Reflective Conversation with Materials

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Reflective Conversation with Materials An
interview with Donald Schön By John Bennett
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Theme
There is no direct path between the designer's
intention and the outcome. As you work a problem,
you are continually in the process of developing
a path into it, forming new appreciations and
understandings as you make new moves
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Authors
John Bennett -- Expert user-interface designer
for 30 years at IBM. -- His experience in
software design serves as a background to bring
out Schön's broader analysis of design
and expertise
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Donald Schön -- Senior staff member in the
industrial research firm Arthur D. Little, Inc.
-- Director of the Institute for Applied
Technology in the National Bureau of
Standards at the US Department of Commerce. --
Co-founded and directed OSTI (Organization for
Social and Technological Innovation). --
Visiting professor at MIT , then Ford Professor
of Urban Studies and Education there. --
Served as chair of the Department of Urban
Studies and Planning. -- Ford Professor
Emeritus and senior lecturer in the School of
Architecture and Planning. BOOKS --
Displacement of Concepts (1963) (Invention and
the Evolution of Ideas) -- Technology and
Change, The new Heraclitus(1967) -- Beyond the
Stable State(1970)
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Donald Schön contd..
-- The Reflective Practitioner (1983) --
Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1988)
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Reflection and Kinds of Reflection
-- Reflection in action Vs. Everyday action --
Reflection in action has a different character
It is closely tied to the experience of
surprise. For Example --
Improvisation and response to surprises produced
by other players among a set of Jazz
musicians in a concert. Kinds of reflection
-- Smooth, without stopping. --
Designer(Architect) is reflecting in action, both
on the phenomena he is representing
through his drawing and on his
previous way of thinking about the design problem
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Kinds of Reflection Contd...
-- Stop and Think -- Designer
exhibits a reflection on action, pausing to think
back over what has been done in a
project, -- Explores the understanding
that she has brought to the handling of
the task. -- Might construct a new
theory of the case, reframe the problematic
design situation redefine interactively,
both means and ends -- Reflection on Practice
-- Designer may become aware of having
fallen into an unfortunate pattern of
design behavior.
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Design as a process or an activity
An artifact or a system includes -- materials,
-- A sense of purpose -- Constraints as the
designer sees them -- People who would eventually
use them. The Key issue -- Sense of
complexity and unpredictability that is central
to the design process. In other
words -- There is no direct path
between the designers intention and the outcome.
Example -- Gillette Corporation
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A conversation with the materials
-- Progressive relationship of the designer --
Making judgments along the way. -- Designer's
judgments have the intimacy of a conversational
relationship Where the designer -- Is
getting some response back from the medium, --
Is seeing what is happening -- Is seeing how
her creation is being used. -- Is making
judgments about what she is seeing. In
particularly the designer would backtalk as
she reflects into the situation --
Interesting Example of Scotch Tape (World War II
product by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing)
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Usability An Aspect of Software Design
Author Michael Polanyi (Physical chemist, who
became a philosopher) Book The Tacit Dimension
(1966) "What is a machine?" A machine is an
abstract system whose elements are functions,
such as the function of the calculator, the
function of the spark plug in the automobile
engine, the function of the lever, or the
function of the spring. The question of the
materials used in the composition of the machine
is not pertinent, unless a component fails. Then
the issue of what the machine is made of becomes
important until that point, unless the machine
fails, its composition is not important at all.
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Experience from the study of design students at
MIT
Project Project Athena-MIT's integrated
educational computing
environment. Researchers Sherry Turkle, Schön
and their graduate students. Research
Studied what happened as students were using
experimental software
built by that the faculty members Result
Amazing difference between the intentions that
the faculty had for their
software and the experiences that people had in
using it.
Issue NOT "How do I make this artifact
usable?" BUT "What is this artifact?"
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Taste of Good Designer
-- The tastes of the designer lies in the
ability to make judgment of the quality in
many different ways. -- Taste of a good
designer can developed over time. BUT --
Taste cant be characterized in terms of specific
attributes. Good Designer When the designer
is able to bridge the gap between personal and
technical and works with the medium, reflect
on surprises and in the end produce a design that
works both for the designer and for the audience.
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PROFILE
Apple Computer Interface Design Project, --
Initiated by Joy Mountford in 1991 -- Shifted
their emphasis in the direction of design. --
Recognized the lack of interdisciplinary skill
among student started a
competition called the Interface Design
Project The Royal College of Art London's
Royal College of Art (RCA) -- Initiated in
1989 by Gillian Crampton Smith. -- Program in
Computer-Related Design -- The teaching was
centered on studio courses that developed the
skills of the artist-designer(Chap
3). -- RCA projects tend emphasize the visual
aspects of the interface, and
the design of the interactions.

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Stanford University -- Initiated by
Winograd, Hartfield, Kelley, Liddle, Bennett, De
Young -- Program in Human-Computer
Interaction Design (HCID) -- Series of
courses within the computer-science department,
at the masters level. -- Innovative
research on computer interfaces by the
communications department lead to
Microsoft's Bob Massachusetts Institute of
Technology -- initiated by Kapor, Kuhn
-- Program in Media Arts and Sciences
programs in human-computer
interaction -- Wide variety of course
work and a multidisciplinary team is developing
a course entitled the Software
Design Studio, employing the design-studio
method that is traditional in architectural
and urban design.