Here are my notes about the mid-term critique. In order to help myself digest all the critiques, I wrote them down here.
Aware other important luminaries:
Your current collection of research on earlier work is a good start, but many important pieces are missing. (One problem may be that the field is actually quite large. However, that’s what would make a summary very useful.)Here’s a list of important related work that I recommend looking at and adding to your list (diagram 1):– Gowin and Novak, Learning How to Learn — This is an essential book on concept mapping. It’s important to distinguish concept representation (and sharing) from the concepts themselves. Concept mapping is a method of representing concepts; it’s easy to teach and learn and quite powerful. All designers should learn it.– Don Norman, “Design as Communication” — Norman talks about “the system image”. His model is very important. See http://www.jnd.org/images/ConceptualModel.jpg andHere’s the full article:There’s also a Chinese language version:– Ted Nelson (who you met when he came to class) talks about interaction design as creating conceptual structures. He has invented some words. “Xanalogical structure” and “virtuality”.See “ZXinternals”: http://xanadu.com/zigzag/fw99/zxInternals.html – Douglas Engelbart, On the Augmentation of Human Intellect — Engelbart talks about Concept Structuring. See http://www.1962paper.org/web.html
From Hugh Dubberly’s email:
Conversation Theory is the work of Gordon Pask. He proposed that the unit of thought is an “entailment” — a set of concepts or terms that each implies or “entails” the others. “Compass + Plane + Circle” is a simple example. A term may be in more than one entailment; thus entailments are connected in meshes. This idea is similar to modern notions of knowledge graphs. It’s also similar to Umberto Eco’s concept of “unlimited semiosis”. It’s also similar to Vannevar Bush’s idea of linked trails in the mind. And of course, it’s similar to Ted Nelson’s idea of hypertext.
Entailment, in my understanding, is one concept within another concept. For example, the pen bag includes pens inside. It is the basic of conceptual model. But conceptual model should be goal oriented, it contains flows of how to achieve the goals.
(Rhetoric: the art of effective or persuasive speaking pr writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques)
From Hugh Dubberly’s email:
Richard Buchanan has suggested that design is a branch of rhetoric — that the product of designing IS an argument. Of course, an argument is a type of conceptual structure. See “Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice,” http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511524?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
An extension of the idea that design is argument or rhetoric is that design is a form of learning. Building and defending an argument is a learning process. This takes us right back to Gowin and Novak and to Susan Star. Please also see:– Hugh Dubberly et al., “The Analysis-Synthesis Bridge Model”, at http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/ddo_ interactions_bridgemodel.pdf and– Hugh Dubberly et al., “Design as Learning — or ‘Knowledge Creation’ — the SECI Model”, at http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ Dubberly_Design-as-learning.
From the book Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice, Author: Richard Buchanan:(this is the book: Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice Author(s): Richard Buchanan)
Three elements of a design argument are applicable here; they involve interrelated qualities of technological reasoning, character, and emotion, all of which provide the substance and form of design communication. Designers draw on all three elements to some degree in every design argument, sometimes blending them with greatsubtlety in aproduct. Nevertheless, these elements may be analytically distinguished to reveal the different resources that are availablefor persuasion.
The first element, technological reasoning, is the logos of design. It provides the backbone of a design argument, much as chains of formal or informal reasoning provide the core of communication and persuasion in language. In essence, the problem of technological reasoning in design is the way the designer manipulates materials and processes to solve practical problems of human activity. Products are persuasive in this mode when, in addressing real needs, they meet those needs in a reasonable, expedient way. Technological reasoning is based, in part, on an understanding of natural and scientific principles that serve as premises for the construction of objects for use. It is also based on premises drawn from human circumstances, that is, from the attitudes and values of potential users and the physical conditions of actualuse.
Yeah, I am agree that design, first of all should be useful, should achieve its practical goal, and then secondarily character(I don’t quite understand what does character mean here.) and emotion.
From Hugh Dubberly’s email:
I believe Semiotics is the most important foundation for thinking about models. Semiotics is the theory of signs. A sign is something that — for someone — stands for something in some way. Eco says a sign is “anything that you can use to lie.” A sign has three parts: 1) the concept you have in mind, 2) the thing it represents, and 3) a physical manifestation or representation. See Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Pierce. Our models ARE signs.I have written about models as signs here:– Hugh Dubberly, “Models of Models,” ACM Interactions, see: http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ddo_article_modelsofmodels1.pdfSee also:– Hugh Dubberly, “Using Conceptual Models in Interaction Design”
Models lead to actions.Learning involves forming models and reforming them based on feedback.Learning involves– Creating new models.-Revising existing models-Extending a model so that it corresponds to more observations(broadening)
From Hugh Dubberly’s email:
The air conditioner example is interesting. It strikes me as incomplete. For example, the very fact that you have a Mini Cooper and VW Beetle model suggests a deeper (higher?) model of car air conditioners, which suggests a still deeper model of air conditioners, which may suggest a still deeper model of feedback systems, etc. My point is that these models are nested and fractal. They are macro-micro. They exist in “the large” and in “the small.”
Maybe I don’t need to stick with the air conditioner example. It is really fractal. There are many other elements related with the air conditioner, for example: car windows, fans.
I am agree that diversity is very important on discover users’ mental model, during the design process. However, right now, more interviews will lead me to a more complex situation. The thing I need to figure out right now is what to discover during the interview, and what questions to ask. I am not clear about it right now. I want to come back to myself and talk to myself a little while to find out what are my mental models.
Yeah, totally agree. But it is not the right time right now. If I can’t persuade myself, I can not persuade others.
It is very hard to explain the importance of conceptual model here, right now. There should be better way to explain it later after I convince myself on how to do the conceptual model.
Aha, it is a very interesting question, which is related to a broader question: What is design? We can’t say that architects are not designing unless they actually build the buildings. No,no, they made models and prototypes. OK, so designers are mainly making prototypes. What are prototypes used for? They are used for communication. (which is related to Don Norman’s aricle “Design as Communication”) I really love making things and design things, but I don’t, any more, just make random decisions in designs.