Some quick thoughts towards design thinking

Some thoughts taken from Mindspace blog discussing the article More from Mentors to the Masters

With some particularly interesting points on design thinking that I think is more than relevant

"The extent of overlap between design thinking and social-sciences and research thinking. I particularly found mysef nodding at this first note by Yves Behar, Founder, fuseproject - Design thinking is about filtering culture. To do that, you have to put yourself in the broadest possible context to understand from all different angles how people live and work. It’s not enough to be an observer, even an empathic one. You have to observe at the intersection of things."

And again very useful thought from Charles Eames

Charles Eames was asked the question,

"What are the boundaries of design?"

He answered,

"What are the boundaries of problems?"

- Charles Eames

Some thing to keep a careful eye on...

I am particularly interested in the new ebook reader by Amazon - Kindle and any potential future success it may or may not have, from the initial brief reports it seems it may have captured in the design some usability?? Although it shall remain open though to capture more reviews and more long term use as points such as the inability to read PDF documents has been raised as some what frustrating.

A selection of some reports follows:

Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7101392.stm

Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.

The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.

Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers - instead content arrives via wireless.

Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.

New addition

"We've been working on Kindle for more than three years," said Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in a statement.

"Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands -- to get out of the way -- so you can enjoy your reading," he said.

I am particularly for the reason that the objective design was/reads that Amazon wanted the
device to disappear in the users hands - much like a book would ?

- BBC update link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7107118.stm

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out despite skepticism about whether the device will prove popular.

A notice on the Kindle pages on the Amazon web store said "heavy customer demand" for the device meant it would be out of stock until 3 December.

Since its launch on 19 November the device has been widely examined but opinions about it are mixed.

It has won praise for being easy to use but many have criticised the way it forces people to pay for free content.

- The Kindle and its design and its usability will be tracked to capture reviews to understand and gain some insight into its workings as may be helpful to provide some insight ?

- Some more reading
Newsweek story - The future of reading
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

And again a particularly interesting blog post from Erik Stolterman which is most helpful in my own thoughts for my own blog post too.

- The Amazon Kindle

By Erik Stolterman

Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com offers a new digital book reader tool. It is called the Amazon Kindle. Just by looking at the descriptions and videos you get quite a good idea about the design. I think this is a design that deserves examination. The Kindle has some new technology, such as the use of e-ink. I have no idea if and how the Kindle will work as a reading tool. But from a design point of view it raises some interesting questions. It is for instance clear that the design is intentionally not aimed at adding as much functionality as possible. There are several serious limitations, but they are all intentional and based on a clear design idea, which is that this is first of all (and maybe only) a reading device. It is not a phone, a pda,it does not contain a browser, etc, it seems as if it is not even a calculator! Does it have a clock :-) It comes with free wifi but only to the Amazon e-bookstore and Wikipedia. Anyhow, is this a sign of what we will see in the the coming years of interaction design? Devices and tools that are designed for very specific purposes, ignoring opportunities and features that would be so easy to add? Well, we'll see. There are no real good reviews yet of the Kindle, mostly descriptions, so we will wait and see....

The identification of what a design problem is continued...

Again the following has been taken from from the book - Donald Schön's The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action and the blog/book review of the book by Dan Saffer who is an Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path and the author of the book Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices.

This last section captures what it means to be a reflective practitioner and in my own view a way in which interaction design can be so open to different frames depending upon what the problem is, so need to be able to use a selection of different frames as you would for different tools for a job and where the concept of frame analysis is so relevant.

"What does it mean to be a reflective practitioner? Schön says

[E]ach individual develops his own way of framing his role. Whether he chooses his role frame from the profession's repertoire, or fashions it for himself, his professional knowledge takes on the characteristics of a system. The problem he sets, the strategies he employs, the facts he treats as relevant, and his interpersonal theories of action are bound up with his way of framing his role.

This is why, I think, we see so many clashes on the various design mailing lists about what to call ourselves, what our roles should be, and where the boundaries are for disciplines like experience design and interaction design. It is different frames colliding. One practitioner thinks interaction design is interface design, another thinks interface design is a subset of interaction design, and on and on. Schön suggests that rather than fight about which of these frames is the correct one, we simply practice "frame analysis."

When a practitioner becomes aware of his frames, he also becomes aware of the possibility for alternate ways of framing the reality of his practice. He takes note of the values and norms to which he has given priority, and those he has given less importance, or left out of the frame altogether...Frame analysis may help practitioners to become aware of their tacit frames and thereby lead them to experience the dilemmas inherent in professional pluralism. Once practitioners notice they actively construct the reality of their practice and become aware of the variety of frames available to them, they begin to see the need to reflect-in-action on their previous tacit frames.

Schön is basically saying, Put down your arms. In all professional practices, there are different schools of thought which often result in very different personal frames for practice. If we instead look at them as frames, we can consider and even move between them as necessary. For some projects, it may make sense to step outside of the frame of "interaction designer" and instead take on the frame of "interface designer" and visa versa."

The questions from the previous posting need to look to still be addressed and a summary of further thoughts of framing problems for my own context to be added....

The identification what a design problem is ?

The following has been taken from from the book - Donald Schön's The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action

and the blog/book review of the book by Dan Saffer who is an Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path and the author of the book Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices.

http://www.odannyboy.com/blog/new_archives/2007/09/review_the_refl.html

The attraction of this book has been the way in which the design problem is set out to be understood and then defined, which in the context of complex design problems would be applicable.

The aim/relevance of the following is to just to bring about the thoughts of Donald Schön and the views of Dan Saffer to understand in such a way which may have application to my own design problems and to highlight and actually be able to fully understand the problem which has to be a key issue before attempting any real design in such a complex environment that the lab book exists in.The book summary is also to be used to pick my own way through the book so will leave open to be able to come back to.

The Reflective Practitioner was written in the early 1980s and took as its premise that the world of work was changing rapidly, that there was a group of people (Richard Florida's Creative Class mostly) who, unlike doctors, engineers, and scientists, didn't rely on technical knowledge for their expertise. Schön calls these people "practitioners" and their ranks include everything from social workers to city planners to architects and designers. People who, in the words of Charles Reich, "can be counted on to do their job, but not necessarily to define it."

Practitioners, Schön says, have "an awareness of complexity that resists the skills and techniques of traditional expertise" and are "frequently embroiled in conflicts of values, goals, purposes, and interests." (Much like ever project I've ever worked on!) Being a practitioner means that the traditional methods and techniques of analytical thinking and scientific process simply don't work. Problems in the messy world of practitioners "are interconnected, environments are turbulent, and the future is indeterminate." What is called for under these conditions, Schön argues, are professionals who can, as Russell Ackoff says, "design a desirable future and invent ways of bringing it about."

• Really think the next section is applicable
  

Schön says,

In real-world practice, problems do not present themselves to practitioners as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of problematic situations that are puzzling, troubling, and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem, a practitioner must do a certain kind of work. He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense.

Problem setting is where we "name the things to which we will attend and frame the context to which we will attend to them." This cannot be achieved by Technical Rationality, because Technical Rationality depends on understanding what the end is. Only through naming and framing, which do not depend on applying general scientific principles, can these complex problems eventually be solved.

This, however, doesn't stop practitioners from looking for tried-and-true methods and techniques that will solve all their problems in a neat way. You see this all the time with designers at conferences and on mailing lists, searching for the next great method. Schön says that for practitioners, replying on methods and techniques will leave them solving problems of relatively little importance, for both clients and society at large. It is only by "descending into the swamp" where the practitioners must forsake technical rigor that the really important and challenging problems will be found

• the concept of giving up technical rigor not so sure in terms of validity of results but would agree it would provide a more useful insight, could you have a balance between the two?
  

- The concept of Reflection-in-action

The everyday life of practitioners involves "tacit knowing-in-action," that is, we instinctively know stuff and know how to do stuff, even if we can't explain how to do it. We make judgments, evaluate situations, and recognize patterns without much thought.

• Reflection-in-action works, according to Schön:

"When the phenomenon at hand eludes the normal categories of knowledge-in-practice, presenting itself as unique or unstable, the practitioner may surface and criticize his initial understanding of the phenomenon, construct a new description of it, and test the new description by an on-the-spot experiment.


How do practitioners know if they have chosen the right frame? Schön lays out the criteria:

1. Can I solve the problem I have set?
2. Do I like what I get when I solve this problem?
3. Have I made the situation coherent?
4. Have I made it congruent with my fundamental values and theories?
5. Have I kept inquiry moving?

Thus, Schön, says, practitioners judge a "problem-setting by the quality and direction of the reflective conversation to which it leads. This judgement rests, at least in part, on his perception of potentials for coherence and congruence which he can realize through his further inquiry."

• The criteria set out is of real interest, and could look to understand own problem ? May also like to look at exist work to understand/evaluate how the existing e-lab book systems
  are defined in actually understanding the problem?
  

• The concept and benefits of framing design problems from the criteria is captured in the next section

Framing a problem means making a hypothesis of the situation. But you need to test the frame somehow, and that is where experiments come in.

Reflective practitioners perform on-the-spot experiments to see if they have framed the problem in the correct way, meaning that the problem can be tackled in a manner that is agreeable to the practitioner and that keeps the "inquiry" moving ahead. The practitioner takes into account the unique features of the problem in crafting the experiment, drawing on "a repertoire of examples, images, understandings, and actions."

Unlike scientists, practitioners undertake these experiments not just to understand the situation, but to change it into something better. Experiments consist of "moves" like in chess. Any hypothesis has to "lend itself to embodiment in a move." A practitioner makes a move and sees how the situation "responds" to that move, each move acting as a sort of "exploratory probe" of the situation.

Here is Schön on how the experiments work:

The practitioner's hypothesis testing consists of moves that change the phenomena to make the hypothesis fit...The practitioner makes his hypothesis come true. He acts as though his hypothesis were in the imperative mood. He says, in effect, "Let it be the case that X..." and shapes the situation so that X becomes true.

Schön calls the experiments "a game with the situation." Practitioners try to make situation conform to the hypotheses, but have to remain open to the possibility that they won't.

If a move doesn't work, practitioners should "surface the theory implicit in the move, [critize] it, [restructure] it, and [test] the new theory by inventing a move consistent with it." When practitioners find the changes to the situation created by their moves to be satisfactory, that is when they should stop experimenting, and/or move on to the next part of the situation.

By creating these in-the-stuation experiments, Schön notes, rightly, that "practice is a kind of research."

If a move doesn't work, practitioners should "surface the theory implicit in the move, [critize] it, [restructure] it, and [test] the new theory by inventing a move consistent with it." When practitioners find the changes to the situation created by their moves to be satisfactory, that is when they should stop experimenting, and/or move on to the next part of the situation.

By creating these in-the-situation experiments, Schön notes, rightly, that "practice is a kind of research."

• Point wish to explore further here from the book more directly, for the reason that from the discussions with scientist the nature of what is described above very much relates to the nature of research work that is being conducted
• So point is to clarify what scientists as defined by Schön and clarify if what Schön notes defines to be a practitioner would relate to the concept of what scientist that I am observing would be defined by myself in my own work. (slightly off concept of setting what the design problem is but using to gain if any insight can be gained about nature of what a scientist can be perceived to be)
  

Book postings

Some notes and points taken from the book ‘Making Use: scenario based design of Human Computer Interactions’ Some points picked up more as linked into the interviews with several scientists that have conducted this week as observed several scenarios of use of the lab book which have been insightful, but have found several useful points from chapter 2 of book, which captures some useful points on design.

- Design problems never completely satisfy their starting conditions, a critical step in design is identifying the relevant description of the current situation in the world that is to be altered by the design work. Problems can be caused by the design description of the current situation of the world that drives the design reasoning, can be incomplete, inaccurate or irrelevant.

- A second characteristic of design problems is the possible move that designers can take in reasoning from a description of the current situation, a need to be able to understand what steps are possible, relevant, and productive none is given in a design problem.

- A third difficulty is design problems will no specify the goal or solution state, the initial understanding of the problem does not specify precisely how to provide the solution of better access for example. When the solution state is specified the design work is complete.

These initial 3 problems are captured in the work by Walter Reiteman (1965) cognition and thought: (Follow up note to pick up this book and read though, as the work is described to take concern in contrasting design problems with puzzle problems studies in academic psychology, which might be a different useful perspective however it is mentioned that the approach may mask several design properties particularly important in the design of new technologies.)

- A fourth design problem characteristic is the trade off of problems among many different elements, each of which may constrain resources and the design for the other, must be able to decide the priority when conflicts arise.

- A fifth property of design problems is the requirement of a diversity of skills and knowledge, it is in this that bringing together various experts of their fields that the design problem can be clarified and a solution proposed. Again trades offs among the design elements and the need to marshal diverse knowledge and skills(is this a knowledge management issue ?) could be surely be important factors in the design.

- The sixth characteristic of a design problem is the impact which the design has on people, a design problem leads to the transformations and so alters human activity and experiences often in ways that transcend the boundaries of original design reasoning

Some points also from the book ‘The inmates are running the asylum’ by Alan Cooper.

- Concept of the dancing bear – taken from pg 27

Scenario of a man which leads on a dancing bear in front of the towns people, considered a wonderful sight as the bear shuffles around and so in reality is a terrible dancer, but it is the wonder that the bear dances at all.

This is problem of the interaction with the technology, people are prepared to put up with technology that is able to work at all, interaction problems are accepted in order to gain some benefit. The difficulty of devising a better interaction isn’t what makes the so intractable, it is instead our/my universal willingness to accept bad interaction as an unavoidable cost.

It is this judgement on cognitive friction is avoidable and that the cognitive friction does not come from technology it comes from the controllers of technology.

When the interaction and interface is expressed more in terms of implementation products are designed more in accordance with an ‘implementation model’, this is not a positive direction as it is effectively away from the human user.

- Notes on goal directed design taken from pg 149

I had wanted to get this down as would see it possible linking to the initial 3 characteristic problems of design as mentioned above,

Before the digital age design was in principle an aesthetic thing based on views of quality, with the digital age cognitive friction comes with the interaction and the interaction is necessary as there is a goal. It is based on this light that the nature of design evolves for the reason that the design must be able to meet user goals in addition to understanding the aesthetic component.

This has lead to the quality of design being able to be measure more based on the ability to achieve user goals.

Good interaction design has meaning only in the context of a person actually using it for some purpose.

- You cannot have purpose without people

The two are inseparable these two element are the basis of the design process of personas and goals - people and purposes.

The essence of good interaction design is to devise interactions that let users achieve their practical goals without violating their personal goals.

Personal goals – don’t feel stupid, no mistakes, efficient in working, enjoyable to use.

Corporate goals – these are organisational based goals, can questioned/ developed for lab environment , based on initial interviews is to produce research papers and obtain research grants

Practical Goals – bridge gap between corporate and personal goals again can questioned/ developed for lab environment

False goals – false goals are essential tasks they are a means to an end but not the end of the process, examples are save memory, easy to learn, increase graphic beauty

A note on goals and tasks:

– A goal is the end result.

– A task is a step which is taken to get to get to the goal.

In summary too be able to come back and continually reflect of the nature of the issues raised by both of these authors could help provide some useful insight.

Note quotes left out as large extracts taken from both books used page numbers as reference.

Scrolling Forward

Some reflection on the book of
Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age
by David M. Levy - all quotes taken from book

A collection of thoughts picked out from the book in essence has been used to gain insight into the use of paper documents and the way documents could move to be digitised.

To ensure a simple break down and to understand what a document can offer the world, for this a simple receipt is broken down in order to understand what it portrays

The crucial perspective is the document captures a story a very selective one but in essence a story, in this scenario a simple proof of purchase is the function. In the context of the global economy a little receipt is pretty useful in terms of recording a transaction, more now so done digitally but the author raises how it is able to do this in a credible manner. To understand this the author recommends that you must take a step back from the receipt and actually look at the way the receipt is situated in the "web of human practices and knowledge distribution through space and time." -pg18

And so a document regardless of whether a book or receipt it is something which is able to capture a persons thoughts or ideas or some information that otherwise would be lost in time.

the discussion then takes account of how to view documents and their enabling technologies may well need to see how form, content and medium are not to be fully separated constituents in our lives and in the richness of the experience - p58

The relevance of this links in my opinion directly to the hardware research observations in how classification attempts to capture a portion of what a physical lab book offers, and what has been observed that without the entire experience (effectively all the affordances of a physical book ) then this may well be an indication to the shortcomings of the designs ?

It is also captured how digital technologies are littered with crashes, and believes a physical book will always hold a place because of what it is - an artifact of human creativity. This emotional attachment I personally think is far from how scientists potentially would see their lab books so part of the design consideration could lie in overcoming the hurdle of an attachment with paper based working ? I don't think any technology should change work flow but understand it

The author goes on to capture the problem in a nutshell "In the world of paper , documents are realised as stable, bound physical objects. Once a paper document comes into being it loses its dependence on the technologies that were used to manufacture it" - pg 152
The scenario then given how a photocopied memo loses any attachment to the technology and essentially has a freedom to be used as desired.

In addition to this an account must be made to understand the way in which technologies work this is viewed as " the service of human social aims " but my interpretation and the additional information from the author is with us(people) and how technology can work to and maintain the world.

Finally the author captures what could be viewed as a fundamental problem for the reason "When we fixate on particular forms and technologies, taking them in and of themselves to be carries of what we want either to embrace or resist.Not only do we fail to see the forms and technologies in their full complexity but we use them in their symbolic simplicity, as blunt instruments which we use to beat one another over the head. "

The author goes on to highlight how further mistakes are made we an assumption is made that one form of technology must replace another

The modes of operation only conflict when we insist that one or the other is the way to operate and what is most in need of is a balance , this is stated by the author as a depersonalised discernment of ways, whether the nature of this is questionable in the context of the lab book is one which can go on to be questioned.

Scientist interview

A brief summary of a just by chance informal interview I was able to have with an student scientist from the area of oceanography, the scientist uses lab notebooks so was just purely curious how they view and use a notebook. (I think the PhD has officially all my thoughts as was too good an opportunity to turn down)

Just a few points to consider and wish to be aware of how is this information interpreted through myself and how I would look to interpret in such design, how would the central points be selected from with what would be view to be important, I think also it can just be helpful in terms of thoughts of understanding how to be able to gain information from interviews


- Initial Overview
Scientist O has studying oceanography uses a laboratory book to record experiments made in a laboratory environment and has made several field trips where a field book is used to record information from the field.

- Scenario 1- field trip in Wales

Field trip involved observation of rock formations on the coast, was particularly stressed by scientist how was in some difficult places such as high up on a rock ledge to take notes.

The structure of the field notebook was set out in very particular way, this was noted to be enforced from the lectures as the books are known to laid out in a particular way

For this field trip the structure was as follows
introduction information - this contained information such as the date, longitude and latitude of the position of study, the aim of the study, transport how you got to the position and your own personal mood eg happy sad this was recorded as it is noted to effect the way the study is done.

The central observations were then made and recorded, diagrams were very common in this part, (one diagram was marked by a teacher to ensure it had the correct labeling)

Finally a summary of how the aims have been met, a clear page is kept between each observation/experiment to show clarity.

This was enforced by Scientist O as actually stapled in a extra page as did not have enough room in on page so the notes would have become slightly unorganised, but wished to kept all the relevant information together and would have broken the structure.

Strong point made too notes would be elaborated on when back home for the evening sat at a table, as easy to write compared to making notes in the field.

- Scenario 2 - field trip in Scotland on boat

Very similar type of structure, but with the major difference that different of information.

Scientist required to make the same observations though through the entire journey, this can be dependent on the factors that are going to be controlled or observed for the duration of the trip, a major one noted for the particular experiment was cloud cover , so each day scientist observed the cloud cover from a particular point on the boat and measured and recorded the information.

It was noted too that practices are made in terms of how the procedures should be followed, the example given was experiment would take samples at point 1 to 5 through the lake but due to changes with boats course the samples were taken in a different order, subsequently the paper based book was flexible to allow for this type of change in how the samples were taken.

With this field study there was a particularly large amount of data that had to be entered into spreadsheets, strange issue raised with this as on a boat and this has the ability to effect so the research could be affected if table had to be drawn out and a persons mental state the tables are pre set out so scientist just has to add a reading.


-General comments

With the context of the work there is a noticeable difference with the use of two lab books, there was a general structure of how the books should be laid out, this in my own view was enforced by the lectures to ensure good practice and when the scientist was asked if you could pick up any lab book it was easily answered yes, it was shown how diagrams are marked for the correct annotations and labels too all with the aim it appeared to show sufficient information, there seemed to be little concern with readability of someone else's notes as the structure would allow and assist with understanding how a person has gone about an experiment.

general observation of how they are personal document of the scientists thoughts, it was observed how additional information was added such as a post it note of relevant web site that was particularly useful for the work being carried out

Pictures were taken and glued in the back of the book of the Wales field trip, of particular wider views of the rocks as provide a more general overview of the rocks, these are then use in combination with the diagrams made once back and the results are analysed in the laboratory.

Is significant differences between lab books concerned with and oceanography based books, but in terms of how they are used would at this stage think may be similarities between them the structure seems to be an interesting aspect from the interview although would need to question further if such structures are enforced in lab books concerned.

Does the enforced structure ensure good practice? and so allow and make it easier for other scientist to be able to pick up some Else's work and be able to read it ?

The ability of a paper based book for what is required for the task is well suited and the aspect of affordances introduced by the work of Sellen & Harper can be understood further, can go back to Sellen and Harper to question if a task/actual work flow could be seen to have affordances in what would be ideally required - as alternative way of viewing what would be required from any object that would have to document the process?

Some other thoughts from relevant papers which have been read (ACM references)

Ron B. Yeh and Scott Klemmer. Field Notes on Field Notes: Informing Technology Support for Biologists - this paper also generalises how scientists formulate ideas which may be useful to think of in terms of structure

Yeh, R., Liao, C., Klemmer, S., Guimbretière, F., Lee, B., Kakaradov, B., Stamberger, J., and Paepcke, A. 2006. ButterflyNet: a mobile capture and access system for field biology research. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22 - 27, 2006).


- Abigail J. Sellen , Richard H.R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003