The paper “Cybernetics and Design: Conversations for Action” [PDF] has recently gone to print in a peer-reviewed journal. It offers a rationale for the position that design is conversation; perhaps a surprising idea, but the logic in the paper is rigorous. Cybernetics offers a foundation for 21st-century design practice, here is the core of it:
What Will 21st-Century Designers Do?
Given vast changes in society and technology in the past 50 years, what will designers do differently today?
How cybernetics connects computing, counterculture, and design
Quite a mouthful, that title, but it’s an excellent summary: The connections across those domains are so rich and with so many shared influences, it becomes clear that the history of interaction design—and also its future—is bound up in systems and cybernetics, cultural politics and personalities.
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Designing for the Models in our Heads
When we understand something—let’s say a concept, like a table—we have some formulation of that “in our head”. That formulation is something we can manipulate while we’re thinking or conversing or acting.
A Model of Conversation
We converse every day—so why would we need a model of conversation? (First, you might want to review something about models.)
If you want to improve something—that is, engage in an act of designing—then it’s extremely helpful to understand well what it is your trying to improve. So, if you’re trying to improve conversation—whether in an organization or team or service or app—then it’s useful to have a model of conversation.
Something about Gordon Pask
Gordon Pask spent his entire career building immersive experiences, teaching machines (only some examples in this PDF), experimental studies, and a theory of conversation (but here’s a simplified presentation).
What is a model?
Models—good ones, anyway—are valuable in a number of ways.
The best resource I know on the topic is the paper Models of Models by Hugh Dubberly.
Presentation on IxD in 21st Century Work
My talk at the MWUX Conference, Pittsburgh, October 2015 was an opportunity to present a proposal with rationale for the “literacies” that are required by IxD practitioners:
- Systems Literacy
- Collaboration Literacy
- Internet of Things Literacy
- Coding Literacy
- Frameworks for Interaction & Conversation Literacy
Designing for Conversation
“Designing for Conversation” is a rich phrase with multiple interpretations—does it mean, designing to foster conversation? Why would that be a good thing?
Designing the first Design Conversation
Let’s imagine we are the catalyst for starting a new project, some design challenge relating to a new app.
First, we all recognize the value of the participants in a conversation. We all experience the improvement in thinking and outcomes when we work with someone else. This seems to say, “more participants means better outcomes”—hah, you know that’s not such a good idea. Too many voices, too much distraction. So, how would we decide whom to have in that first conversation?