design

=Design for Living Complexities= toc Design is about intentionality in construction, which involves a range of materials, a sequence of steps, and principles that inform the choice of material and the steps. Design always involves putting people as well as materials into place, which may happen by working with the known properties of the people and materials, trying out new arrangements, or working around their constraints (at least temporarily). Critical thinking involves understanding ideas and practices better when we examine them in relation to alternatives. In a sense, critical thinking is in design from the start, because design cannot proceed without the idea that there are alternatives to the current way of doing things.
 * //work-in-progress. the thinking behind choices may not be clear (to me as well as to you). CCRP wiki members, feel free to edit to add suggestions--remember to press save once you're done.  thanks, peter taylor //||

This course exposes and explores alternative designs through //history// (showing that things have by no means always been the way they are now), "//archeology of the present//" (shedding light on what we might have taken for granted or left as someone else's responsibility/specialty), //comparison// (looking at the ways things are arranged in different organizations and cultures), and //ill-defined problems// (in cases of real-world "living complexity" that invite a range of responses).

Each course session takes up an issue about design, introduced in a presentation (drawing on videos available online), followed by in-class work on a case related to that issue and, at the start of the next session, reports on students' design sketches to address the case. With each design sketch, students add to or revise a growing set of principles for critical thinking in design. The design sketches and principles will, with students' permission, be made accessible to a wider online audience and serve as part of an evolving online text for subsequent years.

Reading before course starts: Scott Huler (2010), //On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work// (see also http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/infrastructure)
 * Schedule of Sessions, with readings and cases**

Ice-breaker: [|Marshmallow challenge] followed by discussion of the design principles involved.
 * 1a: Ice-breaker**

1: Waste
//Byproducts are products// Reading: Preventing Waste at the Source, By Norman Crampton

Presentation: Four laws of ecology popularized by Barry Commoner recast as four design principles: 1) Everything is connected to everything else ([|example]). 2) Everything must go somewhere. 3) Nature knows best. 4) There is no such thing as a free lunch. Principles 1 & 2 leading into Waste and byproducts are products, or the Engine and the atmosphere are part of the one system. Including selections from
 * sewer tour of Paris
 * [|Discard Studies]
 * [|Warhaft powerpoint] (minus some slides)
 * Recycling increase versus increase in amount of packaging
 * //look for history of waste//
 * Cellist & harmonic singing
 * [|Percussive guitar]
 * [|Viagra]
 * [|Thalidomide]
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

Case on the issue of Waste and byproducts are products "How to respond to ways of subverting an ideal scheme of emissions tax and tariffs" > Ideal scheme = http://wp.me/pPWGi-vR > Subversion includes Counter-arguments, schemes based on different principles, ignoring it, adopting it in name but not spirit > Response = //that's what you have to design!// (Remember, with each design sketch, you add to or revise a growing set of principles for critical thinking in design.)

Initial design sketches from the case of the previous session [not repeated in the syllabus from here on]
 * 2a: Reports (starting each session)**

2: Play
//A yin and yang of design is intentional planning and play, to the extent that play involves ongoing experimenting and adjustment in putting people as well as materials into place.// Reading: V. Paley, __You can't say you can't play__ or __The girl with the brown crayon__.

Presentation:
 * (play as fantasy->imagination, but fantasy drops as child appreciates material world)
 * Computer Clubhouse (http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Clubhouse/clubhouse-origins.pdf)
 * Eameses, http://bit.ly/133KdPU

Case: On average, children play less outdoors even though streets are safer. Moreover, play declines during adolescence into adulthood -> Design a program to shift the norms, practices, misperceptions, environments etc. EITHER back towards more play outdoors or unsupervised or other alternatives OR to extend play to older ages OR both. (Bounce off models provided by 4H, Scouting, MADD, Little League sports, ...)

3: Gathering into community
//Putting people into place—as designers, users, co-designer-user—may happen by working with what you know about people, facilitating new arrangements, or working around their constraints.// Reading: P. Fleischman, Seedfolks, [|Community computer clubs]

Presentation: Find out about and visit a creative learning space in your local area. By "creative learning space," we're thinking of a place in which people are creating projects --and learning from each other as part of the process. Here are some questions you may want to note when visiting. You could focus on one or two, and share back to the group. If you are already an active participant, share your experience. Projects - What kinds of projects are people working on? How would you describe the range or diversity of projects? Interests - Where do the ideas for the projects come from? Are the projects based on individual, group, or community interests? Learning Community - Do people help each other learn? Are there mentors in the space? Is there a trajectory of participation from newcomer to leadership roles? Values - How do people treat each other in the community? Are there community guidelines or values that are discussed or agreed upon? Space - Which aspects of the physical space support the creative learning process? What materials are available? ||
 * Luanne Witkowski's [|Basic Training] (see [|also])
 * [|Scratch]:Imagine, Program, Share -- "A creative learning community with more than 3 million projects shared"
 * Lucas Aerospace plan (Cooley, http://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace)
 * B. Martin on civil defence, http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/99jpr.html
 * [|Strategic Participatory Planning]
 * [|Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network]
 * [|4Rs]
 * From http://learn.media.mit.edu course:

Case: "Learning from experience in the past and elsewhere to prepare for extreme climatic events and epidemics" > (adapted from [|here], Cuban civil defence, SARS epidemic

4: Enabling
//All disabilities can be reframed as opportunities to a) enable others and b) learn from those who are differently abled// Reading: xx

Presentation:
 * Tek Robot (http://tekrmd.com/what-is-tek-rmd/)
 * Bliss Symbolics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1qlbFw7aFw, http://www.radiolab.org/2012/dec/17/man-became-bliss/)
 * Hobcart (from Lucas Aerospace alternative )
 * [|Prosthetics]
 * [|Human Givens]
 * [|Geel, Belgium], integrating the mentally ill into families and community life
 * [|Universal Design]
 * Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network, http://nyti.ms/1966HHj

Case: "Communities enabling the elderly" > Inspired by the model of Geel in Belgium where the mentally ill are integrated into families and community life and by ADA-mandated accommodations--enablements--for the disabled, what would it look like for a community to integrate the elderly into community life and enable their full participation? How would the transition to there from where we are now be organized?

5: Design thinking education
(making such thinking available to all) //Imagine that you don't say "it's not my problem" or "this seems too hard for me to solve," and imagine instead that, whatever your age or background, you can rise to the challenge and contribute, through a series of steps, to a prototype to be tested in the real world.// Reading: Computer Clubhouse (http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Clubhouse/clubhouse-origins.pdf)

Presentation:
 * Design thinking
 * Tinkering
 * Creative learning spaces
 * Participatory Action research by children: school lunch problems
 * Co (Coeylen) Barry's TEDx Denver Teachers 2013 talk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyt4YvXRRGA
 * Co's CREATEDU Design Thinking web site: http://createdu.org/, http://createdu.org/design-thinking/what-is-design-thinking/
 * The founder of the Stanford D.school talks about Design Thinking, CBS 60 Minutes video ("Global firm IDEO incorporates human behaviour into product design - an innovative approach being taught at Stanford. Charlie Rose profiles the company's founder, David Kelley"): http://goo.gl/z4Wi1
 * IDEO web site: http://www.ideo.com/
 * Introducing Design Thinking presentation (great slides that explain the design thinking process with real-life examples of the process in action) [ppt file]: http://goo.gl/zeEQ0
 * K-12 Lab wiki: How to implement design thinking in your school: https://dschool.stanford.edu/groups/k12/
 * Design Thinking For Educators web site: http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com
 * http://notosh.com/lab/ -- working in the creative sectors and in schools every week

Case: Appropriate low-tech (building off M. Cooley & Lucas Aerospace Plan)

6: Craft, improvisation, innovation and uptake
(design thinking in professional and commercial practice) //Craft, innovation, improvisation and uptake are well-managed learning.//

Reading: D. Pye, The Art and Aesthetics of Design; E. Ries, The Lean Startup,

Presentation: http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/book/-/9781592535873, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2013/mar/15/products-through-the-ages-slideshow E. Ries, The Lean Startup D. Pye, The Art and Aesthetics of Design Diffusion of innovations (Hughes) Crossing the chasm (Moore) http://artisansasylum.com/
 * The founder of the Stanford D.school talks about Design Thinking, CBS 60 Minutes video ("Global firm IDEO incorporates human behaviour into product design - an innovative approach being taught at Stanford. Charlie Rose profiles the company's founder, David Kelley"): http://goo.gl/z4Wi1
 * IDEO web site: http://www.ideo.com/

Case: "Modern apprenticeships, communities of practice, scaffolding"

7: Standards, Conventions, Modularity and Infrastructure
//"All invention is borrowing" (D. Pye, furniture designer); infrastructure already in place, standards and modularity enable the designer to know the properties of borrowed materials and have some sense of the possibilities and limits of adaptation into new arrangements. Indeed, Pye's dictum reminds us to build on what is already in place, not assume that new is better.// Reading: xx

Presentation: Hassan Fathy, https://vimeo.com/15514401, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5_LPYFyaFE, http://calearth.org/ Brad Bellows's Kuala Lumpur project, Matt Frederick's book: http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Learned-Architecture-School/dp/0262062666/ref=rec_dp_0 material properties [|view] http://bit.ly/18S9ftp

Case: "Low energy, low maintenance, affordable, DIY housing"

8: Local particularity
//"All design is local" (to paraphrase Tip O'Neill)—ultimately what is designed has to work for particular people using the materials that can be made available in their particular setting. To that end, a) the knowledge of the people most affected by the given issue needs to be brought into play and b) participation needs to be facilitated in ways that ensure that the full range of participants are invested in collaborating to bring the resulting design to fruition [see Gathering into community) A corollary is for designers not to rely on early adopters of innovations, but to pay attention to users who, while prepared to adopt innovations, need them to be integrated with their own practical day-to-day concerns and specific situations [see innovation and uptake]. Finally, a corollary of all that is to acknowledge local distinctiveness or vernacular is to demand that the new keeps places worked in, lived in, not standardized, maintains employment etc.//

Reading: xx

Presentation: [|foodsheds] Permaculture [|Food Democracy Now] Slow foods I. Illich Transition towns Common Ground (1993) on Local Distinctiveness Cuban movie on post-oil adaptations http://calculator.bioregional.com/ West of Eden http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/TakingYourselfSeriouslyParticipation.html Personalized google maps (for local knowledge or against diversity?), http://slate.me/12V9r2Y

Case: "Sustenance in the city" Modeled on bioregional calculator, or on 10+10 questions, create a guide for planning your transition to sustainability, e.g., What role models can you find for changing your habits? Who are your local experts, for e.g. safe soils to grow foods in, composting, exercise, car alternatives, stream restoration, safe fishing, pest control, local dialects, local history & archeology, etc....? What non-local experts or sources of knowledge do you need as well? OR Cultural and environmental retrofit of the university > incl. permaculture your campus: http://www.umasspermacultureconference.com/

9: Spanning distance
//People distant in space can have their cultures profoundly shifted by mediated connections, especially those made around new technologies and the commodities they give rise to.//

Reading: xx

Presentation: FairTrade Electronic Waste, http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162,00.html Clothing factories, http://reut.rs/12EOOgJ, http://to.pbs.org/15aw9d2 John Berger, A Seventh Man, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Seventh_Man Mike Davis, __Late Victorian Holocausts__
 * Eric Wolf’s account of changes in the Mundurucu in the Amazon as rubber began to be used in Europe in C19
 * Social history of bicycles, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hjYjyh19Wo (short), https://vimeo.com/album/216754/video/11243387, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBitle48_LM

Case: Variant of: Place the description of the video at http://papertiger.org/node/751 in a wide context by tracing connections from near and from far in place, time, practice, and culture. (Don’t watch the video at this point. Following your own interests and curiosity, use the internet to learn more about who, when, where, why, what led to this video for the different players involved, what followed from this, and so on.  Use the blog to record what you find out and what further questions arise.) OR How do consumers come together to take stock of their "mediated connections" to distant people and design alternative relations with them? (relevant model: http://www.mega-cities.net/history.php)

10: Integration of diverse social and material worlds
//Instead of dividing real world complexities into many local situations (as if they were well-bounded systems with other processes pushed into the background or hidden for the time being), we can examine “intersecting processes” that cut across scales, involve heterogeneous components, and develop over time. There is always a tension between, on one hand, local knowledge and solidarities forged through working and living together in particular places and, on the other hand, application of trans-local perspectives, abstractions, or other resources--or withholding such resources. Within the intersecting processes, there are multiple potential points of engagement for a designer, which need to be linked together "transversally" in a manner that is intentional and explicit. In other words, if sustained engagement in local situations is desired to ensure that design is not a "solution.. for the problems that people don't have" (Myles Horton), what else is needed to mitigate the consequences of decisions made in governments and corporations operating on a larger spatial and temporal arena?// Reading: xx

Presentation: I. McHarg, Design with nature Fathy, https://vimeo.com/15514401 Louv, Last Child in the Woods, chap. Urmadic design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_design, http://www.slowlab.net/CtC_SlowDesignPrinciples.pdf, Epilogue of __Unruly Complexity__ Wall of wonder/historical scan http://www.ecoinnovationlab.com/

Case: Compose your life using a Wall of wonder (a variant of intersecting processes) in a way that allows for transversal engagement (relevant model: http://www.mega-cities.net/history.php )

11: Keeping track
//Possibilities for surveillance are an unavoidable by-product of standards and of keeping track of the effects of one's design.// Reading: xx

Presentation: [|Critique of stream restoration standards] L. Busch http://theaecassociates.com/blog/when-good-record-keeping-saved-lives-in-architectural-cad-services/ A. Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto, http://gawande.com/the-checklist-manifesto Reproduction of images Scorecard, http://scorecard.goodguide.com/

Case: Health surveillance, community and individual ([|Mozorov opEd], Extensions of Scorecard, http://scorecard.goodguide.com/ (or Ontario Health Study), in which individuals keep track of their own histories of exposure; CounterPunch article)

12: Improving by taking stock (from design to adoption & adaption by others)
//Making space to reflect, using various tools or processes, before proceeding either from one phase to another or on from an activity or event, makes it more difficult to simply continue along previous lines, opening up possibilities of alternative paths to proceed.//

Reading: xx

Presentation:
 * [|Taking stock as an ethical imperative]
 * http://theleanstartup.com/principles

Issues not (yet) explicitly included
Literacy

Gears > Reading: S. Papert on gears > Case: Turtle drawing software = what kind of creativity?

Engines

Divisions

Information

Reproduction of images

Public Health

Defense

Moving

Communicating > Universal principles of graphic design

Conventions

Purity

Tinkering

Material properties

Reactivity

Resilience

Affordance

Borrowing

Apprenticeship

Recursion

From Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design William Lidwell; Kritina Holden; Jill Butler Rockport Publishers 2010 http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/book/-/9781592535873


 * 80/20 Rule

Accessibility

Advance Organizer

Aesthetic-Usability Effect

Affordance

Alignment

Anthropomorphic Form

Archetypes

Area Alignment

Attractiveness Bias

Baby-Face Bias

Biophilia Effect

Cathedral Effect

Chunking

Classical Conditioning

Closure

Cognitive Dissonance

Color

Common Fate

Comparison

Confirmation

Consistency

Constancy

Constraint

Contour Bias

Control

Convergence

Cost-Benefit

Defensible Space

Depth of Processing

Design by Committee

Desire Line

Development Cycle

Entry Point

Errors

Expectation Effect

Exposure Effect

Face-ism Ratio

Factor of Safety

Feedback Loop

Fibonacci Sequence

Figure-Ground Relationship

Fitts' Law

Five Hat Racks

Flexibility-Usability Tradeoff

Forgiveness

Form Follows Function

Framing

Freeze-Flight-Fight-Forfeit

Garbage In­Garbage Out

Golden Ratio

Good Continuation

Gutenberg Diagram

Hick's Law

Hierarchy

Hierarchy of Needs

Highlighting

Horror Vacui

Hunter-Nurturer Fixations

Iconic Representation

Immersion

Inattentional Blindness

Interference Effects

Inverted Pyramid

Iteration

Law of Prägnanz

Layering

Legibility

Life Cycle

Mapping

Mental Model

Mimicry

Mnemonic Device

Modularity

Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

Most Average Facial Appearance Effect

Normal Distribution

Not Invented Here

Nudge

Ockham's Razor

Operant Conditioning

Orientation Sensitivity

Performance Load

Performance Versus Preference

Personas

Picture Superiority Effect

Priming

Progressive Disclosure

Propositional Density

Prospect-Refuge

Prototyping

Proximity

Readability

Recognition Over Recall

Red Effect

Redundancy

Rosetta Stone

Rule of Thirds

Satisficing

Savanna Preference

Scaling Fallacy

Scarcity

Self-Similarity

Serial Position Effects

Shaping

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Similarity

Stickiness

Storytelling

Structural Forms

Symmetry

Threat Detection

Three-Dimensional Projection

Top-Down Lighting Bias

Uncanny Valley

Uncertainty Principle

Uniform Connectedness

Veblen Effect

Visibility

Visuospacial Resonance

von Restorff Effect

Wabi-Sabi

Waist-to-Hip Ratio

Wayfinding

Weakest Link ||

Notes & other sources
> The presentations may make extensive use of material from the web, building on some crowdsourcing. > Get advice from Marius Foley's friends in Pittsburgh


 * Just as books printed in the vernacular brought on fundamentalism before they brought the enlightenment ([|Burning to Read]), the internet is [|fueling a new fundamentalism] -> How to subvert this tendency?

Maker movement

http://www.hackidemia.com/blog/tedxyouthaustin-hackidemia-the-musical-room

developing a research-biased course to encourage a user-focused approach to design.

a few suggestions: TOPICS - the key elements and importance of user-focused design; various methods of research and how to evaluate and present the results; how to choose appropriate methods of research; how to employ and evaluate others' research. ACTIVITIES - ones that encourage students to look at real-world problems from a number of perspectives, eg. addressing homelessness, solving environmental issues such as dwindling natural resources or promoting healthy eating. Guest project leaders from industry may add a touch of reality to the work and give the students a fabulous insight into the actual constraints and affordances they may have to work with. Projects could start with research and end with product designs or/and marketing literature, whatever seems to be a worthwhile solution. The tasks could be evaluated on a number of levels, eg. how well they have analysed the problems involved, the appropriateness of their research and the presentation and quality of their solutions.

READINGS - one of my favourites is 'The myth of the paperless office' by Sellen & Harper (2002?) outlining the research they did into how we use paper and what constraints and affordances of it needed to be considered before products could/can be developed to replace it. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/myth-paperless-office http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ioIkB-VCE

pattern languages in design, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_languagehttp://www.instructables.com/

http://www.instructables.com/

Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/wordpress/ Fischer, G. (2011) "Understanding, Fostering, and Supporting Cultures of Participation," ACM Interactions XVIII.3 (May + June 2011), pp. 42-53. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2011/interactions-coverstory.pdf