Design for Complexity
Roger G Hadgraft2023
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Abstract
Design has traditionally been the process of transforming a problem statement, or need, into a solution. Design was originally the domain of the master craftsman, or architect, who translated the client's needs into an exquisite artifact. Design thinking is a recent attempt to make the design process more accessible to a wider audience, to solve a wider range of problems, in every discipline. Much of traditional engineering education is the development and teaching of solutions to standard problems-design and build an electrical circuit, write a piece of software, analyze a beam. These might be components of larger systems, e.g., a mobile phone or a bridge. We can break down complicated engineering artifacts into major components and those components into smaller components until the whole artifact has been designed and brought together as a working system. This divide-and-conquer strategy has placed men on the moon and spacecraft beyond the solar system, which are remarkable achievements. Systems engineering describes the systematic design process that has delivered these remarkable outcomes. As complexity increases, design must be seen, particularly at the conceptual design stage, as a collaborative process of engagement between the client, the designer, and a wide range of stakeholders to develop effective solutions for complex problems. No one of these individuals has all the perspectives required to develop appropriate solutions. Rather, the collective wisdom must be pooled to shape the final solution. This is, of necessity, a collaborative process where the engineer must play the role of making appropriate technology available to the co-designers, demystifying what is possible. At a later stage, they can burrow down into the detailed design of the technology component of the solution. However, if the social dimension does not work, the technology will be of little assistance. The Apple iPod is a wonderful example of technological success, solving the human need (play music anywhere, anytime), with a beautifully designed piece of hardware. Its success comes from a different systems view, which included, not just the person listening to their music, but also the music companies, and their contracted
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Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21 st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science.
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CSDM , 2016
For almost a year, the Design Studio and systems engineering teams at Dassault Systèmes have shared their respective practice: design thinking and complex systems engineering. This comparison gave us insights about several shifts: the people involved in project ecosystems, the call for more disruptive innovation, the growing capabilities of computers, the need to take into account the full complexity of humans and a few shared ambitions between both disciplines. After explaining this context, this paper reports on the comparison between the two practices, through a cross-referenced strength & weakness comparison, and other counterbalancing points. We also share early hypotheses, gleaned from our experiments, on how to combine the design thinking and systems engineering approaches in early stages of innovation, at the right time, despite cultural differences. To conclude, we look at what is needed to make complexity easier to grasp, how a combined approach also calls for a fresh look at project organisations and for a practice mixing art and technology.
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Collaboration between Design and Philosophy of technology can generate new insights in the complex interplay between humans and technology. These so-called human-technology relations are one of the key issues in design innovation and the shaping of our future. Design Innovation can use the frameworks of philosophers to theorize the findings from practice or to make sense of past developments, especially since Philosophy of Technology in the current of the so-called empirical turn is more focused on individual technologies and contexts. On the other hand, designing actual things provides a powerful laboratory to test philosophical frameworks in real life. You might say that through design innovation these conceptual frameworks can become ‘applicable’. So, in analogy with the empirical turn in philosophy of technology before, the present collaboration with design is termed a ‘practical turn’. Philosophy of Technology has a substantial track record in thinking about the impacts of tech...
Track 2.e Introduction: Design Innovation and Philosophy of Technology, the Practical Turn
Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management
Human-technology relations are one of the key issues in design innovation and the shaping of our future. Also in the Philosophy of Technology human-technology relations are a central theme. New insights in the complex interplay between humans and technology can be gained from collaboration between Design and Philosophy of Technology, especially in the current of the so-called ‘empirical turn’ where the focus is on individual technologies and real-world contexts. Design Innovation can use the frameworks of philosophers to theorize the findings from practice or to make sense of past developments. And designing actual things provides a powerful laboratory to test philosophical frameworks in practice. Through the collaboration between design innovation and philosophy these conceptual frameworks can become ‘practical’. Therefore, in analogy with the empirical turn in philosophy of technology before, the further step of the present collaboration with design is termed a ‘practical turn’.
Beyond Design
Design today has become an extremely wide area of expertise, overlapping with many other disciplines. Knowledge of the classics of modern design has almost become a common cultural property. Design objects today are presented in a similar manner as art. This book is my interpretation of the design process, covering all disciplines. In the book, I will be occasionally shifting from one discipline to another, but this is because, in reality, disciplines are overlapping themselves. I think it is important to provide as much as possible a holistic overview. There are many different interpretations of design and according to me, as long as the designer can explain and communicate his work in a rational matter, there are no wrong or right design interpretations. I make no attempt here to create an encyclopedic enumeration of some kind; rather this book is designed, to present a survey of the main lines of the design development, and influential factors that may and will determine the future of the design process. This book represents a contemporary overview of that process and relates to the tendencies of the integrated design approaches in industry and the knowledge that lies behind. This book has been written and designed as a Masters Project at the Bergen National Academy of Arts (2004 - 2006). I would like to thank this institution for choosing me to become a part of the first generation of the Master students in Design and Visual Communication in Norway. Having American, German, French, British, and Norwegian professors, made the work on this book a valuable international experience.
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A Design Process for Creative Technology
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Creative Technology is a new bachelor programme at the University of Twente. Goal of Creative Technology is to design products and applications that improve the quality of daily life in its manifold aspects, building on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The application domains range from recreation to work, from entertainment to learning and from health to art. A paradigm of Creative Technology is to make use of existing technology in novel combinations –in contrast to developing new technology. In this paper we identify and elaborate the Design Methods of Creative Technology in a consistent overview. On one side, the focus on human daily life suggests that user centred design approaches from Industrial Design and Interaction Design are relevant for Creative Technology. On the other side, the development of prototypes will make use of “classical” engineering design principles. Between these areas of design is a field that is not covered by other disciplines: the exploration of the potential of existing ICT technology, focussing on applicability for the user. To foster this process, our design method is a balanced combination of Divergence-Convergence and Spiral models of design practice. The purpose of this model is mainly for education. However, for Creative Technology as a multi-disciplinary field, it is also relevant to position itself in contrast to the neighbouring disciplines, which in our context are Industrial Design Engineering and ICT.
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Introduction to This Special Issue on Understanding Design Thinking
The design of artifacts and how designers make them have garnered renewed societal interest as interactive technologies create new opportunities and challenges. The world we experience has never before been as diverse, socially and materially, or as malleable as it now. Increased computation and interactivity are changing the appearance, evolution, and interactions of the personal and collective artifacts that shape our everyday experiences, family and community life, and learning and work activity. These digital artifacts increasingly leverage sensing and physical interaction to provide information at our fingertips and connect us to people around the globe. This new generation of digital technologies gives people a great deal of discretion as to what artifacts and services they use and how they use them (Grudin, 2005). Adoption and appropriation of new digital artifacts is increasingly part of everyday life, and this change draws our attention-and sense of curiosity-to how these artifacts are designed. When we talk about designing, we share Herbert Simon's (1969) broad view that ''everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones'' (p. 129). The articles in this special issue can usefully be read with that broad view of design. That said, we and the authors focus on design professionals, students, and researchers as canonical instances. As computational artifacts take on new shapes and play new roles, so do designers (Moggridge, 2007). Designers of digital artifacts face more complex constraints than, say, furniture designers a century ago. Their work must integrate diverse considerations, physical and mechanical engineering, software engineering, user interface design and user experience, and aesthetics, as well as diverse culture and human values (Dreyfuss, 1955). The position of design and designers at the nexus of so many complex
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In this paper we explore how the collaboration between Design Research and Philosophy of technology can be profitable for both disciplines. From three case studies where Philosophy of Technology theories and methods were applied in a design context we show how these projects profited from a more reflexive perspective. Then we analyse the three cases again to show how these design projects also lead to a better understanding from a Philosophy of Technology perspective. In putting the in principle rather abstract theories in design practice, the consequences become more clear and designing actual things thus provides a laboratory to test philosophical frameworks in real life. One can say that the Philosophy of Technology, besides thinking and talking, proceeds to action. Not only Philosophy of Technology with the head, but also Philosophy of Technology with the hands. Therefore, in analogy with the empirical turn in Philosophy of Technology before, we present this collaboration with d...
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Design in the Age of Information: A Report to the National Science Foundation (NSF)
Design, 1997
Connectivity 2.2 Communication and Processing Costs 2.3 Imaging 24 2.4 Sound Processing 24 2.5 Miniaturization of Transducers 24 26 Technologies in Need of Stimulation 24 2.7 Technologies that can but may not happen 24 3 New Design Principles 3.0 The Role of Stakeholders/Users in Design 3.1 The Axiomaticity of Meaning 3.2 The Centrality of Human Interfaces 3.3 Multi-sensory Involvement 3.4 The Need for Variability to Match Diversity 3.5 Cooperation and Multi-disciplinarity 36 The Heterarchy of Complexity 3.7 Design Discourse 3.8 Second-order Understanding 3.9 The Delegation of Design 31 4 Designing Design Education 4.0 Preface 4.1 Educational Structures 34 4.2 Interdisciplinary Design 34 43 Human-Centered Attitude 35 4.4 Reflection on Practice / Building a Design Literature 33 4.5 Design Education Tomorrow 36 4.6 Early and Late Learning of Design 36 4.7 Summary 36 3 4 5 Key Research Issues 50 Preface 39 5.1 A Research Paradigm for Design 5.2 A Second-order Science of the Artificial 5.3 A Semantics for Interfacing with Artifacts 5.4 M ulti-disciplina rity 55 Information 5.6 Coordination Theory 5.7 Evaluative Techniques for Design 5.8 Federal Support for Research in the Design of Human-centered Systems 6 Reports From Working Groups 6.0 Overview 6.1 Information Design 6.2 Design Methodology and Techniques 6.3 Desigh Education 6.4 Design in the Future 6.5 Collaborative Design of Collaboration 7 Selected Workshop Papers 7.0 List 7.1 New Design Principles 7.2 Design Education 101 7.3 Future of Designing 131 7.4 New Design Tools 149 Appendices A. List Of Workshop Participants 175 B. Funding Options. An Example from NSF 180 C. Design and Management of Information Networked Technologies. An Example from NCSU 182 D. A Visualization Research and Outreach Program. An Example from NCSU 184 0.0 Acknowledgements This report 'IS an effort by the steering committee, editors, advisors and participants, to discuss the role and responsibility of designers in the Information Age, and to stimulate new ideas, dialogue and research. Special thanks are due to the National Science Foundation, which provided funding and the opportunity to bring many outstanding thinkers and practitioners together, and especially to Gary W. Strong, Program Director of Interactive Systems at the National Science Foundation for his contextual and intellectual support as well as excellent participation in the workshop.
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