State of the Practice

PART 1: PROJECTS, TECHNIQUES

Part 1 tries to establish "appropriate structures for the design process" (Clarkson and Eckert, 2005) and reflects on how design knowledge can be applied to design problems. It begins with a loose set of design methods used in the field, incorporates two compact case studies, and elaborates with cognitive artefacts. This part is in many ways concerned with the production of operative, or empiricist knowledge.

1 Basic workflow

1) Visualisation of the interaction framework

• Interaction requirements are associated with tools, controls and display areas;
• Creation of wireframes and storyboards to render a user scenario.

2) Layout design and visual structure

Spatial distribution: The screen area is divided into large vertical and horizontal containers.
Visual hierarchies: UI-elements are weighted by frequency of use and ordered using visual characteristics.
Spatial grouping: UI-elements are grouped by means of identical spacing and frames.
Alignment: UI-elements are positioned consistently according to a scheme.

3) Style and Branding

Development of a design language and creation of design mockups;
The look-and-feel of major user interfaces is worked out with reference to existing wireframes.

4) Prototyping

Development of click-dummies to improve communication and to collect project related data:

• Aims and objectives, including users of the prototype and level of fidelity;
• Construction with PowerPoint, Dreamweaver, or Expression Blend;
• Organised data gathering [usability test];
• Data evaluation, design reviews, developer support.

2 UI-Styleguide

Most styleguides communicate essential aspects of a brand or Corporate identity by specifying the correct usage of logos, fonts, colours, layout schemes. A UI-Styleguide must, in addition, describe what the implemented user interface will do in terms of appearance and behaviour.

Problem space: It is difficult to statically represent every screen of a new interactive product in advance. Therefore, a UI-Styleguide needs to prepare for the future. It should be powerful enough to preserve an agreed upon look-and-feel; and it should be flexible enough to deal with human- and machine-driven variations.

Solution space: The UI-Styleguide was to provide a kind of toolbox (with specifications, patterns, guidelines, mockups, diagrams) that could be utilized by planners who write user stories and by developers who code them to build the interface. Important aspects of this endeavour would be to: (a) Preserve the integrity of the design language, (b) link with an online repository of digital assets, and (c) facilitate regular updating to reflect agile developments. In the document itself, styleguide-content was structured around branding requirements, layout, icons, and UI-elements, with additional chapters on ribbon design, infographics, and transition animations.

3 UI-Design Seminar

A productive collaborative process requires compatibility between techniques and a common vocabulary. The assignment involved the development of an inhouse UI-Design seminar for frontend developers. The aims of the seminar were to: (a) Transfer specialist design knowledge, (b) help participants use design representations more effectively in their work, and (c) improve interdisciplinary teamwork, including decision-making processes.

"Aus der Designvermittlung in designfremde Disziplinen resultieren zwei wichtige Ergebnisse: Zum einen wird dort eigene Designkompetenz angelegt, zum anderen entwickelt sich umfassendes Designverständnis." (Hammer, 2010)

Problem space: The opportunities provided by Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and HTML5/CSS3 led to new expectations in the usability and styling of industrial software, while suggesting overlapping areas between agile development and iterative design.

Solution space: The seminar was to generate a dynamic and participatory learning environment by incorporating project-based documentation, as well as physical, digital and cognitive artefacts. The program included a lecture, a PowerPoint presentation, moderated discussions, and a practical exercise.

4 Process diagramming

4.1 Waterfall model

4.2 Action-reaction pairs

The infinity symbol is used to represent a state machine where the HMI revolves around a dialogue driven by action-reaction pairs. The interface in the middle separates the human entity from the machine by 'splitting' the number eight to make two threes. As the traversal of space co-exists with the passing of time, each interaction marks a point of no return and thereby 'doubles' its entities (here shown by their sequential state).

4.3 Interaction-entities

a) X stands for interaction - in this case between the synaptic activity of a human and the switching circuits of a machine. If discreteness and equality are mutually exclusive then entities must fluctuate in order to interact. Every interaction marks a reduction of difference simulated by interfaces and denoted by the shared letter A. A connection between the OTHER and the SELF is like a 'mingling of the stars' which is shown as a 'territorialising double' on the other side*.

b) In pervasive computing (ubicomp), humans, objects, and environments cluster into adhoc ecologies to form a "multidimensional web of relationships" (Aarts and Marzano, 2003). The model of a 'pervasive interaction' needs to include: (1) The user who institutes and (2) a responsive structure that facilitates. The evolution of a running system may be represented as an exponentiation - that is, a raised to the n-th power, where a is the responsive system and n refers to the number of instantiations. A dynamic constellation could be modelled in a multidimensional phase space, where N stands for the number of entities in the system and each entity is linked with three position- and three momentum-variables to describe its trajectory in space.

▶ If it is impossible to know all stakeholders in a pervasive interaction, how are the concerns of clients to be transformed into a positive user experience? As the design of interfaces by assembling technological products and services around a future interaction must be subject to contingency, a design scenario also needs to consider socio-economic interrelationships. A reason for this is that each individual normally belongs to a society, while every member of society remains an individual.

* Oblique reference to Deleuzian Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation (Deleuze & Guattari for Architects, 2007)

5 Design intervention

For this project, a makeshift syntactic shell was devised to help mark up a designerly discourse. The impetus to synthesize a creative design method came from Donald Schön's Design Worlds and IDEO's Method Cards.



1) The first tag pair <-WORD-> was used to organise information from notes, collaborative documents, emails and instant messaging. Among the topics discussed were project goals, technical issues, design freedoms and constraints. Actionable information would be converted into sets of instructions.

2) The <-MOTION-> tag was to arrange evocative, even metaphysical aspects of the intervention. Tasks and instructions could be subjected to an energetic dynamism 'to push the project forward'. |Mot|ion represents the conversion of energy into animating life-force, tools, techniques, and HCI. Motion might be seen as an interface between creative intent and future objects. In this context, the term relates to both speed and space - or the generation of space at the edge of infinity.

3) The <-OBJECT-> tag considered the reciprocal connexion between word- and form-finding, the creation of digital objects and their spatial arrangement. When objects themselves become building blocks they don't just occupy space but also contribute to its evolution, as in morphic resonance.

4) Reduced certainty due to inadequate reporting, especially in a cross-disciplinary context, can make it difficult to reconcile agendas. The last tag <-REACTION-> was used to co-ordinate feedback, evaluation, and change requests. This allowed team members to determine the status of the project and to: (a) Review methods and requirements, (b) recommend courses of action, and (c) redescribe the system.

PART 2: THOUGHTS AND IDEAS

"Design involves the application of knowledge and the production of knowledge, whether the objective is design research or the practice of design per se" (Ritschel, 2012). Part 2 pursues theoretical- as well as hypothetical directions that are relevant to creativity and design. The resulting insights will be used for a basic analysis of the practice in Part 3.

1 Reflective practice

1.1 Emergence and change

"The phenomena that [the practitioner] seeks to understand are partly of his own making [..] The action by which he tests his hypothesis is also a move by which he tries to effect a desired change in the situation, and a probe by which he explores it." (Schön, 1983)

a) Reflection-in-Action allows designers to act as researchers in a given context by developing new problem spaces and by adapting both ends and means. Donald Schön treated the design process as "a reflective conversation" with existing situations which (as Herbert Simon had proposed in The Sciences of the Artificial) ought to be changed into preferred ones. The interplay between "changing things and understanding them" does not invoke a self-referential system where practitioners freely interpret the objects they actuate. A robust reflective practice would be based on appropriate move- and hypothesis-testing in order to dis-/confirm predictions and intended results.
Iterative design methods can have a generative component, where concept solutions are formulated and artefacts made, followed by an evaluative phase where outcomes are checked against goals, requirements, and criteria. The system may also warrant a redescription before the next design iteration proceeds.

"Im Zweifelsfall lieber gleich sein und unfrei, als in einer freien Gesellschaft Ungleichheit auszuhalten?" (Nolte, 2010)

b) It could be the unknown objects of a new perception that will set in motion desire for change. The reason for social change may be convincing enough to engage individuals, groups, and societies.
If one perceives design as "the bridge between for example creativity and innovation, technology and the user" * one understands that creativity is integral to human capital and not something requiring to be subsidised by society, or something limited to the realm of the creative industries. Hartley (2009) identified three models in the creative economy: (1) Creative industries as art, which he says leads to a 'welfare model', (2) creative industries as media industry, and (3) creative industries as knowledge for an emerging economic model with evolutionary growth.

* Commission of the European Communities: 2009, Design as a driver of user-centred innovation, Commission Staff Working Document.

2 Continuum

2.1 Modes of being

Cyberspace has been described as a mode of being. The experience of 'being' in cyberspace, as opposed to viewing the same on a screen, requires a certain interactivity and virtual objects to simulate one's presence. Iconic representation ensures that my digital avatar will shake its head when I disagreed by typing the word 'No'. Avatars can be used to communicate in a group, but this requires the co-presence of participants in the one electronic space. 'Technological-human fusions' like AI-Chatbots can be invoked from multiple computers and at any time. In human-agent teaming, software agents collaborate with each other, as well as human operators.

▶ If the materiality of the body is not an 'account of the mind' then, arguably, all matter may be reduced to energy or data and reassembled in another space. And 'the projection of thoughts into liquid crystals' (by means of electric signals, bio- and technological materials) would be a result of "the deconstructed self."

3 Innovation space

3.1 Changing worlds

"What is real or what exists is whatever may, directly or indirectly, have a causal effect upon physical things [..] We may even take the abstract thought content of a theory to be the set of its logical consequences." (Popper, 1978)

Karl Popper describes a universe with three interacting worlds: A world of physical objects called world 1, a world of mental states, or world 2, and a third world containing products of the human mind. World 3 objects, such as languages, stories and works of art, may have one or many world 1 embodiments*. Neither the concrete objects of world 1 nor the abstract objects of world 3 can be known without the intermediary of a human mind. Popper differentiates between subjective knowledge arising from mind-brain processes [world 2, world 1] and objective knowledge comprising thought contents from world 3.

▶ There is a certain constructionist interplay between poiesis and techne. Daniel Downes considers modern technology as "the structuring force of reality" and suggests that computers "transform what we believe about ourselves" (Downes, 2005).

▶ Henri Bergson said that "intellect and matter have progressively adapted themselves one to the other [leading to] a certain agreement between subject and object" (Bergson, 1907). And yet, what would happen to the non-subjective (atoms, gravity, DNA) if our knowledge of it is reversed? Every constructivist effort constituting human perception (and consciousness) is surely based on some objective order, that is ... "was nicht anders sein kann als es ist" (Romero-Tejedor and van den Boom, 2013).

▶ Design can be understood as a universal change agent: "Design ist ein Prozess, der Wissen benutzt um neue Formen und neue (Formen von) Wissen zu generieren" (Jonas, 2012). Also, the development of a strong basis for design thinking may be tied to three subject areas of design and design research, namely forms [products, aesthetics], processes [praxiology, logic] and knowledges [people, epistemology].

▶ Designers need to reinvent themselves constantly. Environments for creativity can help designers develop interdisciplinary skills to generate and prototype ideas: "We encourage exploration by constructing (interface, interactions, software, and hardware) as a process that creates [..] objects to think with" (Do and Gross, 2007).

* According to Peter Downton "design ideas belong to 'world three' [..] although they are represented in 'world one' via drawings or models" (Downton, 2003).

4 Representation

4.1 Representational state

In Distributed Cognition, a given activity takes place by means of functional systems that bring structures and media "into coordination with one another." A functional system typically consists of environments, artefacts and individuals, as well as internal or cognitive processes, which together drive "the propagation of representational state" and the transformation of knowledge (Hutchins, 1995).
If the task were to link a present effect with an unknown cause, one should "assign likelihoods to [..] various hypotheses." A Distributed Cognition Analysis (Preece, 2007) enables "an event-driven description" of cognitive systems involving a problem space, co-ordinating mechanisms and human communications.

4.2 Representation and immanence

"Design consists in specifying an artifact [..] At a cognitive level, this specification consists of constructing representations of the artifact [..] Using external representations requires internal representations, in a continuous interaction between the two." (Visser, 2006)

a) The act of design may involve transforming an input representation into an output representation by duplicating, adding to, concretising, detailing or modifying it. With schematic design, the origins of a representation are conceptual, resulting in the simulacra of a reality ... "eine Realität, in der Du dich mit deinen Gedanken aufhältst" (Romero-Tejedor and van den Boom, 2013). And the space you occupy determines the time that you live in.

"Concepts are concrete assemblages, like the configurations of a machine, but the plane is the abstract machine of which these assemblages are the working parts. Concepts are events, but the plane is the horizon of events." (Deleuze and Guattari, 2009)

b) One might ask what precedes a concept other than the certainty of thoughts, but then the act of thinking would be deduced from being ... There needs to be something beyond names or representation, something 'other than consciousness' to presuppose "an image of thought." Deleuze and Guattari call this organising force 'the plane of immanence' - where immanence cannot be immanent to something that is actually a concept.

5 Combination games

5.1 Configurable objects

Configurators can be utilized to determine a product through the combination of components and by generating instructions for its fabrication (Brinkop, 2012). A freshly instantiated digital object, or product, is part of a wider context of building blocks, modules, and components. It also represents the total number of possible configurations. Assemblies of components are subject to dependencies and rules. Engineer-To-Order products (ETO) are more complex than Configure-To-Order products because the precise nature of their components will depend on emerging relations and properties.

Configuration structures allow designers to:

• Explore vital interactions between divergent and convergent thinking;
• Become "an agent who packages and presents spatial propositions as transmutable material" (Gow, 2002);
• Render mental objects digitally and print their model in 3D (virtual-to-real manufacturing).

5.2 Parametric systems

Architects who grasp the world in terms of forces and flows, rather than fixity and representation have used scripting techniques to generate completely new forms. According to Patrik Schumacher, responsive environments require: (a) Sensors, (b) actuators, and (c) digital tools for simulating kinetic systems: "Auf dieser Basis werden hypothetische Architekturen entwickelt, die auf verschiedenste, aber funktional vergleichbare Weise, mittels künstlicher Sensitivität, Motorik und elektronischer Informationsverarbeitung ausgestattet sind" (Schumacher, 2002).

In a digital environment, topology, time and parameters can be utilized to model a set of relations by linking them to the attributes and behaviours of a parametric structure via logical expressions. "Because topological entities are based on vectors, they are capable of systematically incorporating time and motion into their shape as [continuous curvature]" (Lynn, 1999). A mountain, for example, enables the flow of water by geologically storing "virtual force and motion." By extension, the sets of relations existing between water, gravity, sunlight and trees must be such that a piece of wood can produce kinetic energy both by falling through air and rising through water.
Parametric responsiveness includes the "real-time kinetic adaptation" of physical structures and surfaces, electrically actuated transformations of materials at the micro level, as well as 'programmable matter' which is based on nanotechnology.

6 Scenarios

6.1 Agent technology

BOWMAN: You know that we checked the two AO-units that you reported in imminent failure condition?
HAL: Yes, I know.
BOWMAN: You probably also know that we found them okay.
HAL: Yes, I know that. But I can assure you that they were about to fail. (2001: A Space Odyssey)

A stimulus-response mechanism comprising a sensor, an effector, and some connecting wire can act as a simple agent. With different sensors, with straight connections, crossed connections, excitatory and inhibitory connections, or by utilizing threshold devices and functional dependencies, the agent becomes more complicated. Internal modeling, memory and object recognition will, moreover, permit method and deliberation which outsiders might attribute to intelligence "just from the observation of behavior." The designers of the agent, however, would be aware of the sequence of steps which led to the state of the art, and probably also that "all specified complexity must ultimately rise from simplicity by some kind of escalatory process" (Dawkins, 2006). In this light, it could even be argued that the human brain is no ultimate explanation of the complex artefacts it creates since it couldn't recall the simple evolutionary beginnings of itself - that is, "smartness arising out of nothing, or rather, out of not-so-smart premises" (Braitenberg, 1984).

▶ The Goddard Agent Architecture (Truszkowski, 2006) consists of several software modules that implement functionality, subscribe to or publish information, monitor their own state, and interact with other modules. An agent typically receives system or sensor data as input which is modelled together with state information in order to formulate goals. The steps of a resulting plan are then ordered, sent off to be executed by various effectors, and their completion status is reported back.

6.2 Transparent citizens

▶ In the "aesthetization of design itself" the connected studio falls prey to the "society of the spectacle": Design-in-the-world then becomes a form of entertainment where designers play the role to look the part before submitting to a 'hyperreal theme park' * populated with equally uncertain "spectators of their own lives" ...

▶ Is the role of the designer, as the author and proliferator of concepts, to split the idea into action [agito] and reflection [imago]?

• A sharp divide between man and machine results in perpetual estrangement and therefore system states where interference can be minimised;
• A non-dominating system requires a reduction of difference to enable more effective representation, but this will put pressure on the amount of affordable non-interference in the quest for certainty;
• Turning estrangement by dissolving boundaries is a risk when similarity becomes vulnerability, the locus of control begins to shift, and the relationship was a mirror where the object and the subject can be reversed.

▶ Meaning can be discovered, or languages used to describe reality, but meaning can also be created. It could even be argued that genetic engineering emancipates Man from his role as 'a static receiver of appearance' to make him 'a manipulator of essence'.

* Oblique reference to Jean Baudrillard's hyperreality, or "models of a real without origin" (Selected Writings, 1992).