we have so far only described this as a first draft of a method we are convinced that this approach might redirect our field slightly from being heavily future-oriented to also acknowledge the utility of working backwards from a design to its conceptual roots – to trace design ideas through the analysis of designs. Importantly, generic design approaches require critical analysis of the history of design within HCI in order to anchor the new and novel in the history of ideas. 

In wrapping up our paper, we should return to its basic message. We do have recent research stressing the importance of concept-driven design research [25] and we do have a good understanding of how ‘strong concepts’ [13] can advance our field. At the same time we lack methods to systematically relate different concepts to each other and in relation to particular designs. Here is where generic design thinking can play an important role as to systematically advance our field while keeping our design-driven approach.  Given this take on the subject we should state that in order to answer the most central question for design-driven HCI “when is a new design a knowledge contribution?”, we must first, as a field of research, establish the method and approach for guiding the systematic work of conceptualizing and theorizing these designs. In this paper we have suggested ‘generic design thinking’ as an initial attempt to move in the direction of the development of one such method and approach."

The Anatomy of Prototypes

In preparation of a lecture on Monday I had to re-read an article that I wrote together with Youn-Kyoung Lim and Josh Tenenberg called "The Anatomy of Prototypes: Prototypes as Filters, Prototypes as Manifestations of Design Ideas".

I don't think I have read the whole article in a few years which is always an exciting  and a bit nervous experience. Anyway, this time I was pleasantly surprised. I really find this article to be interesting and still useful. Unfortunately I have not done any more work on this topic since we wrote this article but after having read it now, I think I  have to.

I am more convinced than ever that what our field needs are analytical tools that makes it possible to investigate specific entities in a structured way. In this article we propose an anatomy of prototypes that supports such investigations of one of the most important entities in our field--the prototype.

It would be great if we could develop similar "anatomies" for other entities in our field. The 'power' of anatomies (or frameworks) is that they (if done well)  provide clear definitions that support examinations, categorizations and understanding without being prescriptive. The anatomy of prototypes that we provide in our article is a conceptual tool for the analysis and description of every possible prototype without saying anything at all how to design prototypes or what constitute a good prototype (except in a very abstract but principled and precise way).

Anyway, good to return to "old" texts and to discover that they still can be valuable and not outdated.

The common mistake of seeing design as a particular field or profession

I have written here before about the mistake of seeing design as a profession and/or a discipline. To me, design is an approach, a way of approaching reality with the purpose to change it. There are no given design areas or disciplines. Instead it is the nature of the problem/situation that usually determines what is a field or discipline. So, for instance, graphic design is a field that has to do with graphic and visual artifacts, architecture is a field that engages with buildings and structure, etc. They are not by nature design fields or disciplines.

Graphic design has some similarities with architecture of course. Some of those similarities can be seen as related to materials, surfaces and structures. Some similarities have to do with how people perceive forms, shapes and colors and their combinations. To me it is obvious that you can approach these qualities either with a scientific approach or with a designerly approach or with a combination. This means that graphic design and architecture can, depending on how we understand them, be seen either as two science based disciplines or two design based disciplines.

This is why it becomes so confusing when people or companies try to state what design is based only on their experiences in one field and only from one persepctive. For instance, Zillions Design (a logo design company) puts out what they call a Periodic Table of Winning Design Elements. They write:

"The following infographic on the Periodic Table of Winning Design Elements, completely sums up what goes on in the design field right from what basic skills designers need to have to design elements to how to handle clients."

Of course they don't mean that this is table in a comprehensive way describes all design elements for all design areas. They probably think about logo design. But they don't state that, which is unfortunate. It creates a lot of confusion. It is possible to develop a periodic table of design elements that is meant to be true for all design areas (see my book "The Design way" as an attempt to do that). I would welcome anyone who would engage in the attempt to further an understanding of design, not as a discipline or profession, but as an overall human approach of inquiry and action that can deliver outcomes that other approaches (science, art, politics, etc) can not.

Design is not a profession or a discipline

At a recent design research conference I heard many statements beginning with "we designers..." or "the profession of design...". Almost all these statements are based on the idea that there are certain people that are designers and then others who are not. In many cases participants talked about the design profession  (in most cases meaning "those of us who are educated in design schools"). It is as being a designer is a stamp and when you have the stamp then you are a designer.

The way design has developed over the last three decades has made it almost impossible to argue that design is a profession and/or a discipline, but still it seems to be a prevalent belief even among those who know more about design than most everyone else.

I like to make the comparison with other human approaches, for instance, science. Very few would state that being a scientist is a profession or even a discipline. Science is a way to approach the world with the purpose of creating knowledge. The scientific approach can be "used" in any profession and discipline. People engage in science. People engage in design. [Of course, there is the same issue in science, people who believe they are scientists and that science is a profession.]

Architecture has nothing to do with design unless people in architecture engage in design. Architecture can be exercised in a fashion that employs no designerly thinking or activities. Architecture can be performed as a scientific activity or as a process of art, or as a process of randomness and chance. Architecture is not in itself a design profession. Neither is graphic design, interaction design, or any other field. These words however do denote professions, that is, areas where professionals have the task of developing certain types of artifacts or services. They are in many cases also academic disciplines, but that does not make them into design disciplines.

Designing is an human approach for inquiry and action well suited for bringing change into the world. But it is not a profession or a discipline. A person is not a designer, but a person may use a designerly approach to fulfill their goals.

Paper back version of "The Design Way" coming in September

I am very happy to announce that Harold Nelson's and my book "The Design Way", published by MIT Press, will be out in paperback in September. The price will be ONLY $19.00! It is rewarding to see how this book is still alive and well.

It is about 20 years since we started to work on these ideas. The second edition made it possible for us to update the content. Actually, already when we started to write the book we decided to write it in such a way that it would not feel "old" fast. We were careful with using examples and events that would soon be forgotten. Hopefully this has made the book more stable over time.

Vitruvius was right about design knowledge (2000 years ago)

Many who have studied design theory know that Vitruvius was one of the first practicing designers (architect) and design thinkers who formulated thoughts and theory about design. At the same time I believe that there are not as many today who actually have read Vitruvius' writings. He is most famous for his "Ten Books on Architecture" written sometime in the first century B.C. Most of this book consists of specific directions and guidelines for detailed architectural work.

[The whole book is available online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm]


I will here only focus on the first chapter of the first book "The Education of the Architect". It is a fascinating text that I find extraordinary full of wisdom in a straightforward and simple way.

I would like to copy the whole chapter, but I have instead chosen to copy a few excerpts from the chapter, just to give a sense of what it contains, and maybe it will lead you to read more. The whole chapter is only a few pages long.

Vitruvius has a clear idea of what knowledge an architect should be equipped with. In Vitruvius text it  is possible to exchange "architect" with "designer".

The first paragraph in the chapter is this wonderful statement:

"1. The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of a drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion."

It is clear that to Vitruvius the notion of "judgment" takes the position as the most important form of knowledge. It is through a designer's judgment that "all work done by the other arts is put to test". Judgment brings everything together. Judgment is the "child" of both practice and theory, both which Vitruvius eloquently explains. He presents the role of both practice and theory even more clear in the second paragraph where he states:

"2. It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them."

Vitruvius also mentioned more detailed knowledge needed but he returns to the larger areas, such as history, philosophy and medicine:

"5. A wide knowledge of history is requisite because, among the ornamental parts of an architect's design for a work, there are many the underlying idea of whose employment he should be able to explain to inquirers."

"7. As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility. Let him not be grasping nor have his mind preoccupied with the idea of receiving perquisites, but let him with dignity keep up his position by cherishing a good reputation. These are among the precepts of philosophy."

"10. The architect should also have a knowledge of the study of medicine on account of the questions of climates (in Greek κλἱματα), air, the healthiness and unhealthiness of sites, and the use of different waters. For without these considerations, the healthiness of a dwelling cannot be assured."

Vitruvius is aware that his list of needed knowledge is long and ambitious, so he adds:

"11. Consequently, since this study is so vast in extent, embellished and enriched as it is with many different kinds of learning, I think that men have no right to profess themselves architects hastily, without having climbed from boyhood the steps of these studies and thus, nursed by the knowledge of many arts and sciences, having reached the heights of the holy ground of architecture."

and he adds later:

"For, in the midst of all this great variety of subjects, an individual cannot attain to perfection in each, because it is scarcely in his power to take in and comprehend the general theories of them."

Of course, for Vitruvius, this type of knowledge is only for men and only for a certain class of men. This is a consequence of his place in history and place. However, this chapter touches on so many issues that today are discussed when it comes to the education of designers, such as, breadth versus depth and practice versus theory. I find this text exciting and a good read for anyone who wants to engage in the question of what a designer should know!

Book note: "Ways of Knowing in HCI" by Judith S. Olson and Wendy A. Kellogg

A new book just arrived in my mailbox. It is "Ways of Knowing in HCI" by Judith S. Olson and Wendy A. Kellogg. I have spent some time today going through the different chapters. I read some and browsed others. Overall I find this to an excellent contribution to the field of HCI research. The edited book contains 18 chapters, each describing a particular research approach, method or technique commonly used in HCI research.

Of course, most of these methods have been described elsewhere and in most cases also in more detail and depth, but the unique aspect of this book is that all chapters are written by HCI researchers who can relate each method to HCI research and also give examples of where it has been used, what it mean to use it in HCI research, what constitute a good job when using a particular method.

I fully agree with the Editors in their Epilogue when they state that we should read all chapters and not just the ones about methods we already are familiar with. I followed their advice and I found right away wonderful argumentations, explanations and critiques of methods that I am less used to. This reading influenced me right away and made me more favorable of them. I am impressed by the quality of the chapters, even though I find some chapters not reaching the level of what could be accepted in a collection like this.

To me this book is already a required reading for all PhD students in the field. I can not see any reason why any graduating PhD student would not be familiar with all these methods, at least at the level of knowing about them as presented here.

I am looking forward to see some reviews of this book (more in-depth analysis than my note here :-) to learn more about what is not covered in the book, what is not done well enough, etc. In the name of developing a discipline we need all members of the HCI research community to engage in a book like this. We need a discussion and debate about "ways of knowing in HCI" and this book creates a great platform for such a discourse.

I really want to thank the Editors and the authors of this book for taking the time to develop and write these chapters. This is not the kind of work that most scholars see as being the most important and rewarding, but it is necessary work. So, thanks for all the great work!

What is a design theory?

I am working with one of our PhD students, Jordan Beck, on the question of what is design theory. It is such an exciting question. Jordan is collecting 'things' (ideas, frameworks, etc.) that could potentially be seen as a design theory. It is now a long list. But, the challenge is, which ones are truly a design theory and not just a theory that has been appropriated or 'used' in a design context. And are there different kinds of design theory, maybe at different levels or with different focus or purpose? In our meeting today we came up with ideas that already has changed my thinking about what could be a design theory. I realized that I have to rethink to what extent some of the ideas I have myself worked with and written about is a 'theory' or not. I hope that we soon can present some of the ideas we are working with.

Philosophy of design and "critical flexibility"

In my advanced seminar on Philosophy and Theory of Design I ask all participants to bring a text that they think relate to the course and our discussions. Today my colleague Elizabeth Boling presented an article "Between eclecticism and orthodoxy in instructional design" by Stephen Yanchar and Bruce Gabbitas. It is an excellent article! The authors make the case that design (an particularly instructional design) is dominated by two broad approaches, theoretical orthodoxy and eclectic practice.

The authors make the case that both these approaches rest on something more fundamental, something they label a conceptual design sense.

They write:
"To the extent that conceptual design sense influences the way theoretical principles are used, it might be said to operate as a cryptotheory—that is, as a kind of hidden framework that, to some significant degree, guides important aspects of the design process."

and

"...we contend, that eclecticism leads surreptitiously to the same problem that attends theoretical orthodoxy, namely, operating under a single (albeit implicit) perspective
and, ipso facto, lacking genuine openness to itself and alternatives in the design process."

I read this paper as a great argument for philosophy of design. It resonates with other scholars who advocate for a reflective stance and for attempts to explicate and externalize what are fundamental assumptions, values, beliefs, and ideas about design. Great article!!

Artifact analysis, Bill Buxton, and the power of artifact inventories, compendiums, collections

I have many times on my blog made the case for a more artifact oriented approach in HCI research. One reason, among many, is that our discipline is not paying enough attention to the actual artifacts/systems that constitute the core and the reason for existence of our field.

So, developing ways to carefully study interactive artifacts and systems in a way that can lead to theoretical development is crucial. I truly enjoy the traditional philosophical method of going back and forth between theoretical definitions and concrete examples.  The purpose of this process is to increase the precision in the theoretical definitions through a step by step refinement so that they at the end capture the important qualities of the artifacts.

To be able to conduct such research you need concrete examples of artifacts. One approach is to work with highly diverse individual artifacts that present definitional challenges, but it is also good to have more comprehensive collections of artifacts that can serve as a foundation or horizon for individual examples to be compared and contrasted.

For instance, today I saw this compendium or collection of cameras (in some chronological order). A collection like this can be seen as an example of such a foundation or horizon of artifacts. In the article the author engages in some straightforward and fairly preliminary artifact analysis. It is clear that the collection, with its selections and structure, is itself an expression of some theoretical definitions and even postulates about what constitute this type of artifact and its primary qualities.

It would be great to see more collections like this in our field. Bill Buxton has  done a remarkable job with his collection. However, the Buxton collection can be seen as "raw data" for those who want to engage in more intentional artifact analysis. For instance, just take a look at the collection of different types of 'mouse' artifacts. It is an exciting collection, highly diverse when it comes to form, function, material, etc. that can lead to exciting questions such as: What has changed over the years? What count as a mouse today?

Anyway, this post was not meant to be this long. I really just wanted to link the the very nice collection of cameras :-)

Book review: Harmut Esslinger "A fine line: how design strategies are shaping the future of business"

I have known about the design firm frog for many years, but I have not really known much about their founder, Hartmut Esslinger. Esslinger published a book in 2009 called "A fine line: how design strategies are shaping the future of business"where he tells the story about his own life as a designer and about frog. Esslinger has an impressive list of achievements and can probably be seen as one of the most influential designers in the world when it comes to high-tech.

It is always fascinating to meet the thoughts of someone who has been so successful and also has

intentionally tried to formulate his design approach in an overall 'philosophical' way. Esslinger shows clearly that it is possible to be both personal and unique while also formulating general principles and ways of thinking. The book balances on the line between design thinking and strategic business thinking. Esslinger makes a strong and convincing case that design is not only about making good products and services but that each and every designed object has a direct and and serious impact on the overall company, its image, and at the end--survival. Design is not for the faint hearted--it takes courage. Essslinger emphasizes that design is serious business and to be engaged in such processes requires that you know what you are doing, why you do it, and how to do it.

The book contains many stories that provides "evidence" that design is a question of business thinking and strategy. Esslinger formulates some approaches, frameworks, and methods on how to achieve this and how to actually do it. Most of them are fairly simple in form while not in content and are mostly presented as principles.

I find this book stimulating and I think it is a great reading for any young designer who is still trying to understand what design is, what design's purpose and goal is, and how to approach it. It is easy to agree with Esslinger and his overarching philosophy when it comes to design. He writes for instance at the end of the book that he wants to make "design the vanguard of humanistic progress and to encourage everyone, no matter what professional and personal paths he or she travels, to share my passion for improving the world." (p 159). He continues on the next page "..design is the living link between our human goals and needs and the material culture that helps to fulfill them". Esslinger definitely sees design as one of the most powerful forces shaping our reality.

Of course, a book like this can inspire designers but also be somewhat overwhelming and maybe scary to read. The life of Esslinger and his success has made it possible for him to work on projects that few ever get close to. The grand ideas and ideals that he expresses and lives by may feel unattainable and maybe even offensive to a young design who is involved in fairly plain and everyday design tasks. But I also think that the book can revitalize a your designers ideals and beliefs about the power of design and serve as a guiding tool on how to reach the kind of design adventures that do influence the world. It is obvious, as always, that Esslinger's story is also a story of extremely hard work, failures, extraordinary efforts and a constant struggle in figuring out what design is really about.

An Analytic Turn in HCI Research

Over the last few years I have explored and played with the idea of an analytic turn in HCI research. My reasons for this exploration are several--some reasons are fairly simple and straightforward while others more complex and subtle. The most obvious reason for me to turn to analysis is that I am looking for a more object/artifact/thing oriented approach in HCI research. 

The turn in HCI research toward user-centeredness and user experience have in many cases gone too far. This research has strived to become more inclusive of aspects outside of the traditional ones, such as functionality, efficiency, etc. The complete focus on the user has led to  wonderful developments in the field that were highly needed and that have made a great impact. At this time though, with the ambition to consider "everything" important, a lot of research in interaction design and HCI is becoming far too broad, leaving a core without concreteness and without any analytical strength that would make sense from a design perspective. 

Interestingly enough this expansion of HCI research when it comes to scope is not limited to any particular approach or method. It is possible to see the same effort manifested in highly developed qualitative research as well as in quantitative research. The attempt in both cases seems to be to find ways to capture, analyze and explain users reactions and experiences of interactive artifacts and systems. However, in both cases it has lead to a shift in focus away from the object/artifact/system/thing that the experiencing subject is interacting with. 

My own explorations lately have therefore been based on the simple idea that analysis of interactive artifacts can be done without applying any form of use or user perspective. It is an analytic research approach that aligns with a design perspective in the sense that the analysis is directed towards those aspects of the design that a designer can control. After having tried this approach in some studies, I am convinced that it is highly rewarding but at the same time difficult and still far from clear how to do it. I am quite sure however that it is different from both any kind of user studies and interestingly also criticism (which sounds like it could be similar).

I am (slowly) developing an approach or at least a way of thinking, in collaboration with some phd students, that I label "artifact analysis".  It is clear that a proper artifact analysis has to be done according to some principles and the process has to be clearly thought out. The results are, in my view, really interesting and in many ways surprising. And what I like the most is that the findings are often counterintuitive and quite challenging. Now you may ask, ok, so how do you do it? Well, I do not have time to write that now, maybe later :-)

Book note: Goffman, interaction and analytical artifact oriented HCI

I just received the book "Interaction Rituals" by Erving Goffman in the mail. I have not really read Goffman before but found the writing to resonate with my own thinking. Even though a lot of his work is in psychology and sociology it is possible to read his work as if it is about human-computer interaction and not only human-human interaction.

I found this great quote in the Introduction:

"I assume that the proper study of interaction is not the individual and his psychology, but rather the syntactical relations among the acts of different persons mutually present to one another. None the less, since it is individual actors who contribute the ultimate materials, it will always be reasonable to ask what general properties they must have if this sort of contribution is to be expected of them. What minimal model of the actor is needed if we are to wind him up, stick him amongst his fellows, and have an orderly traffic of behavior emerge?" (page 2).

It is possible to read this as if it is about human computer interaction. Contrary to most work in HCI today, which is almost completely focused on the "human" side of use and experience and not on the "computer" side, Goffman argues that it is possible to, or maybe even necessary to, develop models of the "ultimate material", which in this case would be also the artifact side of the interaction. It is "reasonable" to study what "general properties" the ultimate material must have to be able to contribute to the interaction in the way they do. I read this as similar to the approach that I have argued for in some articles, especially together with Lars-Erik Janlert, about the need and benefit of an analytical artifactist approach in HCI research.

Lars-Erik and I have since early 90s tried to develop a more analytical and artifact oriented approach to interaction studies (see refs and links below). In our 1997 article "The Character of Things" we examined, without using Goffman, the possibility of understanding human-artifact interaction as a form of human-human interaction. We experimented with ascribing artifacts "character" and "character traits" as a way to handle the overwhelming complexity arising by the manifold and diversity of new interactive products. We ended the article with the following paragraph:

"We believe that we must learn to better exploit the basic abilities human
beings have evolved in dealing with each other and with things in their
environment. One of these abilities is the use of characters. We propose
that in the design of computer artifacts: (1) more attention should be paid
to character, and the completeness and coherence of characteristics; and
(2) the design of characteristic features should be developed to better bring
out the (true) character of computer artifacts."

I am convinced that when interactive artifacts evolve and becomes more complex and with even richer behaviors it is generally a good idea to use human-human interaction as a model for inspiration. We deal with highly complex people on a daily basis, even people who are hostile, dishonest, etc. in their relations and behaviors towards us, but we still manage to interact to some extent. Of course it is important not to engage in such an analysis thinking that artifacts are humans. We are still far from a situation where human-human interaction can serve as prescriptive for any kind of more serious artifact design attempts, but they can certainly serve as a metaphorical inspiration for potential explanations and understandings.

[My reading of Goffman is when I write this restricted to just some small parts of the book "Interaction Rituals", so any form of mis-interpretation is possible.]

----------------------------------
Janlert, L-E. & Stolterman, E. (1997). The character of things. Design Studies Vol 18, No 3, July (1997), 297-314.
(Won the prize as the journals best article of 1997)

Lars-Erik Janlert and Erik Stolterman. 2010. Complex interaction. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 17, 2, Article 8 (May 2010),

We also have one more article under review and one in progress on the same theme.

Book note: "Thinking on Paper" (how to write and how to design)

In 1989 I got the book "Thinking on Paper : Refine, Express, and Actually Generate Ideas by Understanding the Processes of the Mind" written by V. A. Howard and M. A. Barton as a gift by my PhD advisor Professor Kristo Ivanov. Kristo gave this book to all PhD students for a while. I assume that he did not appreciate how little we all were writing.

I really liked this book. Today I re-read some parts of it (since I showed it to a colleague yesterday). I found my own notes and comments from 1989 in the book and realized that this book has in many ways shaped my thinking about both writing but maybe even more about design.

The core ideas that the authors present in the book are all highly relevant for design in general and not only for writing. To me, the book presents two core ideas that I still return to. The first is the idea that writing is, what the title says, 'thinking on paper'. The authors explains the difference between writing as articulation and communication. Most writing has to start as articulation and if the writer sees it as communication it becomes a problem. Articulation is the discovery and formulation of ideas, while writing for communication is a process of critique, testing, assessment, and evidence. In relation to this, they also make perfectly clear that writing is not something that happens to you, it is an activity, something you do. There is no "waiting for the Muse".

The other core idea is also visible in the title and that is the  idea that to become a better writer you have to understand writing. They write "The first step is to get clear in your mind what writing is, and what it isn't." And the reason for that is because "what you think writing is (or isn't) can profoundly affect how you do it."

To me, this means that the most useful knowledge for design is knowledge about design. This is also a philosophy that I have followed over the years and also why I always stress the importance of theory and philosophy as the most practical ways to improve as a designer. Of course, you also need hands-on skills and knowledge which also the authors take seriously which is why the second part of the book is very hands-on advice based on the notion of 'thinking on paper'  on how to structure your writings, how to make an argument, even some about grammar and punctuation.

Anyway, if you are someone who struggles with writing, this is the book for you. If you are a designer, this is a book that presents a highly useful theory about design!

Design Thinking Imperialism and the Danger of Simplification

In the Economist there is an article, "Design companies are applying their skills to the voluntary and public sectors", that examines IDEO and the growing "design thinking" industry. The author, Schumpeter, makes the case that design is today moving from traditional "clients" of design to clients in governmental and non-profit organizations. The author sees this as part of a "revolution" that has almost signs of being imperialistic.
Schumpeter writes:

"IDEO is the standard-bearer of a broader revolution. Designers are becoming much more ambitious—perhaps imperialistic—about design thinking. In the United States the Stanford University Institute of Design, or D-School, which Mr Kelley founded in 2006, acts as an intellectual centre for the movement. The school helps businesses improve innovation and reduce complexity. It also encourages students to apply their skills to solving social problems, such as designing an inexpensive incubator for premature babies. In Britain the Design Council and the Royal Society of the Arts are also strong advocates of design thinking."

It is understandable that design can be seen as imperialistic with the attention and recognition it has received the last few years. Design and particularly 'design thinking' is often portrayed as the approach to apply to any problem where there is a lack of creativity, new ideas, or human oriented thinking. However, design as a human approach to inquiry and action is often presented in a simplistic and almost 'childish' way when it comes to what it is as a process, methods and tools. This article is an example of this. The author gives a summary of what is the core of the IDEO approach. To him it consists of three elements.

He writes:
"There are three main elements to IDEO’s “design thinking”. 
"The first is “lots of different eyes”. 
"The second is to look at problems from the consumer’s point of view"
"The third element is making everything tangible."
This description apparently captures the nature of 'design thinking'. This is to him the core of the approach that has been successful and that everyone is trying to copy. It is not surprising that he shows some hesitation about the approach when he writes:
"It is easy to mock all of this as bearded nonsense (if you are on the political right) or a ruse to divert attention from cuts in essential services (if you are on the left). .......Nevertheless, there are good reasons for giving the new fashion a chance."
To me there are two observations to be made from this article. First is that when design (or 'design thinking') spreads to larger and new groups of people less educated and trained  in design, it inevitably looses in richness and is slowly almost disintegrating as a unique approach. Design faces the danger of becoming a 'common sense' approach that anyone can do.
The second observation is that proponents of design have to very careful in 'overselling' design and explaining it in a simplistic fashion. Both 'overselling' and simplification leads without a doubt to failure, disappointment and the consequence will be a serious backlash for design. If all of us, who do believe in design as a powerful human approach to inquiry and action, different from other approaches such as science and art, that can produce unique outcomes; if we are not careful in how we present and explain design, we and design will fail. Design is an activity that is complex, rich, highly dependent on the competence, knowledge, skill and character of designers. It is a process that requires well developed judgment and ability to discern quality and to research and understand complex contexts and the desires and needs of people and organizations in order to create something 'not-yet-existing'. It is an expensive process that takes time. If this process is simplified into three elements that lack depth, richness and any form of practical relevance, then design will never be successful in any 'imperialistic' sense, instead it will be disregarded and ridiculed for not providing what it promises. 

Book note: "Convivial Toolbox--generative research for the front end of design"

I just received a copy of a quite new book "Convivial Toolbox--generative research for the front end of design" by Elizabeth Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers. It is exciting to see that more books on design are being published, and especially books that are not only simple "how-to" but also present a philosophical and theoretical position.

Sanders and Stappers is doing this well in many ways. The book is first of all nicely designed with great paper! The book is full of interesting design schemas, many of which are quite insightful and interesting. I have yet to read the book carefully and I am not sure I will, not because I do not find it useful but because I am quite aware of most of what the book covers. To me the most interesting elements of the book are the elaborate schemas that in some cases are rich and dense and provide the reader with a lot of insights about the topic in a designerly relevant way. I will definitely use some of those schemas in my own teaching.

So, the book covers in a good way how early design can be supported by generative research. It gives examples and cases on how to do it. I think the book can be useful for anyone who is searching for such support.

At the same time, I find the layout of the book confusing. Numerous different sections, colors, and sidebars. The layout is structured as if it is a basic textbook with readers who need to be guided in detail in their reading, with "hints" and other typical features. It becomes confusing and difficult to read, at least for me.

I was quite intrigued by the title "Convivial Toolbox" since I am well aware of Illich writings and of his ideas. I was hoping that the authors would in a stronger sense build and relate their ideas to the notion on conviviality, but that did not really happen. For instance, to what extent and in what way are the tools described in the book better suited for convivial design than others, and in what way is conviviality supported by the process presented? I was looking for a final reflection or discussion of that but could not find it.

Book note: "Back to the rough ground" by Joseph Dunne

In our research group where we study design practice, we read relevant texts each week this summer and talk about them. Yesterday we read the last chapter, the Epilogue, from "Back to the Rough Ground" by Joseph Dunne.

I read this book when it was first published and I keep coming back to it. When it comes to scholarly examinations about what practice is all about, what competence is, what rationality is, there is no other book that can deliver so much wisdom.

Yesterday, re-reading the Epilogue (which I have read many times before), I was again completely overwhelmed with the way Dunne handles this difficult topic. Some paragraphs are so good, it hurts physically to read them!

Book note: "101 Design Methods" and the problematic success of design

I just received my copy of the book "101 Design Methods -- A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation inYour Organization" by Vijay Kumar. This is one of quite many similar books that have been published the last few years, that is, a book that contains a large number of design methods nicely but briefly described.

I have always like this type of book even though I never really use them myself. The same is true for "101 Design Methods". The book contains many of the popular design methods that are used today and Kumar has organized these methods by providing "A Model of the Design Innovation Process".

This model is, in my words, a schema that helps designers think about the design process, what activities are involved,  and how the different activities relate to each other. It is a nice schema that invites for further exploration.

Kumar does not discuss design in terms of phases or steps, instead he talks about "Seven Modes of the Design Innovation Process". For each of the methods, Kumar then presents benefits, input, output, and when to use. He also presents "what it does" and "how it works". Everything is well presented and the methods are pedagogically introduced, each on two pages.

As for many of the similar books that introduce methods and techniques in a condensed form, this book also have the same issues. I believe that for someone who is already trained in design and has internalized designerly thinking and is experienced in the design process, a book like this works well. The book then becomes a handbook, a repository, a memory support, an inspirational source for when a designer has to select how to approach a task. For a designer, the descriptions are enough to inspire how to do something based on previous experience, and then they can adapt and adopt the method to the specific situation and need. The two page description reminds the designer of potential methods and also about the core aspects of the method.

However, for someone who is not trained in design, who does not think in a designerly way, the book does not give the same support. Instead, it may even be misleading in the sense that it portraits design as a process of activities that all seem fairly straightforward and "simple". It may appear that given the situation at hand you just decide what you need, or what "mode" you are in, and then uses one of the methods for that purpose.  However, this is not the way design works. The complexity of even the "simplest" design situation and process never means that there are obvious choices of methods or techniques.

What we face today with the enormous success of design as a solution to most problems, such as 'innovation' in Kumar's book, is that design is being transformed from a process requiring competence and skills that takes time and effort to achieve into a "quick fix" approach where it is all about picking the right tools. It is as if we would take a traditional carpenters workshop, pick 25 out of the several hundreds of tools in there, arrange them conceptually in relation to what a carpenter does, and expect anyone to be able to do carpentry and achieve high quality furniture. We all know that is not possible. To be a skilled carpenter means to know what tool to use, when and how to use them, and to recognize improvement and quality of outcome. None of these skills are intrinsically part of any method or tool. The skill to be able to think and act like a carpenter is what carpentry is all about.

So, even though I am very happy with the way design has reached the status of today, that all companies and organizations want to be design thinking organizations, I am less happy with the way that this success is manifested in books. The book described above is definitely needed and is a great contribution to many designers. But what we need is more books that can help people to understand design, what it means to be a designer, that can support them in their struggle to develop as a designer. We need books about design that accepts that it is not a "quick fix", not a question of using the right tools, not a question of selecting the right method, but that design is a way of thinking and approaching the world with the purpose of change. And we need books that can do this in an intelligible way that intrigues non-designers and make them understand that the effort needed is worth it if they want to become a designer.

Forms of inquiry in design and research

Lately I have been in many discussions with PhD students about how to set up research and also how to design a design process and sometimes even how to design a research process that has strong design qualities. The problem they face is that they see their work as research but not as 'pure' scientific research and this makes them uneasy and unsure of how to make good choices.

When I engage in these discussions I often realize that the major problem is that it is not clear what the purpose of the inquiry is and consequently what the 'measure-of-success' would be. As long as the purpose and measure of success is not made clear, the choice of inquiry approach becomes extremely complex and frustrating.

In our book "The Design Way" we discuss this issue in many places, but one that helps me a lot can be found in the chapter "The Ultimate Particular". Here we discuss three forms or designs of inquiry and action that humans can engage in. We suggest "... that design, as presented in this book, is based on a compound form of inquiry, composed of true, ideal, and real approaches to gaining knowledge." It is possible to also make the case that research and science also in most cases consists of compound forms of these three. There is not simple and direct mapping between them even though it may be tempting to assume that.

I will not here go into any detail about this, just copy two of the schemas we use in the chapter to show what kind of considerations are involved when anyone makes a decision on how to design a particular form of inquiry.

In Figure 1.4 (below) we present a schema that lays out several aspects of inquiry and action and how they can be understood for each of the three forms of inquiry, that is, the real, the true and the ideal. This is a quite rich schema with dense concepts, but reading each line carefully gives insights about how different the three are, but also where they are somewhat overlapping. So, in making choices about what form of inquiry to choose in your research or design, a schema like this may help since it not only explains but also provides with concepts that can guide the understanding of purpose and measure of success. For instance, you can examine what your intention is, what you motivation is, what your preferred form of understanding is, etc. Given any choice also tells you what the measure fo success should be. So, if you are truly looking for inquiry for understanding (under 'fundamentals') that can lead to 'enlightenment' of some kind, it is not appropriate to see 'facts' to be part of the measure of success.

However, choosing a research approach or a design approach is not a simple question of deciding which 'design of inquiry and action' to "use". The richness and specifics of the particular situation, your purpose and intention leads to complex considerations regarding how all three forms can inform and enrich an inquiry. This is shown in Figure 1.5 below.

Design or research is never a question of finding out what the correct or best existing approach is, instead it is a complex process of judgment that weighs all aspects in an attempt to reach an approach that makes sense, that is guided by intention, that has a purpose and is based on a clear understanding of what the measure of success is.

This may be a fairly abstract and theoretical approach to the question of how to choose an approach for inquiry in design or research, but it does provide some support and it can lead to more informed choices.