DESIGN IS SOCIAL

John Maeda, Computer Scientist, MBA, Designer, Leader, and...

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:32:00 -0400

John Maeda, Computer Scientist, MBA, Designer, Leader, and President of RISD on the power of design for Healthcare. I particularly like the Porter’s 5 forces analysis of threats to the business of healthcare at 13:30.

My Advice on Designing for mHealth Experiences

Thu, 02 May 2013 19:04:21 -0400

I was recently interviewed for Diane Mehta’s ’Creativity, Design, and Innovation’ series on Forbes Tech. She was curious about our approach to designing digital products for the emerging mobile healthcare (mhealth) space. She’s done a nice piece summarizing our discussion.

Here’s an excerpt of the transcript:

“We’ve learned one thing in particular in the mobile space: Mobile is good at focused things. We’ve learned to hone the focus. Is it helping me figure out how to manage the logistics of my care? And if so, does it require some functionality that isn’t core to that mission? We really focus our innovation efforts on the core mission part.”

Click here to read the whole piece over at Forbes Tech.

"Interactive forms of media should not be critiqued as objects, but as systems, and critics should..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:56:49 -0400

“Interactive forms of media should not be critiqued as objects, but as systems, and critics should not be tastemakers, but people who ‘model an interpretation.’”

- Ayse Gursoy Everyone’s a critic: Hacktivists, online organizing, and the dark magic of down voting at MIT

On Ambiguity: Reflections on the IA Summit

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:41:00 -0400

The first in a series of posts exploring the nature of design. Originally posted on the Moment blog.

A cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. - Schrödinger’s Cat from Wikipedia

Schrödinger’s infamous paradox was the setup for one of my favorite talks at IA Summit this year: Schrödinger’s IA: Learning to Love Ambiguity, a twenty-minute talk by Kerry-Anne Gilowey, an independent Content Strategy consultant from South Africa. Gilowey used this thought experiment to open up the topic of ambiguity and reveal how navigating ambiguity is an important skill for problem solving.

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist who seemingly wasn’t very comfortable with ambiguity, or at least not with the ambiguity built into the assumptions that many physicists made when applying the prevailing theory of quantum mechanics, the “Copenhagen Interpretation.”

For those a who need a little refresher on quantum mechanics (like me… quanta-wha?), the Copenhagen Interpretation says that quantum mechanics does not describe an objective reality, but rather deals with the probabilities of observation. Thus, a system exists as a superposition of states and only becomes one or the other when an observation takes place. In plain language, in a situation of uncertainty all possibilities are true until an outcome is observed. The cat is simultaneously both alive and dead until you open the box and look at the cat.

Erwin didn’t buy it so he formulated this analogy of the cat in the box to illustrate what he saw as a flaw in this theory of quantum molecular structure–pointing out that, in reality, the cat cannot be simultaneously alive and dead. There is only one outcome, we just can’t know what it is yet. We won’t know until we open the box.

A variety of other interpretations of quantum mechanics have been proposed. My favorite, the many-worlds interpretation has inspired countless science fiction and comic book authors over the years. But, despite the other proposals, Schrödinger was not successful in overthrowing the orthodoxy of the Copenhagen Interpretation. He did, however, leave us with a nice little parable on the nature of ambiguity.

Gilowey began her talk with the observation that our first conversations with our clients often results in diagrams of plans and processes that attempt to make the work we will do understandable and tangible. She pointed out that those diagrams, though well intended, are pure fiction when compared with the actual process many of us take toward solving problems.

Further, if misused, our plans can be detrimental to the problem solving process. They trick us into thinking we know the path forward. We (and our clients) get attached to the steps, rather than the outcomes. We fail to question the assumptions. We march forward even when we’re not sure if we’re going in the right direction. We act confident. We act as if we know what the outcome will be. That’s what the client expects, right?

She didn’t eschew planning completely, but rather pointed out how our blind adherence to a plan in situations of uncertainty can cause a series of problems:

We look for answers before we truly understand the questions
We make decisions too early and close off future possibilities
We ignore things that don’t fit our pre-existing definitions
We favor forward motion over changing direction
We end up solving the wrong problems instead of finding the right ones

Gilowey then offered the famous “squiggly line” design process as a more accurate depiction of how the work of design actually happens (ironically, again visually referencing Schrödinger. This time his concept of Verschränkung, or “entanglement”).

Her thesis (and the most tweetable comment of the talk): “Discovery is not a phase, it’s an ongoing activity.” Like the Copenhagen Interpretation, “in a situation of uncertainty all possibilities are true until an outcome is observed.” Through our process of exploration, we observe the outcome, we open the box. We learn what a good answer looks like. When that happens, the line starts to flatten out.

Her challenge to us: embrace the squiggles–the ambiguity–and be open about how this process really works. We need to recognize and honor the uncertainty, keep the possibilities open, explore the problem space, try things, fail, then try something else before we can find the right path forward.

In this, she touched on one of the most salient points about how designers think–the design attitude.

Setting Gilowey’s talk aside for a minute, the predominant approach to problem solving in the business world–the one many of our clients learned in their MBA program–is not a design attitude, it is a decision-oriented one. In one of the fundamental essays on design thinking, Design Matters for Management, Richard Boland and Fred Collopy write about the differences in these two approaches.

Boland and Collopy’s definition of a decision attitude is an approach to problem solving that aims to get to the best answer based on past and present experience. Sounds like common sense, right? We’ve all employed this approach when designing I’m sure. What Boland and Collopy point out is that this attitude takes for granted that ‘good’ design work has already taken place and has created appropriate alternatives to decide between. Most management literature is devoted to the best methods for data gathering and analysis for the purpose of choosing between alternatives, not as much to generating the alternatives in the first place.

In contrast, their definition of a design attitude is is an approach to problem-solving that aims to get to the best answer possible within the skills, time, and resources of the team. A subtle difference, but a significant one. What this attitude takes for granted is that the process will not just involve deciding among existing alternatives, but will require the invention of new alternatives–a decidedly future-oriented posture in comparison with the decision attitude.

A design attitude is not bounded by past and present experience alone. Yes, we designers consider those inputs, but to those we add other inspirations. Then we work to create new alternatives from the inspiration those inputs provide. Most design methods are geared toward just this goal, identifying, designing and refining a range of alternatives.

Finally, as the authors point out, neither approach is the be-all and end-all of problem solving methodology. They both have their weaknesses:

The decision attitude is too susceptible to early closure of the problem-solving space, just as the design approach is too susceptible to keeping the search going long after it is beneficial. There is a time for openness and a time for closure in our project-based episodes of problem solving and managers need to develop strength in both the decision and design attitudes. - Managing as Designing

Keeping in mind the importance of both approaches to problem solving, let’s return to Gilowey’s talk. I’ll leave you with her advice on how to do the sometimes uncomfortable job of embracing ambiguity in a decision-making culture. As I see it, these seven points offer guidance on how to embrace a design attitude and bring your collaborators along for the ride.

Be honest
If you’re not going to work in a linear way, be open about it. Don’t hide behind a GANTT chart.

Be confident
Let your collaborators know when you don’t know the answer, but make sure they know that you DO know what questions to ask.

Communicate early and often
In situations of uncertainty, it’s important to make sure everyone knows what to expect.

Stay calm. It’s contagious
When things don’t go the way you expected, relax and roll with it. It’s all a part of the process.

Have a healthy fear of commitment
Actively consider whether you are doing the right thing, don’t just stick with an activity because it’s on the plan.

Collaborate with your client
Involve your client and your team in your process. Bringing them into the work removes the mystery and alleviates the doubt.

Commit to the work, not the deliverables
You’re there to provide a solution, not a document.

Thank you Kerry-Anne. Words to live by.

- -

P.S. If that design and decision attitude stuff sounds a lot like divergent and convergent thinking to you, you’re not the only one. But rather than go off on that tangent here, I’ll refer you to another IA Summit inspired post, Modes of Thinking, by Brad Nunnally and Andrea Mignolo, to get your fix on that concept.

Amazing: Occupy Wall Street does activism as a public...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:42:00 -0400

Amazing: Occupy Wall Street does activism as a public service.

theatlantic:

How Occupy Wall Street Lit Up Brooklyn with Love for Boston

The Illuminator was scheduled to put on another show Monday: a “tax evaders” video game for Tax Day, but when news of the tragedy broke, and remembered the feeling in the city following 9/11, they changed their plans. “We remembered how there was this unified moment of 9/11 that quickly became a culture of fear and a culture of war,” Tran said. Not only was upped security in New York going to make it difficult for the group to get to the corporate buildings they wanted to use for their projections, but Tran said the collective decided the message should be changed into something that people could “unite around.”

Read more. [Images: The Illuminator]

Jay Parkinson: Doing nothing is sometimes doing something.

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:29:08 -0400

Jay Parkinson: Doing nothing is sometimes doing something.:

In this short post. Jay makes a fascinatingly counter-intuitive point about the assumptions we make regarding medical intervention, the psychological and legal rationale behind how hospitals and physicians “design for care,” and the role the government plays through policy and financial incentives.

jayparkinsonmd:

As part of Obamacare, Medicare won’t pay hospitals for patients who are re-admitted for the same condition within 30 days of being discharged from the hospital. Because our hospitals profit off sickness, prior to this, hospitals would discharge patients half well and then make more money by…

"Design has multiple characteristics. Designers have been good at reframing, good at thinking of..."

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:28:00 -0400

“Design has multiple characteristics. Designers have been good at reframing, good at thinking of things in unusual ways, good at visualizing, and systems thinking. But “design thinking” as it has been marketed implies that design was a mindless activity until 10 years ago; it’s time to reframe the term “design thinking.””

- Patrick Whitney

Eames’ diagram of the design process

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:28:00 -0400

“Conviction and enthusiasm, that’s what we should all be aiming for.”

ilovecharts:

volume-control:

Charles Eames’ conceptual diagram of the design process, displayed at the 1969 exhibition “What Is Design” at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris. Pinched from Gloria Koenig’s excellent (and bargainous) book, Eames. Designers should be made to stare at this for ten minutes each morning. Conviction and enthusiasm: that’s what we should all be aiming for.

(via swisscheeseandbullets)

(via swisscheeseandbullets)

Huge @questlove on Lafyette

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:36:54 -0400

Huge @questlove on Lafyette

"I have great admiration for designers for many reasons, but when called upon to defend how they..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:48:24 -0400

“I have great admiration for designers for many reasons, but when called upon to defend how they create value for the corporation, they could have said, “Without us, you don’t have access to culture.” But they haven’t.”

- Grant McCracken

IDSA Conference Design (Education) Submissions

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:00:17 -0400

I was inspired over the weekend to craft a few abstracts for submission to the 2013 IDSA International Conference education track. Getting one accepted would give me a great excuse to keep thinking about it! They’re a bit rough, but take a look and see which (if any) you’d be interested in.

A Design Intervention At Occupy Wall Street, A Social Design Workshop

As best practice tells us, an ethnographic approach can be employed to better understand the people and organizations we design for, to give them products that not only address their needs, but that also actually make sense in their everyday lives. Ethnography has proven invaluable to design process. It provides a way to get beyond “user needs,” to reveal the shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that influence decisions about adoption and ongoing use.

In 2011 and 2012, the presenter taught a series of workshops on using ethnography as applied to user experience design for the New York chapter of the IxDA. He took as his research site, Liberty Square, a.k.a Zucotti Park, ground zero to the Occupy Wall Street movement and spent a cold winter afternoon there with his students, visiting, observing, and engaging with the occupiers in their two month old encampment. The goal, to determine what, if any, design interventions would improve their ability to communicate and coordinate their protest; with the hope to design for the social benefit of the Occupy movement as a whole. Following the fieldwork, a second group worked together to develop product concepts grounded in ethnographic data the fieldwork generated.

This talk will present the story of the two workshops, introducing ethnography to an audience of designers, giving them the opportunity to conduct participant observation, use their observations to develop innovative ideas, and reflect on how their experience changed their bias and allowed them to generate ideas for the social benefit of the occupiers that they wouldn’t have been able to generate without first-hand experience.

This is drawn from my IxDA workshop on Design Ethnography outlined on the Moment Blog, in my three part series on Designing for Occupy Wall Street.
Design Analysis & Synthesis: A Palette of Approaches

After the the research is done, and before you really know what your solution will be, this is when the insights that lead to great design emerge. Generating insights is the work of design analysis and synthesis, but this part of the design process is often a bit of a black box. Analysis and synthesis are underrepresented in academic and commercial literature and discussion. This lack of formal definition means that analysis and synthesis activities, though immensely valuable to design work, are difficult to teach to students, explain to management, or defend to clients.

Discussion of analysis and synthesis often centers on description of research and design methods. This method-led approach may also lead to leads to method fetishization (i.e., the overuse of personas) where the purpose of the activity may be obscured by the popularity of the deliverable it produces. Exposing the purpose of the methods we employ through an organizing framework may allow practitioners to more easily navigate, modify or invent new methods when the existing ones don’t fit.

In this session, a framework will be presented for organizing the design analysis and synthesis process, and more easily exposing the purpose of the activities and methods we use. The purpose of this framework is to equip practitioners to manage the complex arena of design research and analysis methods. The framework consists of a palette of five “types” of analysis and synthesis activities, Organization, Exploration, Ekphrasis (or Interpretation), Framing, and Projection, that expose the underlying mechanics of common design analysis and synthesis methods.

This is an expanded version of a workshop I ran at the 2009 EPIC conference in Chicago entitled Analysis and Synthesis for Design: An Elephant Surrounded by Blind Men. Katherine Bennett was kind enough to reference my work on her blog.
Cultural Affordances: A Social Perspective on Product Adoption

Interpretation of human culture is an important factor for understanding how and why people adopt and use tools and products, access services, create and appreciate art and design. But, outside of advanced academic pursuits, discussion of the implications of social and cultural factors are sorely lacking from most design discourse.

The prevalent current trend, a focus on ‘user-centered design’ generally provides a more cognitive framework for communicating use, guiding us to create and interpret design as if it were for a singular person. The notion of affordances has great merit to a designer, but stops unfortunately short of describing a useful concept for the evaluating and guiding design to fit society. In short, it helps product USE be better understood, but stops short of providing a framework for product adoption. Knitting a designed artifact (product, environment, or service, etc.) into the routines, belief systems, attitudes, values, goals, or practices that define human organization is too often left to chance, which decreases that product’s likelihood for adoption.

Looking to the social sciences, a social and cultural approach to this concept can be imagined. This talk will present the concept of Cultural Affordances: qualities of objects that enable people to interpret their UTILITY and VALUE through a social and cultural frame. We will discuss the ways that designers can use cultural affordances to more effectively design for adoption. Two example approaches, the inclusion of Skeuomorphs and Spandrels, will be offered and explored as strategies for designing artifacts with the obvious social or cultural value necessary for adoption.

This is drawn from the investgation I started when I presented a Pecha Kucha on Skeumorphs and Spandrels at the 2010 EPIC Conference in Tokyo. That presentation is available on Slideshare.

The Importance of "The Two Briefs"

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:00:16 -0400

In a lovely bit of cosmic alignment, John Maeda recently tweeted a link to an article about about types of design consulting problems. The article references his own notes from the 2010 World Economic Forum.

This is something I’ve been thinking about of late, as I’ve reflected on the best and most productive sort of design consulting engagements. I’ve struggled to articulate my thoughts quite as eloquently as John has. He nailed it for me so I thought I’d share it here.

In his post, he describes two sorts of design briefs. The first, he called an RFV (request for vision):

A [OPEN] brief that is broad and exploratory that can help understand the customer better to spark inventiveness. There is an openness to the solution space.

The second, an Engineered Spec:

A [NOW] brief with a clearly defined problem and the solution described at the end of the statement. What’s “off the table” in cost or functionality is made clear.

Interesting, but not yet particularly novel. However, he goes on to point out the differences in the two and that it is important to do both.

One could argue that NOW is about managing, and OPEN is about leading. Doing both is key.

This is the bit that speaks directly to our perspective at Moment. In order for us to do grounded and responsible OPEN work for our clients, we feel it is critical to understand the problem context at a deep and detailed level. As designers, the best way we can do that is to work with our client on their NOW challenges. Working both briefs gives us an advantage on each. So, as John says, “both briefs are welcome.”

Originally posted on the Moment blog.

"Design isn't special, it's shared" - Thoughts from the MX Conference

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:29:00 -0400

"Design isn't special, it's shared" - Thoughts from the MX Conference:

The expanded version of my prior post on the difference between ‘strategic design’ and ‘design AS strategy’ is up on the Moment Blog. An excerpt:

Designers are makers. We solve problems best through making. We focus on problems that keep our clients up at night no matter how ‘strategic’ they are. Our mantra, ‘If we make our clients successful, they will make us successful.’ Good design is a byproduct of this close collaboration and Reichelt’s ‘Show, don’t tell’ advice nails our approach to design consulting.

Design is the easy part... (sustaining is hard)

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:19:00 -0500

Design is the easy part... (sustaining is hard):

Earlier this week I spend a couple days in San Francisco at the MX (Managing Experience) conference, which I’ll write about at length later. For now, suffice it to say that a significant portion of the conversation was devoted to the issue of gaining support for design in a large organization.

Leisa Reichelt (@leisa) nicely sums up that issue in this article. I particularly like her description of the two approaches she has employed.

I’ve tried approaching this two ways – firstly playing the politics and trying to get involved higher up, spending lots of time in meetings, or secondly: just executing – making things that actually live out the strategy that mostly lives on posters and induction manuals…

It’s been the second approach that has worked better.

From our perspective at Moment, we’ve seen the same results. As we often say, ‘If we make our clients successful, they will make us successful.’ Good design is a by product of good collaboration and ‘Show, don’t tell’ is a great way to achieve that outcome.

To get a sense of what I mean, check out Moment Principal Shannon O’Brien’s take on it which she presented at MX: Process, Participatory Design & a Responsive Bagel: Creating An Environment Where Change Is Possible… and Sustainable. (Video to come)

"Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life … [They] have the ability to grasp momentous..."

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:26:55 -0500

“Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life … [They] have the ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, and to convert them into objects and ideas that people can actually understand and use.”

- Paola Antonelli from But Is It Art?

Next Wednesday Smart Design hosts Vijay Kumar to discuss his...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:35:41 -0500

Next Wednesday Smart Design hosts Vijay Kumar to discuss his brand new book, 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization. This will be a good one.

Designing Unpleasant Experiences - Embedding Morality in Objects

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:49:00 -0500

Designing Unpleasant Experiences - Embedding Morality in Objects:

It was called the Unpleasant Design Workshop and it was held by Gordan Savicic and Selena Savic, who run the amusing Unpleasant Design blog. While the workshop was intended to quickly brainstorm “a map of behaviours and social groups unpleasant design could discriminate against,” their website does that and more, cataloging photographs of urban phenomena vis-à-vis design and highlighting fanciful design proposals intended to curb rude, idiotic or antisocial behavior.

I’ll write more on this later, but I think this is an interesting provocation on the morality of objects à la Latour’s “Where are the Missing Masses?“

This Is Anthropology, A Student Response

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:52:00 -0500

This Is Anthropology, A Student Response :

You may or may not remember, but back in 2011, the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, said this:

If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state.
Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so.

At the time, I was organizing The Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, one of the larger gatherings of anthropologists outside academia. The conference was to be held in Savannah, GA, just a few miles away from the newly delcared “no-anthro-zone.” The conference focused on how the practice of ethnography can participate in positive social change. You can imagine there were some folks there who were a bit perturbed.

As a close observer or anthropological practice, and as a sometimes design ethnographer myself (see my series on Ethnography for User Experience), I was hopeful for some rebuttal to emerge from EPIC. But though there was a lot of discussion at the conference, nothing concrete came of it.

Today, however, I happened upon this, a poetic response from the perfect place, current anthropology students at USF.

Students at University of South Florida respond to Gov. Rick Scott’s assertion that the state of Florida doesn’t need any more anthropologists.

Well done, students. Well done.

jayparkinsonmd: Moves is disrupting Fitbit, the Fuelband, and...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:18:00 -0500

jayparkinsonmd:

Moves is disrupting Fitbit, the Fuelband, and all those other nonsensical gadgets.

I’ve been using Moves for about 2 weeks now and I really, really love it. It’s an app that essentially functions as a pedometer and runs in the background tracing where you’ve been throughout the day and measuring your steps.

As Jay points out, Moves is disrupting the market. It’s a great case study for digital product innovation… leveraging an already adopted platform, running unobtrusively (and automatically) in the background, and only asking for your attention when it actually has something valuable to say to you… calm technology at it’s best.

I particularly like his assessment of his experience with the physical / digital hybrid equivalent, the Fuelband from Nike. Digital isn’t always better, but sometimes it just makes sense.

"Our experience shows that consumers can tell you they want bigger buttons, fewer features, or a..."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:20:00 -0500

“Our experience shows that consumers can tell you they want bigger buttons, fewer features, or a better price. But these are relatively superficial needs. As we probe deeper, we find that consumers have a hard time articulating, or even envisioning, the kinds of products they won’t be able to do without over the next few years.”

- Robert Logan – Head of UI design, Thomson Consumer Electronics makes an argument for “experience research” in The Design Experience: The Role of Design and Designers in the Twenty-First Century