+ All Categories
Home > Design > Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Date post: 17-Aug-2014
Category:
Upload: musically
View: 14,299 times
Download: 23 times
Share this document with a friend
Description:
 
Popular Tags:
180

Click here to load reader

Transcript
Page 1: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Alex (Jun) Zhu,

User Experience Manager, SAP

Page 2: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The physicist who is only a physicist can still be a first-class physicist and a most valuable member of society. But nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist - and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.

”Friedrich Hayek

The Dilemma of Specialization

Page 3: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Multidisciplinary Landscape of Design:

Design

Business

Technology

Architecture

Urban PlanningEconomics

LinguisticsArt

System Dynamics

Literature

Philosophy

Psychology

SociologyAnthropology

Biography

Ethics

Politics

Page 4: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

What Is Design?

Page 5: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

My Personal Definition of Design:

Design refers to the human activity to invent a new structure for utility“

”Note:

This is a very general definition, and should apply to all kinds of design activities, including UX design, industrial design, architectural design, urban design, process design, organization design, you name it.

Page 6: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Human Activity”:

Structure created by design(Mercedes-Benz Bionic Concept Car)

Structure created by nature(Boxfish)

Please note that I didn’t use “artificial” here. Human activity does not necessarily create artificial design, but can also create so-called natural design or organic design. To be introduced later…

Design Non-design

Page 7: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“New”:

New structure created by design Existing structure materialized and copied

Design Non-design

Page 8: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Structure”:

Structured elements Unstructured (or loosely structured) elements

Design Non-design

In year 2007, our revenue is 8.2M in manufacturing industry, 3.2M in professional service industry, 1.4M in wholesale/retail, and 1.2M in High-Tech.

Please note that “structured/unstructured” is a fairly relative judgment. Finally you can find a structure in almost everything in the world.

Page 9: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Utility”:

Structure created for utility(Schroder House, Gerrit Rietveld)

Structure created for expression(Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue, Piet

Mondrian)

Design Non-design (Art)

Page 10: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Structure Is Structured: Boundary: border with its environment Entities Substructures Ties between entities or

substructures

Structure of Solar System

Page 11: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Environment/Context

External Force

External Force

Tie between substructures

Entity with attributes

Substructure

Boundary

Tie between substructures

Page 12: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Types of Structures (by Entity):• Structure of Physical Entities• Structure of Informational Entities (visual elements, data,

etc.)• Structure of People• Structure of Time• Structure of Logic• Structure of Behaviors/Events/Activities• Structure of Mind• Structure of Economy• Etc.

Page 13: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Physical Entities:

Keyboard Layout of BlackBerry The Giant Swiss Army Life

Page 14: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Informational Entities:

Typology Map of Metro Line A Typical Portal Layout

Page 15: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of People:

Organization HierarchySocial Network Visualization

(Jon Kleinberg & Lars Backstrom, Cornell University)

Page 16: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Time:

Gantt Chart Outlook Calendar

Page 17: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Logic:

A Process Flow If-Else Logic Structure

Function show_hide_dynamicpane () {if (!show_flag) {dynamicpane.visibility = “visible”;} else {dynamicpane.visibility = “invisible”;}

}

Page 18: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Mind:

Taxonomy of “Cognitive Domain”(Professor Bloom, 1956) What’s On A Man’s Mind?

(Image source: crazy-jokes.com)

Page 19: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure of Economy:

GDP Structure of Year 2005(Data Source: National Statistics Bureau)

SAP Financial Performance from Google Finance

Page 20: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

A Few Types of Structure (By Form):

Linear Structure

Unipolar Network Structure

Multipolar Network Structure

Matrix Structure Network Structure

Nonpolar Network Structure

Page 21: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linear Structure:Guided Activity (Wizard)

Linear Structure

Page 22: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Matrix Structure:

Matrix Structure

Horizontal/Vertical Information Architecture

Product Mgt. Design Development

Product A

Product B

Product C

Function/Product Matrix Org Structure

Page 23: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Unipolar Network Structure:Web Portals See Themselves as Hub of Internet

Urban Structure of Beijing (image source from Google Map)Unipolar Network

Structure

Page 24: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Multipolar Network Structure:Typical Information Architecture of A Website

Urban Structure of Shanghai (image source from Google Map)Multipolar Network

Structure

Page 25: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Multipolar Network Structure:Social Network

Semantic Network(e.g. Wikipedia)

Nonpolar Network Structure

Design

User Experience

Architecture

Human Scale

Prototype

Page 26: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 27: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The word ‘universe’ is derived from the Old Greek univers, from Latin universa, which combines uni- (the combining form of unus, or ‘one’) with versus (perfect passive participle of vertere, or ‘turn’). The word, therefore, means ‘all turned into one’ or ‘revolving as one’ or ‘orbiting as one’.

” Etymology of The Term "Universe” Wikipedia

Page 28: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Mathematic Formulas of Tao:

Absolute Formula:

Pragmatic Formula:

M = 6.5

Page 29: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Proposed 6.5 Philosophies for UX Design:

1. The city creates the theater and is the theater

2. This is a semi-structured world

3. Goodness of fit: Environmental Fitness

4. Goodness of fit: Internal Fitness

5. The ecosystem, gene, invisible hand, and supply chain

6. Talk, write, and imagine using language

6.5. To design or not design, this is a question

Alex Zhu
Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by urban planners and their urban renewal strategies
Page 30: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 31: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Mistério e melancolia de uma rua(Giorgio de Chirico, 1914)

Kashgar, 2005

Delhi, 2007Trastevere, Rome, 2004

Page 32: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

”Lewis Mumford

The Culture of Cities, 1937

The essential physical means of a city's existence are the fixed site, the durable shelter, the permanent facilities for assembly, interchange, and storage; the essential social means are the social division of labor, which serves not merely the economic life but the cultural process. The city in its complete sense, then, is a geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action, and an esthetic symbol of collective unity.

The city creates the theater and is the theater. It is in the city, the city as theater, that man’s more purposive activities are formulated and worked out, through conflicting and cooperating personalities, events, groups, into more significant culminations

Page 33: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

”Italo Calvino

Chapter 1, Invisible Cities

In vain, great-hearted Kublai, shall I attempt to describe Zaira, city of high bastions. I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades' curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper's swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn; the tilt of a guttering and a cat's progress along it as he slips into the same window; the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering; the rips in the fish net and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper, who some say was the queen's illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.

Page 34: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

”Italo Calvino

Chapter 1, Invisible Cities

宽宏大量的忽必烈汗啊,无论我怎样描述采拉这个有许多巍峨碉堡的城,都是徒劳无功的。我可以告诉你,像楼梯一样升高的街道有多少级,拱廊的弯度多大,屋顶 上铺着怎样的锌片;可是我已经知道,那等于什么都没有告诉你。组成这城市的并不是这些东西而是它的空间面积与历史事件之间的关系:灯柱的高度、被吊死的篡朝者摆荡的脚与地面的距离;系在灯柱与对面铁栏之间的绳索、女皇大婚巡行时沿路张结的彩带;栅栏有多高、偷情的男子如何在黎明时分跃起爬过它;檐槽的斜度、他闪进窗子时一头猫怎样沿着檐槽走过;突然在海峡外出现的炮艇的火器射程有多远、炮弹怎样轰掉檐槽;鱼网的裂口、坐在码头上的三个老人怎样一面补网一 面交换已经讲过一百次的炮艇和篡朝者的故事 —— 有人说他是在襁褓时就给遗弃在这码头上的、女皇的私生子。

Page 35: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

In order to define this quality in buildings and in towns, we must begin by understanding that every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there.

”Christopher Alexander

The Timeless Way of Building

Page 36: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Now, let’s go back to my definition of design:

Design refers to the human activity to invent a new structure for utility.“

Page 37: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Ends” and “Means” of Design:

Structure of Physical Objects

Structure of Informational Objects

Structure of Logic

Structure of Time

Structure of Mind

Structure of Economy

+++

Structure of Behaviors/Events/Activities

Structure of People=

=+

Direct Manipulation

Influence

Ends

Page 38: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: Architecture

Direct Manipulation

Influence

Goal

Page 39: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: BlackBerry

Direct Manipulation

Influence

Goal

Page 40: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Conclusion: The mission of design is to improve the human emotion (structure of

mind), and economic outcome (structure of economy) To achieve this mission, we have to influence the “structure of events”

(e.g. the process flow) and the “structure of people” (e.g. social network), by manipulating the controls, screens, behaviors, information architecture, etc.

This also determines the design process: “define the mission” -> “design the stories” -> “design the UI”

Page 41: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 42: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The “Hard” Part and The “Soft” Part in Cosmos:

Three Nebulae in Narrow Band (Source: NASA Website)

Page 43: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The “Hard” Part and The “Soft” Part in Our Life:

Solid

Organization

Managership

Database

Law

Engineering

BBS

Process

Browse

Left Brain

Reality

Science

Explicit Knowledge

Analytic Thinking

Quantitative

Structuralism

Relatively “Soft” PartRelatively “Hard” Part

Liquid

Community

Leadership

Documents

Morality

Design

Wiki

Practice

Search

Right Brain

Dream

Art/Philosophy

Tacit Knowledge

Intuition

Qualitative

Deconstructionism

Page 44: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The Benefit and Cost of “Structure”:Benefit:

Regularity & Stability Controllability Predictability Internal force to balance with external force Out-of-the-box Utility Etc.

Cost: Cost to construct, deploy, and maintain Inflexibility Diversity Lose: opportunity cost to become other structures

Page 45: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: In-house Recruiting SystemThink about what are the benefits and costs for a company to develop an in-house system to manage their recruiting process.

Benefit:

Regularity & Stability: process standardization Controllability: accountability, policy reinforcement, etc. Predictability: process transparency Internal force: work flow, status management Out-of-the-box Utility: best practices

Cost:

Cost to construct, deploy, and maintain: development cost, implementation cost, maintenance cost, etc.

Inflexibility: what if the process changes dramatically? what a big re-organization happens? What if the approver is on vacation? …

Diversity lose: people are forced to use the same process and methods without exceptions

Page 46: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Metaphor: A Restaurant That Only Serves Combo

Benefit: No need to order one by one Seems to reflect the best

practice Etc.

But: I like everything but the meat

soup, since I am vegetarian!!!

Page 47: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The problem, like all those with which we are concerned, is one of balance. Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.

“”

Bertrand Russell

Page 48: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Conclusion:Be cautious not to over-structure or over-design. Reach a good balance between being structured and being flexible (unstructured) through:

• Componentization and Configuration

• “Soft Control” by offering guidance and best practices

• Leave a “hole” to accommodate unstructured activities, and provide a convenient link if possible and necessary.

Highly dynamic activities

Medium dynamic activities

Fixed activities

?

Design Time Run Time

Link

Page 49: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Componentization and Configuration:

Service Oriented Architecture:SAP NetWeaver

SAP NetWeaver™

Com

posi

te A

pplic

atio

n Fr

amew

ork

PEOPLE INTEGRATIONMultichannel access

Portal Collaboration

INFORMATION INTEGRATIONBus. Intelligence

Master Data Mgmt

Knowledge Mgmt

PROCESS INTEGRATIONIntegration Broker

BusinessProcess Mgmt

APPLICATION PLATFORMJ2EE

DB and OS Abstraction

ABAP

Life

cycl

e M

anag

emen

t

Page 50: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Soft Control (Semi-Structure):

Graphic Navigation in SAP Profitability Modeling Tool

Business Process Foundation in SAP Consolidation Solution

Page 51: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linked “Hole”:

Date: xxxCity: xxx

Purpose: xxx… ?

Attach emails

Upload receipts

Structured DataUnstructured Data

Attach scanned receipts

Company Expense Policy

Ask For Clarifications

Print out

Paper Receipts

+

Save as PDF

Submit

Page 52: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linked “Hole”:

• Copy as a link/Paste

• Automatically determined by Word using Smart Tags

Productive Applications (Unstructured)

Transaction Systems(Structured)

Page 53: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linked “Hole”:

Outlook(Unstructured)

Adobe Interactive Form(Semi-structured)

Database(Structured)

Page 54: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linked “Hole”:

Duet™ - Seamless integrates Microsoft® Office and SAP Backend

Page 55: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Linked “Hole”:

SAP Performance Mgt. System

Customer-Uploaded Image (unstructured)

System-generated Data (structured)

Page 56: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 57: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Fallingwater(Frank Lloyd Wright, 1936)

Page 58: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Fitness:A well-designed structure needs to have 2 different kinds of fitness

Environmental Fitness (balance with external forces): Fitness between the structure and its environment/context

Internal Fitness (balance with internal forces):Fitness between the elements, substructures, and their ties.

Page 59: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Environmental Fitness:

Environment/ContextExternal Force

External Force

Page 60: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: BlackBerry

New Structure

Existing Structure (Environment/Context)

Influence

Constraint

Page 61: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: Ross Lovegrove’s Organic Design

“Go” Chair(Ross Lovegrove)

Ty Nant Water Bottle(Ross Lovegrove)

Page 62: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: Natural Language Search

Usability Venders China

Search

Virtual Company AVirtual Company A is a Beijing-based usability service vender…

Virtual Company BVirtual Company B was established in 2004 and now has 12 FTEs…

Search Engine 1

List me the top 5 usability venders in China

Search

Virtual Company AVirtual Company A is a Beijing-based usability service vender…

Virtual Company BVirtual Company B was established in 2004 and now has 12 FTEs…

Search Engine 2

Normal Search Engine Natural Search Engine

Environment has to adapt to the new structure

Good Environmental Fitness

Page 63: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.

“”

Jane JacobsUrban Thinker

Page 64: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The rightness of the form depends, in each one of these cases, on the degree to which it fits the rest of the ensemble.“ ”

Christopher AlexanderNotes on the Synthesis of Form

Page 65: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Challenges: Indefinite possibilities are available to define the boundary

between the structure and its environment/context Usually the environment/context is ambiguous to the

designers (consider the regularities and irregularities in the world)

Usually the environment/context changes over instances Sometimes the environment/context evolves over time

Page 66: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Solutions:

1. Find an appropriate scope of the design (define an appropriate boundary)

2. An adapted “Reductionism” approach to solve ambiguity: Understand -> Generalize -> Imagine -> Scope -> Model -> Design -> Trial & Error -> Solve

3. Four mindsets: Skeptic -> Dreamer -> Architect -> Scientist

4. Adaptability of the structure, in terms of localization, customization, and personalization (e.g. the surface of sofa can always adapt to the people sitting there)

5. Provide an organic structure that emerges, adapts, and grows (to be addressed later)

Page 67: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

1. Define The Border with The Environment

Page 68: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Indefinite Possibilities to Set Boundary:

Indefinite Possibilities to Set Borders

Environment/Context

?

Page 69: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

He who defines the problem, declares the solution.“ ”Bob Baxley

Design Vision Conversation

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.“ ”

Bertrand Russell Design Vision Conversation

Page 70: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example:A. Improve the efficiency of my production and distribution

B. Improve the efficiency of my supply chain

Result A Result B

Supply Chain Efficiency:• Vender Managed Inventory• Outsourcing• Information sharing• RFID

Internal Production Efficiency:• Production Process & Technology• Distribution Center• Agile manufacturing, JIT (kanban)• Etc.

Page 71: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example:A. Find new technologies to reduce the CO2 emission

B. Reinvent the ecosystem to reduce the greenhouse gas emission

C. Solve or relieve the “global warming” problem

Result A Result B Result C

• Policies (regulations, taxes, accounting, etc.)

• Incentives• Market/Industrialization• Public awareness• Alternative Energy

• CO2-reducing Technologies

• CO2 Capturing and Reuse (e.g. plastic production, cryogen, petroleum mining, etc.)

• Or even wilder idea: use CO2 as cryogen to cool down our planet?

Page 72: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example:A. Improve the usability of the registration form of our website

B. Improve the registration process of our web site

C. Improve the internet registration experience in general

New User Registration Form:

Full Name: * Alex Zhu

Email Address: * [email protected]

Password: * XXXXXX

Repeat Password: * XXXXXX

Mailing Address:

Line 1: *

Other fields…

# 1293, Pudong South

Manual Registration Shopping Cart

Place Order (enter name, email, mailing address, etc.)

Automatic Registration

Non-registered user Google Toolbar

Result A Result B Result C

Page 73: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

A More Radical Solution to Reduce “Transaction Cost”?

• Credibility• Transaction

History• Favorites• Preferences• Profile• etc.

User Repository

Register once for all

Website A

Register NowCall

Return

Website B

Register Now

Visit

Visit

Call

Return

Transaction History recorded

Transaction History recorded

Page 74: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

General Principles: The broader you defines the boundary, the more likely

your solution will have a strategic impact. This is where innovation often occurs.

However, this is an economic decision which means you need first consider the capacity (production possibility curve), feasibility, and then do an ROI evaluation

A

B

C

D

EF

5

4

3

2

1

0 1 2 3 4 5

Page 75: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

2. An Adapted “Reductionism” Approach to Solve Ambiguity

Page 76: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Architectural design problems can also be referred to as being ‘wicked problems’ in that they have no definitive formulation, no explicit ‘stopping rule’, always more than one plausible explanation, a problem formulation that corresponds to a solution and vice versa, and that their solutions cannot be strictly correct or false.

”Peter Powel

Page 77: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

René Descartes Discourse on the Method of Rightly

Conducting the Reason

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.

The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.

The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.

And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.

Page 78: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Reductionism Methodology:1. Filter away all that may be in doubt.

2. Divide difficulties to as small pieces as necessary.

3. Start with the simplest problems.

4. Make Lists, Tables, Diagrams.

Source: Wikipedia (Term: “Discourse on the Method”)

Page 79: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Definition of Reductionism:In philosophy, reductionism asserts that the nature of complex things is reduced to the nature of sums of simpler or more fundamental things.

Practical Benefits: Break down complex problems into smaller parts which are more

understandable and operable. In this way, specialization and collaboration are possible, and the

problem can be solved in a progressive manner Select an order to solve these parts step by step, depending on the

complexity of each part and its dependency with other parts. Though reductionism has been criticized a lot in the past 2 centuries

(mainly by Holism, Structuralism, and Emergentism who believe “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”), this is still a very pragmatic approach to solve complex issues regardless of its limitations.

Page 80: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata

(De Homines 1622)

Paul Cézanne believed that all objects can be abstracted as cylinders, spheres, and cones.

Page 81: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Constraints of Reductionism: Study a part in isolation, ignoring the interplay between the part and

its context Proven to be error-prone by biography science, linguists, chemistry,

and many other disciplines (e.g. Being isolated from their contexts, words will lose their meaning; Water has totally different quality with oxygen or hydrogen)

Page 82: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

An Adapted “Reductionism” Approach:

UnderstandGeneralize/

Filter

Model

???Imagine

Design

Trial & Error

xx

Solve

Scope

Page 83: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

General Principles: Macro -> Micro Backbone -> Flesh Enumeration: Abundance -> Choice “Damped” Iteration

Page 84: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Macro -> Micro, Backbone -> Fresh

Three perspectives to understand a new city: Bird View (Macro thinking, big picture) Night View (Noise filtering, structure, backbone, pattern

identification) Attendance (Micro thinking, experience, empathy, validate)

Bird View Night View Attendance

Page 85: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

”Su Dongpo

Handwriting on The Wall of Xilin

Looks like a ridge from one perspective,

Looks like a peak from another,

Knowing not the true face of Lushan Mountain,

For I am in its midst.

Page 86: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Metaphor: The Development Process of Baby

Week 1 Week 4 Week 6 Week 14 Week 18

Week 22 Week 24 Week 30 Birth 1 year old

Product Vision Blueprint Low-Fidelity

High-Fidelity Product Delivery Adaptation

Image source: http://www.pregnancy.org

Page 87: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Seven Bridges of Königsberg:

Leonhard EulerChapter 1, Invisible Cities

Page 88: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

A “Micro -> Macro” Process:

SM Deliverables UX Deliverables

Virtual Company <-> Model Company

Role Specifications Personas

System-level Requirements• Function tree• System-level use cases

<-> System-level design:• Information Architecture• Screen flow (very low-fi)• UI specs for Common Behaviors

Detailed use cases <-> Use Scenarios + UI Mockups + UI Specifications

Macro Level

Micro Level

Page 89: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Design Portal: Modal Company

FutureTech System

Personas

• Browse by name

• Browse by organization

• Search

Business Processes

• Browse

Modal Company

• Company intro

• Industries

• Customers & Competitors

• Organization Structure

• Information Landscape

Now, you are here: Design Portal > Modal Company > Organization Structure

Page 90: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Design Portal: Persona

FutureTech SystemNow, you are here: Modal Company Portal > Personas > Kate Zhang

Organizational data:

Name: Kate Zhang

Company: FutureTech

Position: Sales Manager

Department: Office New York

Direct Manager: Feng Tang

Subordinates: Nancy Wang, Tony Lee, Xiaoyan Liu,

Other information:

Computer Skills: Professional

Working Environment: shared office

Equipments: Laptop, Blackberry, Fax, Printer, Telephone

Software: SAP CRM, Outlook, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, WebEx, etc.

Responsibilities:

As a sales manager in Akron’s office in NY, Kate not only takes care of the sales performance in the east coast, but also needs to…

Goals:• Wants to maintain a healthy

opportunity pipeline in her team

• Wants to achieve the sales quota

• Wants the team to be motivated

• Etc.

Business Processes involved:• Order to Cash

• Hire a new employee

• Expense Reimbursement Management

Personas

• Browse by name

• Browse by organization

• Search

Business Processes

• Browse

Modal Company

• Company intro

• Industries

• Customers & Competitors

• Organization Structure

• Information Landscape

Page 91: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Design Portal: System-Level Use Case

FutureTech System

Personas

• Browse by name

• Browse by organization

• Search

Business Processes

• Browse

Company Overview

• Company intro

• Industries

• Customers & Competitors

• Organization Structure

• Information Landscape

Now, you are here: Design Portal > Business Processes > ERM Process

Page 92: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Abundance -> Choice”

Image source: www.blog.speculist.com

Page 93: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Damped Iteration”:

Understand??? xx

Field Research

Ad-hoc Research

Lab Research

“Damped” Iteration

Page 94: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

3. Four Mindsets For Designers

Page 95: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

RealistSome things are independent of mind

IdealistEverything is mind dependent

Rationalist

Some knowledge of the world is independent of our own experience

Architect

The structure of the mind matches, in some respects, the structure of the world

PlatoDescartes

Dreamer

Our mind structures the world

Kant

Empiricist

All knowledge of the world comes from experience

Scientist

We can gain knowledge of the world, but only through experience

AristotleLockeRussell

Skeptic

We have no better insight into the workings of our minds than into the world itself

Hume Berkeley

Categorization of Classical Epistemology

Page 96: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

What Mindsets Are Required in Design?

Architect Dreamer

Scientist Skeptic• Understand

• Generalize/Filter

• Imagine• Scope

• Model

• Design

• Validate

Page 97: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

General Principles: Since very few people really have all of these 4 very

different mindsets, certain level of specialization in the design process seems to be necessary

However, the cost of specialization also needs to be evaluated (e.g. how to make sure the information fidelity across the researchers and designers, etc.). Refer to next section regarding internal fitness

“Focus with context” approach might be the best option

Page 98: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

4. Adaptability to deal with individual differences across instances

Page 99: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Different Levels of Adaptability:

Localization

Industrialization

Customization

Personalization

Country Scale

Industry Scale

Company Scale

Human Scale

Page 100: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: CSCW Design

High Power Distance Culture

(mono-nuclear)

Medium Power Distance Culture

(poly-nuclear)

Low Power Distance Culture

(semi-homogenous)

Centralized Model(hierarchical communication)

Decentralized Model(hierarchical + collaboration)

Distributed Model(Non-centered, social networking, clique)

Organization Structure

(Environment)

Collaboration Structure (Design)

Environmental Fitness

Page 101: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Metaphor: Roadway Design in Urban Planning

Mono-nuclear(e.g. Beijing)

Poly-nuclear(e.g. Shanghai)

Low Power Distance Culture

(semi-homogenous)

Centralized Model Decentralized Model Distributed Model

Urban Structure (Environment)

Roadway Structure (Design)

Environmental Fitness

Page 102: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 103: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Internal Fitness:

Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York(Frank Lloyd Wright, 1959)

Page 104: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

This is a cutting board in your kitchen. It is built into the kitchen counter. When you are not using the cutting board it slides into the counter (Picture A). When you need to use it, you slide it out (Picture B). It is very convenient.

But wait…you got a new problem.

Reason:

When you design a structure, you need to consider how all parts work together.

Internal Fitness:

Source: http://www.baddesigns.com

Page 105: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Internal Fitness:

External Force

Internal Force

External Force

Internal Force

Page 106: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

What’s Internal Fitness?Balance among internal forces:

Conceptual Integrity (different goals and strategies) Connection and communication (silos, misunderstandings, etc.) Consistency (functional, behavioral, visual, mental model, etc.)

Page 107: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Challenges: For complex systems, reductionism approach seems to be the only

pragmatic way to make specialization & collaboration possible Parts are studied and solved apart from the whole (context), and

therefore there is a potential fallacy of composition (whole does not equal to the sum of parts)

A part’s neighbors are changing over time Dilemma of specialization: different organizations, goals, knowledge,

experience, skills, locations, culture, languages, personality, you name it

Hard to balance the efficiency and the communication intenseness among the people who work on these parts

Page 108: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

A “Fallacy of Composition” Example in Economics: If an individual farmer adopts a new cultivation technique , he will

earn more from the improved production efficiency. What happens if all famers adopt this new technology?

D1

P1

A

S1

S2BP2

Q1 Q2 Quantity

Price

Answer:

The famers will earn less if all of them adopt the technology!

Page 109: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.

“”

Melvin ConwayDatamation, 1968

Page 110: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Solutions: Introduce systems thinking to understand the overall system

landscape and interdependencies. This might be done by a few architects but with the whole group involved and informed

Carefully break down the whole into the parts, to avoid over fragmentation.

Standards, guidelines, governance, etc. Patterns: share the same language (to be addressed later) “Focus with context” when studying the parts Try to align the organization structure with the system structure Improve communication model in the entire organization, across

disciplines (design, research, development, PM, marketing, support, etc.) and across functional parts (products, components, etc.)

Page 111: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

If you wish to influence or control the behavior of a system, you must act on the system as a whole. Tweaking it in one place in the hope that nothing will happen in another is doomed to failure—that’s what connectedness is all about.

“”

Dennis SherwoodSystems Thinking

Page 112: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Systems Thinking:

Systems Thinking, also known as System Dynamics, focuses on how the thing being studied interacts with the other constituents of the system.

Therefore instead of isolating smaller and smaller parts of a system, systems thinking involves a broader view, looking at larger and larger numbers of interactions.

Page 113: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Systems Thinking Diagram:

TechnologyAdvancement

Quantity

Revenue

Unit Price

+

+

+

-

+

Example:

Visualize a more completed landscape of the farmer’s problem.

Page 114: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Example: Travel Management Cultural Model

From SAPEnjoy Project (joint project with InContext, Enterprise)

Page 115: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 116: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Plants in The Nature (Alex) Prosperity in A Market (Bab)

Page 117: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Challenges: Environment changes over time Mechanic structure does not scale For complex problems, chaos ubiquitously exists in both

environment and the internal organization, which makes up-front and centralized design/control impossible

We are witnessing a “Unipolar –> Multipolar –> Nonpolar” paradigm shift in the structure of our world in a lot of areas (which may be explained the Entropy theory), and design has to match in many cases

Page 118: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Environment Changes Over Time:

For example, after a company has deployed an enterprise application:

The legal requirements may change Business environment may change Business process may change Company policy may change Organization structure may change IT landscape may change Etc.

Page 119: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Chaos (deterministic, unpredictable):

”A butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear.“

Edward LorenzImage source from Wikipedia

Page 120: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Langton’s Virtual Ant:A 4-state 2-dimensional Turing machine invented in the 1980s. The ant starts out on a grid containing black and white cells, and then follows the following set of rules.

1. If the ant is on a black square, it turns right and moves forward one unit.

2. If the ant is on a white square, it turns left and moves forward one unit.

3. When the ant leaves a square, it inverts the color.

Result from the Computational Simulation

Page 121: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Our World Is Getting More Homogeneous!

Monopoly Economy/Command Economy

Corporate Economy

Consumer Economy (Liberalism)

Multipolar World(after 1990)

Bipolar World(before 1990)

Globalization(till ?)

ModernismRealism Post-modernism

Web 1.5 (Integration)

Web 1.0 (Centralized Production)

Web 2.0 (Mash-up, Collective

Intelligence, etc.)

Economy

World Politics

Art

Internet

Page 122: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Solutions: Embrace the complexity, irregularity, and unpredictability

of the environment. Shift from the “machine” metaphor to “organism” metaphor and “market” metaphor.

“Organism” metaphor:• Ecosystem• Seed• Gene• Evolves, adapts, and grows

“Market” metaphor:• “The Invisible Hand”• Self-interest and Incentive• Supply Chain• Specialization and Transaction cost

Page 123: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

1. The “Organism” Metaphor

Page 124: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

”Frank Lloyd Wright

An Organic Architecture

Let the design:• be inspired by nature and be sustainable, healthy, conserving, and

diverse.• unfold, like an organism, from the seed within.• exist in the "continuous present" and "begin again and again".• follow the flows and be flexible and adaptable.• satisfy social, physical, and spiritual needs.• "grow out of the site" and be unique.• celebrate the spirit of youth, play and surprise.• express the rhythm of music and the power of dance.

Page 125: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“Organism” Metaphor:

Seed

Cell

Gene

Page 126: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Sophistication Achieved by Genetic Algorithm:

Complex or sophisticated outcomes derived from groups of individuals following simple rules.

Craig Reynolds’s Computational Model “Boids”

Simple Rules:

1.Separation2.Alignment3.Cohesion

Page 127: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Organic Model:

Environment

Environment

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 1

T1Environment

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 2

Environment

T2

T1 T2

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 1

Environmental unfitness at Time Point 1

Inorganic Structure

Organic Structure

Page 128: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Man-made Creature by Theo Jansen by using Genetic Algorithm

Page 129: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Wikipedia: A self-organized encyclopedia that grows everyday

Page 130: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Tags, Semi-structured, Collective

Intelligence, Evolve, Flexibility, Democracy,

Organic, Discoverability, Information

Visualization, Decentralized

Tagging: an emerging structure with no up-front planning or central control

Page 131: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Amazon’s Recommendation Engine: Intelligence based on simple algorithms

Page 132: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Social Network: Another example of growing structure

Page 133: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

2. The “Market” Metaphor

Page 134: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.

He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.

”Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations

Page 135: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.“

Dwight D. EisenhowerThe Wealth of Nations

Page 136: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Order Achieved by Self-Interest:Complex or sophisticated outcomes derived from groups of individuals

following simple rules (self-interest in this case).

Free Market (Order Under The Chaos)

Simple Rules:

1.Buy more when price goes down2.Sell more when price goes up

DS1

Page 137: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Market-driven Modal:

Environment

Environment

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 1

Environment

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 2

Environment

T2

T1 T2

Environmental Fitness at Time Point 1

Environmental unfitness at Time Point 1

Ego-centered Structure

Open Structure and Open Market

EnvironmentT1

Page 138: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Supply Chain in Different Paradigms:

Value Supply (Design Time)Value Consumption (Run Time)

Unipolar paradigm(e.g. web 1.0)

Multipolar paradigm(e.g. web 1.5)

Nonpolar paradigm(e.g. web 2.0)

Page 139: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Specialization and Marketplace: Each supplier only needs to take care of a much smaller scope of

problem and with much more regularity Each supplier is more responsive and adaptable to its local

environment change (self-interest driven), and therefore the whole market is more adaptable

The mission of design is to reduce the transaction cost and reach the best economic efficiency

Page 140: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Transaction Cost Reduced by SOA:

SOA

High Transaction Cost (n=10) Lower Transaction Cost (n=5)

Page 141: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Open Source Example: Firefox’s Extensions

Page 142: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Yahoo Widget

Page 143: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Commonalities Between Wal-Mart & Yahoo Widget?

Supply Chain of Wal-Mart Supply Chain of Yahoo Widget

Wal-Mart

P&G

Yahoo

Google

RFID

VMI

Information Sharing

EDI

Protocol

XML

Widget Repository

Customer (One-stop Shopping Experience)

User (Integrated User Experience)

SDK

Page 144: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

“SOA” As A “Dissection Table”:

Beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table.

“”

Comte de Lautreamont Maldoror

Page 145: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

EBay: Order Achieved by Reputation Mechanism (self-interest)

Page 146: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Market-driven Approach to Relieve Global Warming: Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading

Page 147: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Second Life: self-created and self-organized society

Page 148: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Google: A Market Place for Websites to Attract Customers

Page 149: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Mash-up: Google Map as a service + Smugmug as photo sharing service

Page 150: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 151: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Language As The Greatest Invention of Human Beings:

Key functions of language: Communicate Document Learn Think and develop new knowledge: people subconsciously use language to

construct ideas in mind

Why I think language as the greatest human invention: The indefinite and complex world can be represented and understood by our finite

and less complex language, maybe not 100% completely and accurately.

How could? The structure of the language somehow represents the structure of the world The language finds the regularities in the irregularities, or in other words, the

patterns of the complex. Language evolves, adapts, and grows over time, contributed by collective

intelligence of people across generations

Page 152: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Commonality Between Language and Design?

Key functions of design: Communicate Innovate

Why language is needed in design: External Fitness: design should reflect the structure of the

environment (or the world); design should communicate with users in an understandable manner

Internal Fitness: the parts need to communicate with each other; designers who work on these parts need to communicate with each other in an understandable manner

Organicism: to create an organic structure that evolves, adapts, and grows, a common language should be provided, to enable the collective intelligence

Page 153: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Etymology of “Design” in Chinese Language:

The Word “Design” in Chinese

This component means “language”

Page 154: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Etymology of “Design” in Chinese Language:

Etymology of These 2 Chinese Characters by Xu Shen (100 AC)

Control people by using language

Count numbers by using language

Language Control, drive, employ

Language Ten

Page 155: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Chinese Characters Are Structured:

Word finally composited (meaning: design, create)

High-level Composited Building Blocks (meaning: speak, language)

Atomic Building Blocks (no meaning)

Low-level Composited Building Blocks (meaning: mouth)

Metaphor, Symbolize

Metaphor, logical aggregates,

pictophoneticsLayout

Algorithm

Layout Algorithm

Metaphor, logical aggregates,

pictophonetics

Page 156: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Words, Sentences, and Paragraphs Are Structured:

Character (meaning: design, create)

Character (meaning: ideas)

Action + Object Algorithm

Word with more complete but fixed meaning (meaning: design)

Metaphor, Reference

Metaphor, Reference

Grammar

Sentence with situational meaning (meaning: help me to design)

Metaphor, Reference, Express

Context, Style

Paragraph with more situational and dynamic meaning (context more

important than words)

Page 157: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Chinese Character Evolves: “Horse”

Oracle Bone Script

Bronze Script

Seal Script Clerical Script

Regular Script (Traditional)

Regular Script (Simplified)

1950~200 AC

~221 BC

Concrete, irregular, inconsistent, complex

Abstract, regular, consistent, simple

~1200 BC

Page 158: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Some Facts About Chinese Language:

Synchronic study as of 2001: 8 basic strokes (atomic building blocks) ~214 composited building blocks ~80,000 Chinese characters in total, with ~3,500 of them commonly used, and

~2000 frequently used in daily life Infinite sentence and paragraph compositions

Diachronic study: The basic strokes almost never changed The building blocks and characters evolve gradually from concrete to abstract,

from irregular to regular The number of characters commonly used today does not increase much

compared with the “Oracle Bone Script” period (3000 years ago) The composited building blocks were simplified and reduced a few times

(latest change is the Simplified Chinese revolution in mainland China)

Page 159: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Structure Elements in Language: Different Levels of Building Blocks Configurable Building Blocks Composition Layout Algorithms Polysemy Grammar to define relationships

and rules Metaphors and References link

to the real world Cross-referencing Constrained Freedom

Complex, Irregular

Simple, Regular

Fixed, Restricted, Consistent

Dynamic, Free, Stylish,

Expressive

Page 160: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Design As Language – Perfect Match! Different Levels of Building Blocks Configurable Building Blocks Composition Layout Algorithms Polysemy Grammar to define relationships

and rules Metaphors and References link

to the real world Cross-referencing Constrained Innovation

Complex, Irregular, Infinite

Simple, Regular, Less

Fixed, Restricted, Consistent

Dynamic, Free, Stylish,

Expressive

UI Controls

Pattern Elements

Patterns

Screens

Flows

Applications

Page 161: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How to Design As Language:

+- Є

F(x)

Unspecific Problem

UI Dictionary (Language Best Practices)

?Narrate and Express:

(Composite the structure in an innovate way)

Metaphor, Reference

Metaphor, Reference

Specific Problem

Reference, Invoke, Configure

Solution emerges

Environmental Fitness

Model Companies/Personas

Internal Fitness

Page 162: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Benefits of This Approach: Liberate designers from trivial activities, but shift the focus to more

design activities (e.g. process, application) Enable designers, and potentially partners, customers, and users in the

“Multipolar” or “Nonpolar” model, by sharing the language, and therefore the structure can grow

Internal fitness reached by using the same language (building blocks and grammar)

Solution emerges when the problem is narrated in a natural manner, and therefore both environmental fitness and internal fitness can be achieved

Innovation reached by narrating the problem in a creative way

Uniqueness reached by “writing styles” Best practices Economic efficiency and scalability (lower marginal cost)

Page 163: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Narrative Design Works:Problem:

Design an application for a regional sales manager to manage the sales activities and performance in his region.

Narrative Design:

Tony, sales manager of FutureTech, comes to the office in the morning. He logs into the system. The first thing he wants to do is to check whether there are some exceptions in his area of responsibility. The system messages him that there is an opportunity moving very slowly in the pipeline in the past month, and therefore Tony wants to drill down to see the reasons behind, and check who is the responsible person to respond to this problem.

He realizes that the price set in the quotation is too high. The sales rep of this opportunity is Bob. Since the customer BigMoney is very strategic to the company’s growth, and therefore Tony creates a task for Bob to adjust the price in the quotation.

Page 164: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Narrative Design Works:

Problem Narration:

The sales rep of this opportunity is Bob. Since the customer BigMoney is very strategic to the company’s growth, and therefore Tony creates a task for Bob to adjust the price in the quotation.

+- Є

F(x)

Design Dictionary (Language Best Practices)

Model Companies, Personas

Noun.

Noun.

Page 165: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Question: Does this approach lead to “design determinism”? Does this approach kill design freedom and room for

creativity? Can design be automated by the computer this way, if the

artificial intelligence is sophisticated enough? Does this mean designer becomes less necessary?

Page 166: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

No!!! To narrate the problem accurately, you have to understand

the problem accurately, which is the most important and difficult job in most cases.

The same problem can be narrated in very different way (next slide shows a different version of story adapted for “high power distance” culture)

Great creativity is not to reinvent the wheel, but reinvent the car

Designers become more strategic because they are moving to the upper end of the food chain.

Page 167: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Adapted Version of The Story:

Problem Narration:

The sales rep of this opportunity is Bob. Since the customer BigMoney is very strategic to the company’s growth, and therefore Tony opens the corresponding quotation by himself, overwrites the price, and then informs Bob about this decision.

+- Є

F(x)

Design Dictionary (Language Best Practices)

Noun.

Noun.

Model Companies, Personas

Page 168: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

How Should Design Language Evolve:

As suggested by the diachronic study of the Chinese language, the following principles/recommendations may apply to the design dictionary:

Number of UI controls should be relatively quite stable As atomic building blocks, UI controls should not change much over

time New UI patterns can be invented only when necessary Very infrequently used UI patterns should fade out over time You can keep a relatively large screen repository, but hold the

assumption that less than 20% of these screens are frequently used. Spend 80% of your effort on this 20% screens according to Pareto’s

rule

Page 169: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 170: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

On One Hand:

African photos by Kevin Carter

An Undesigned Life: poverty, suffer, unsatisfied demand,

fight with environment

A Designed Life: abundance, enjoy, sufficient supply, utilize

the environment

Chicago photos (Alex)

Page 171: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

On The Other Hand:

Shangri-la, Kashgar (Alex)

An Undesigned Life: natural, alive, diversity, free, relax,

emotional, sustainable

Anonymous images searched from internet

A Designed Life: artificial, isolated, commodity, restricted, incursion, cold, environmental damaging

Page 172: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The Ultimate Questions: How do designers (as a whole) impact the world and the

human life? Does our work really create value? Are we spending

money, time, and effort doing right things? Does design sometimes become a “surplus of intellect” or

“show-off of creativity”? Are we solving the complexity or rather contributing to the

complexity?

To design, or not design?

Page 173: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

My Speculation How Complexity Evolves in Human Society:

P1S3

S1

Intents to solve

S2

Problem 2

Intents to solve

Intents to solve

Starting Point

Problem 1

Generates new problem

Generates new problem

Solution 1

Generates new problem

Intents to solve

Conflict and then generate new

problem

Problem

Solution

Intents to solve

Generates new problem

Conflict and then generate new problem

Page 174: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

A Critical View of Our Civilization:

Phenomenon: In the very beginning, we only have a few basic problems (food,

shelter, disease, sex, etc.) In the end, we get thousands of millions of solutions, as well as

thousands of millions of new problems! Some of the basic problems are relatively better solved, but the others

are even getting worse (e.g. freedom in life, happiness, environment, etc.)

Example: The ultimate intention for human to invent computer is NOT to

increase productivity, but to serve people and liberate people from the work

But now, how many people (including you and me) are serving the computer, and working even harder than before?

Page 175: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Some Explanations: Too many solutions intent to solve the same problem, driven by self-

interest (think about the furious competition in the market) Well-designed solutions may solve the problem completely (without

generating new problems), but only in an ideal world Badly-designed solutions create more problems (negative value) There might be more badly-designed solutions than well-designed

solutions in the world There are conflicts, inconsistencies, incompatibilities between

solutions, and therefore new problems are generated Endless cycle, and exponential increase Unfortunately the complexity itself is an organic structure like the

virus that scales, grows, and spreads Can be explained by the chaos theory (chaos can emerge by a group of

individuals interacting with simple rules)

Page 176: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Why I Count This As “Half” Philosophy:

What we are able to improve (the pragmatic part): Try to leverage systems thinking to avoid creating “negative value” Improve interoperability both internally and externally, to reduce the “conflict

and generate new problems” phenomenon. The SOA concept can apply to not only the software arena, but also many other areas (e.g. physical products)

Ask the “to design, or not design” question first before you design Find somewhere else to consume our “surplus of intellect”… Leave some creativity to the Buddha/God/Brahma/nature/etc., depends on

what ever religion you believe…

What we are not able to change (the non-pragmatic part): Self-interest (companies survive by “solving” solutions) Never-ending demands of human being Now we really have a lot of problems to solve (e.g. global warming problem,

etc.)

Page 177: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

Plurality should not be posited without necessity.“ ”Occam's razor

William of Ockham

Page 178: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation
Page 179: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

The man who grasps principles can successfully choose his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

“”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Page 180: Six And Half Philosophies for Design & Innovation

We must first learn a discipline which teaches us the true relationship between ourselves and our surroundings. Then, once this discipline has done its work, we will be ready to give up the discipline, and act as nature does.

This is the timeless way of building: learning the discipline - and shedding it.

”Christopher Alexander

The Timeless Way of Building


Recommended