Blog
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While browsing and working on a recent paper, I mused on the missed opportunity of interaction design. Reading Terry Winograd’s (1997) From Computing Machinery to Interaction Design, I was stunned to see how visionary this was, in the context of contemporary HCI thinking which focused on interactions with computer screen interfaces (still, sadly, the main… Read More …
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I just filed the final project report for my Career Award yesterday, so I’d like to give my personal thanks to the good folks of the Human-Centered Computing group at the Computing, Information Systems & Engineering (CISE) Directorate of the National Science Foundation. The materials in my book and my ongoing research agenda are possible… Read More …
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Chapter 1 for Improvising Design book has been uploaded. The first chapter discusses why we need better models and methods for design … and why design is improvisational. Doubtless, stuff will be shifted around a little, as I complete my write-up of research findings chapters. But this is a good introduction to why we need… Read More …
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The core problem of design is to use a problem-representation that can allow people to communicate the structures in their “mental jigsaw picture” to others. Read More …
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As I ruminate on design processes, I can’t help but reflect on the similarities between research methods, processes and outcomes, and design methods, processes and outcomes. I read an article which argued that there were two types of people: people with tidy offices and people with untidy offices1. Tidy-office people are organized and so can… Read More …
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People have been commenting on the change of font used by IKEA for their catalogs since August, when the new catalog came out. IKEA had used the Futura font for 50 years, but made the decision to adopt Microsoft’s Verdana font this year. Apparently, because it translates well to numerous languages. Take a look at… Read More …
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The collaborative design of system solutions for wicked problems seems to follow a trajectory of goals, as the group’s understanding of the design progresses. The key to making (and evaluating) progress is understanding what triggers the changes in goal-direction. From my research studies, it seems that goal changes are triggered by breakdowns in individual buy-in… Read More …
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I have posted a Table of Contents for the new book, at https://www.improvisingdesign.com/book.html Contents are liable to change, but I feel a sense of achievement, having defined what the book is about … 🙂 Read More …
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This blog discusses how we design information system solutions for real-world problems. The focus of IS design has moved “upstream” of the waterfall model, from technical design to the co-design of business-processes and IT systems. This focus requires an improvisational design approach. IT-related organizational innovation deals with wicked problems. Wicked problems tend to span functional… Read More …