building design knowledge: creating and disseminating design precedent

building design knowledge creating and disseminating design precedent

colin m. gray, phd

OCT 09 2014

about me

EDUCATION EXPERIENCE

graydesign

research focus

HCI

DESIGN

ISD

my role at IJDL

Assistant Editor (2012-2014)

Author (Gray et al., 2012)

Reviewer (2011-2014)

Special Issue Co-Editor (2014, Vol. 5, Issue 2)

my plan for tonight

my plan for tonight

Introduce design as a way of knowing

my plan for tonight


Explore the design case as a specific form of design knowledge

my plan for tonight



Briefly outline the writing and review process for IJDL

my plan for tonight



Briefly outline the writing and review process for IJDL

[+ plenty of time for questions]

Tawfik, Trueman, & Lorz, 2013

DESIGNS FOR LEARNING SPACESSPECIAL ISSUE | GUEST EDITOR, JILL PABLE | FALL 2013 | VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2

SPECIAL ISSUE ON HISTORIC DESIGN CASESGUEST EDITORS COLIN M. GRAY & CRAIG D. HOWARD | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2

experience and judgment

What knowledge is required to move from a theory, or a strategy, to a particular? Where each instantiation is the “ultimate particular”

(Nelson & Stolterman, 2012).




descriptive theories of: learning

psychology development

motivation behavior

prescriptive theories: explicit implicit




designer as human instrument:

technical know-how process know-how

interpersonal know-how judgment

experience



motivation behavior





designer as human instrument:

technical know-how process know-how

interpersonal know-how judgment

experience

• appreciation • pattern recognition &

matching • discrimination • selection, extension &

revision of particulars • invention



motivation behavior


design precedent

In most fields of design, the special form of design knowledge called precedent is produced at all levels of expertise, and its dissemination is

supported by the entire community in multiple forms.

design precedent

In most fields of design, the special form of design knowledge called precedent is produced at all levels of expertise, and its dissemination is

supported by the entire community in multiple forms.

medical design event design

interior design game design art direction

engineering design software design

architecture trade show design publication design

lighting design graphic design event design

S1

Nelson—The Design Way

The Ultimate Particular 31

tion. There is no scientific approach for creating an ultimate particular because science is a process of discerning abstractions that apply across categories or taxonomies of phenomena, while the ultimate particular is a singular and unique composition or assembly. Creating that which is unique and thus particular, therefore, cannot be accomplished using a scientific approach.

An action taken by an individual at a specific time and place is an example of something that is an ultimate particular. The outcome of a specific design process, such as a chair, a curriculum, or a policy, is an ultimate particular. It is something unique. It is not the universal chair, the universal curriculum, or the universal policy. We create a particular, which when taken together with other particulars makes up the whole of our experienced reality. Even when products are designed in great numbers, with wide distribution, they still have the quality of being particular and not universal, since they do not represent the only possibility for accom-plishing the same end or serving the same purpose and in situ they are truly unique and an ultimate particular.

Design is a process of moving from the universal, general, and particular to the ultimate particular—the specific design (see figure 1.2) (a related

• universal

• general

• particular

• full particular

• ultimate particular

increasing level of complexity

increasinglevel ofabstraction

protocols—rules of relationship/interrelationship and performance specifications

duals—patterns of relationships/interrelationships and prescriptive specifications

connections, compositionand form

the true

the real

increasinglevel ofconcreteness

increasing levelof simplicity

contingent truths

absolute truths

Figure 1.2Universal to ultimate particular

Nelson_9188_001_main.indd 31 2/28/2012 5:24:04 PM

Nelson & Stolterman, 2012, p. 31

what is a design case?


“[a] design case is a description of a real artifact or experience that has been intentionally designed” (Boling, 2010, p. 2)



AND



AND

how it came to be as it is



AND


❖ Representation of the design: what is the expected/real experience of the design



AND



❖ Context of the design: new design, redesign, presenting problem, redefined problem



AND




❖ Stakeholders/designers: philosophy, bias and/or theoretical stance



AND





❖ Design process: resources, participants, core ideas & influences



AND





❖ Design process: resources, participants, core ideas & influences

❖ Design failures: what went wrong, or opportunities to go another direction

precedent as design knowledge

❖ Precedent is created for other designers, not to build generally-applicable knowledge or guidelines for researchers.

❖ Precedent may be useful for different reasons to different designers—and for different reasons, over time, to the same designer.

❖ This kind of knowledge building must be continuously renewed. It does not build step-by-step toward truths, and is not created in order to provide the basis for later meta-analysis.

❖ Precedent is not used by designers as explicit guidance from one project to be applied to another project, but as a contribution to that designer’s store of patterns, her ability to discern and appreciate the qualities of patterns, and her acts of innovation both in the near and the long term.

where’s the rigor?

❖ Transparency

❖ Authors’ assessment of what is interesting about the case

❖ Explicit statements regarding critical design decisions and their genesis

❖ Failure and negative case analysis

❖ Adherence to the particular

❖ Limit on claims to generalize from the case

❖ Concrete description/representation of the design

❖ Absence of claims to validate theory/models

down to writing

down to writing

❖ Producing a well-written design case is more difficult than it looks

❖ Documentation is desirable at multiple stages of the design process (e.g., sketches, prototypes).

❖ Making the actors and environment from which the design was produced clear to an external audience.

down to writing

❖ Producing a well-written design case is more difficult than it looks

❖ Documentation is desirable at multiple stages of the design process (e.g., sketches, prototypes).

❖ Making the actors and environment from which the design was produced clear to an external audience.

❖ Process is important

❖ Unforeseen obstacles to the creation of the design are valuable components of the design case—not mistakes in “following the process” to be hidden.

❖ The effectiveness or “success” of the design itself is not the criteria for the quality of a design case.

reviewing the case

reviewing the case

❖ Reviewing a design case is harder than it looks

❖ We provide an infrastructure to bring new reviewers onboard who understand our unique mission and can provide feedback to authors

❖ Reviewers address the contribution of the case to design knowledge, points of interest, quality of representation, acknowledgement of design failures, engaging style, and a full rendering of the complexity of the design process

reviewing the case

❖ Reviewing a design case is harder than it looks

❖ We provide an infrastructure to bring new reviewers onboard who understand our unique mission and can provide feedback to authors

❖ Reviewers address the contribution of the case to design knowledge, points of interest, quality of representation, acknowledgement of design failures, engaging style, and a full rendering of the complexity of the design process

❖ Sequential reviews focused on development

❖ There will be value in this precedent that is not foreseeable, so the review is about the quality of the representation, not the quality of the project.

❖ We often assist in helping authors locate the “center of interest” for their case

❖ Availability of multimedia elements to tell the design story in a rich and engaging way

references

Boling, E. (2010). The need for design cases: Disseminating design knowledge. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 1(1), 1-8.

Howard, C. D. (2011). Writing and rewriting the instructional design case: A view from two sides. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 2(1), 40-55.

Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2012). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Smith, K. M. (2010). Producing the rigorous design case. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 1(1), 10-20.

contacts at IJDL

Elizabeth Boling, [email protected]

John Baaki, Incoming Assistant [email protected]

Randa Fathy, Editorial [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

contacts at IJDL

Elizabeth Boling, [email protected]

John Baaki, Incoming Assistant [email protected]

Randa Fathy, Editorial [email protected]

Colin M. [email protected]

2624 Howe Hall

mailto:[email protected]

building design knowledge: creating and disseminating design precedent

Education