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Design research

Relating Systems Thinking and Design 2013 Symposium Proceedings

Added on 29 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Some deep thinking regarding design and systems thinking by academia.

“The second Oslo symposium engaged over 120 participants in the emerging renaissance of systems thinking in design. The emerging context is being revealed in transdisciplinary responses to increasing complexity in all challenges faced by designers, innovators, and decision makers everywhere. Our worlds have become too complex for linear and goal-driven management, as the modern world is experiencing in hopelessly complicated social, economic, and political institutions. The global demand for sustainability, democratic economies, and better education, employment, and development has resulted in new movements, but perhaps insufficient redesign. The emerging social arrangements have become too complex for conventional thinking.”

(Systemic Design: Emerging contexts for systems perspectives in design)

Systems & design thinking: A conceptual framework for their integration (.pdf)

Added on 22 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Two mindsets integrated, one from the 20th century, the other from the 21st century.

“This paper explores the relationship between Systems and Design Thinking. It specifically looks into the role of Design in Systems Thinking and how looking at the world through a systems lens influences Design. Our intention is to show the critical concepts developed in the Systems and Design Thinking fields, their underlying assumptions, and the ways in which they can be integrated as a cohesive conceptual framework. While there are many important distinctions that must be considered to understand the similarities and differences of these concepts, gaining a complete understanding of these factors is more than can be covered in this paper. Nevertheless, the most critical classifying variable used to distinguish these concepts will be discussed in order to make their integration possible. This variable, the recognition of purposeful behavior, will be used to develop a conceptual vision for how a combined approach can be used to research, plan, design and manage social systems. Systems in which people play the principle role.”

(Authors: John Pourdehnad, Erica R. Wexler, and Dennis V. Wilson)

The evolving purpose of design: Design is about communication and respect as much as function

Added on 10 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

How curation can make a big difference.

“I’ve had quite a bit of interaction with venture capitalists there, and I must say I was quite disappointed, she said. I was amazed that they consider design an embellishment, something superfluous. Yes, I know that Steve Jobs is always cited as a master of design, and that he’s a symbol for Silicon Valley. But Jobs was only one guy, and his vision was his vision. You can’t imitate Jobs. And frankly, at this point, his approach is a bit old-fashioned. He was obsessed with beauty and purity above all else. For the strongest designs, you have to be willing to get a little dirty. I have no problem with beautiful objects, but the purpose of design isn’t to be beautiful — it’s to communicate, to inform clearly and concisely. Again, it’s about respect, both for the object and the person who uses it.”

(Glen Martin a.k.a. @GlenWM5440 ~ O’Reilly Solid)

Bringing users into your process through Participatory Design

Added on 7 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

I hear the distant voices of Pelle Ehn, Susanne Bødker and Morten Kyng calling us.

“We’ve been seeing an intense pressure on businesses to rapidly make sense of customer needs and demands, then incorporate that feedback into new or existing products. For today’s designers, it can be challenging to make well-informed decisions about the large and small details that comprise these products, especially when working within the constraints of an agile/scrum methodology.”

(David Sherwin a.k.a. @changeorder ~frog Design Mind)

Systemic design principles for complex social systems

Added on 3 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Economic, technological and social trends force designers to do some deep reflective thinking on what they’re working on.

“Systemic design is not a design discipline (e.g. graphic or industrial design) but an orientation, a next-generation practice developed by necessity to advance design practices in systemic problems. As a strong practice of design, the ultimate aim is to co-design better policies, programs and service systems. The methods and principles enabling systemic design are drawn from many schools of thought, in both systems and design thinking. The objective of the systemic design project is to affirmatively integrate systems thinking and systems methods to guide human-centered design for complex, multi-system and multi-stakeholder services and programs.”

(Peter Jones a.k.a. @redesign)

Why so much ‘science’ used in design is ‘bs’: Android, Losada and Frankfurt

Added on 6 March 2014 Peter Bogaards
Using power words doesn’t make any opinion any better.

“It looks like Google’s Android UX team used a now-debunked research paper to guide much of their UX work. Does this mean the Android interface now needs to change? Probably not, and that might be worse. I’ll look at what this means and how we can be more careful when using research to inform our work.”

(MJ Parnell a.k.a. @Neovenator ~ Hopeful Monsters)

Content planning: How to use UX research to uncover hidden needs

Added on 18 February 2014 Peter Bogaards
CS and UX in concert.

“Understanding how people think and what makes them tick is the common building block behind both creating content and designing experiences that matter to people. But before you dive into content planning or begin designing an experience, you have to understand what your audience finds meaningful. This is where UX research can provide insight to help inform content marketing efforts.”

(Caitlin Vlastakis Smith a.k.a. @caitvsmith ~ Content Marketing Institute)

Designing moments of meaning and pleasure: Experience design and happiness

Added on 9 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Let’s be happy. Sure, for the rest of our life.

“While society changes its focus from ‘well-fare’ to ‘well-being’, design becomes increasingly interested in the question whether it can design for happiness. In the present paper, we outline Experience Design, an approach which places pleasurable and meaningful moments at the center of all design efforts. We discuss reasons for focusing on experiences, and provide conceptual tools to help designers, such as a model of an artifact as explicitly consisting of both the material and the experiential. We suggest psychological needs as a way to understand and categorize experiences, and ‘experience patterns’ as a tool to distill the ‘essence’ of an experience for inscribing it into artifacts. Finally, we briefly reflect upon the morality implied by such experiential artifacts.”

(Marc Hassenzahl et al. ~ International Journal of Design 7.3)

Nine ways to get the most out of Design Thinking

Added on 26 November 2013 Peter Bogaards
DT is a mindset, not a silver bullet.

“Design thinking is a slightly murky concept that means different things to different people. At heart, though, it is about fusing the creative and open-ended with the analytical and operational, combining very different ways of thinking and acting. This is, of course, easier in theory than in practice. How do you get children’s book authors and chemical engineers to click into something greater than the sum of the parts — rather than devolve into warring camps? Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way as CEO and rules we all try to adhere to at Lippincott.”

(Rick Wise ~ Fast.CoDesign) ~ courtesy of riander

UX and the civilizing process

Added on 18 November 2013 Peter Bogaards
Computers start to evoke all kinds of human reactions, including civil ones.

“The concept of a person is arguably the most important interface ever developed. (…) As software becomes increasingly complex and entangled in our lives, we begin to treat it more and more like an interaction partner. Losing patience with software is a common sentiment, but we also feel comfort, gratitude, or suspicion. Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves studied some of these tendencies formally, in the lab, where they took classic social psychology experiments but replaced one of the interactants with a computer. What they found is that humans exhibit a range of social emotions and attitudes toward computers, including cooperation and even politeness. It seems that we’re wired to treat computers as people.”

(Kevin Simler a.k.a. @KevinSimler ~ Ribbon Farm)

Information architecture: Beyond web sites, apps, and screens

Added on 1 November 2013 Peter Bogaards
I couldn’t agree more with the urge to extend our scope and need for foundational theories.

“Can a craft-like profession of information architecture that lacks internal theory keep up with the growing complexities of ubiquitous ecosystems that comprise both digital and physical objects? I don’t think so. To position the practice of information architecture for future success, we must not wait for the future to arrive, but try to anticipate it – and, in some cases, even help to create it. To offer theories of information architecture that transcend Web sites, applications, and screens, we need to pursue original theories of information architecture that address Web sites, applications, and screens, period. If we fail to do this, Toon and the rest of the IA community will have to be satisfied with stolen insights from other fields.”

(Nathaniel Davis a.k.a. @iatheory ~ UXmatters)

Replacing the user story with the job story

Added on 23 September 2013 Peter Bogaards
These stories will go further than agile, scrum or service design.

“I’ve written about the problem with user stories before. At the time, I found it better to just have the team talk over proposed changes to the product. This worked great when the team had gelled and the product is very mature; however, now I’m working with a new team and building a product from scratch. In this case, because our canvas is blank, we are having trouble getting on the same page when it comes to customer motivations, events and expectations. But today, things have turned around. I’ve come across a great way to use the jobs to be done philosophy to help define features. I call them ‘Job Stories’.”

(Alan Klement a.k.a. @alanklement)

Five dangerous ideas for the future of design education

Added on 16 September 2013 Peter Bogaards
Is it old versus new, young, and upcoming?

“Design students lack cultural depth and awareness. Several representatives from leading design agencies expressed variations on this theme. Lack of curiosity and personal development were described as particular concerns. (…) I would take someone who is able to read over someone who is able to draw any day.”

(Tom Berno a.k.a. @tberno ~ dmi dialog)

Brenda Laurel delivered keynote at UX Week 2013

Added on 12 September 2013 Peter Bogaards
Always delivers great thoughts in the theatre.

“Brenda Laurel has worked in interactive media since 1976. She currently serves as an adjunct professor in Computer Science Department at U. C. Santa Cruz. She served as professor and founding chair of the Graduate Program in Design at California College of Arts from 2006 to 2012. She designed and chaired the graduate Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (2001-2006) and was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Labs (2005-2006). Based on her research in gender and technology at Interval Research (1992-1996), she co-founded Purple Moon in 1996 to create interactive media for girls. In 1990 she co-founded Telepresence Research, Inc., focusing on virtual reality and remote presence. Other employers include Atari, Activision, and Apple. Her books include The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design(1990), Computers as Theatre(1991), Utopian Entrepreneur (2001), and Design Research: Methods and Perspectives (2004). Her most recent writing, Gaian IXD, was the cover article in the Sep-Oct 2011 issue of the journal Interactions. She earned her BA (1972) from DePauw University and her MFA (1975) and PhD. in Theatre (1986) from the Ohio State University.”

(Brenda Laurel a.k.a. @blaurel ~ UX Week 2013)