A Tree Falls in the Woods -- a model of creativity

I am sometimes surprised by peoples notions of what it means to be creative. Many years ago I did quite a bit of research on approaches for identifying or defining authenticity and creativity. I used three models that I like a lot -- one was a model that I developed based on genetic evolution, the second was a model I adapted from Jungian psychology and the third was this from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book on creativity...

 

While I found value in all three models I ended up using the model that I adapted from genetic evolution. Looking back on it now I think I would need to change it just a little bit as I think the trajectory is probably not so straight forward. But being lazy I'm just going post what I had at the time...

 

I don't feel that I ever fully developed the model that I attempted to adapt from Jungian psychology. I used ideas from Jung's model of archetypes. Looking back on my files from that period of my life it just looks like a big mess now. So, I won't share it here. But, perhaps I will revisit it someday.  

Even though my obsession with the evolutionary model persists, I still like the Csikszentmihalyi model quite a bit. Reading a new article today "Examining Types of Knowledge Claims Made in Design Research" by my friend Jordan Beck and Erik Stolterman reminded my of that model... I think that a "knowledge claim" might be viewed as a form of creativity and so I post :)   In fact I re-made the model today as I was inspired by Beck's article.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is allowed to witness it -- does it make a sound? You are the tree. If you don't at least attempt to share the insights from your research... are they really insights? You yourself may know that they are valuable insights and that is all fine and good. But, if you take them with you to the grave then the good that you have done is limited. Some people I respect do "research" through the things that they create. They make beautiful and/or compelling artifacts. They share those artifacts with the world. But, they never share with the rest of us the things that they learned along the way. I honestly feel a little robbed because of that. I think that the Csikszentmihalyi's model hints at the idea that there is value in sharing your idea, innovation or creativity.

 

Systems, Perspectives and Maps

When you look at a system
the perspective you examine it from
can make all the difference.

Below are 3 maps.
They all are essentially made up of the same set of "nodes."

But the meaning is radically different for each one
due to a simple shift of perspective...

Changes to the structure of a map can shift the meaning of the map...

 

 Changes to the structure of the map can help us to understand the system in different ways...

 

maps from "Learning How to Learn" -- Novak J.D., Gowin D.B.

What all of this means from a design perspective is important. Often we map a system from only one perspective. If we think about the system in a more elastic way we can generate insights that we might otherwise miss entirely. Including someone on your design team who thinks visually and is a systems-thinker can push this exercise in ever more interesting directions.  See the maps and models of the Dubberly Design Office.

What if there is no "thing?"

What if...?

What if we completely let go of the idea that we are designing some "thing?"

What if we imagined instead that we were designing some future state of being for the humans that we are designing for?

What would that state of being be?

What are the qualities and characteristics of that state of being?

What are the qualities and characteristics of that experience?

What are the qualities and characteristics of the objectives we are aiming for within that experience?

Re-ask those same questions about the humans that we are designing for.

Re-ask those same questions about the contexts that we are designing for.

Then... after we've applied our "methods," "approaches," "frameworks", etc to all of those (many times over) then maybe, just maybe, we can begin to imagine the "thing."

I think I can... I think I can imagine what that would be like.

Now... if I could only get my students to do the same.

What if...?

Reflect - Contemplate - Discuss - Design - Repeat

Computer Monkeys of the Future (or not... hopefully)

A couple of months ago I wrote the following but never posted it...
 

"These past seven days have run the gammut — from wonderful conversations with amazing game designers to a faculty colleague insinuating that people do not want or need the classes that I create/teach. Today I sit here reflecting on the latter half of that arc. My writing these words is perhaps a way for me to purge myself of the negative thoughts I've been having. In this tiny dark corner of the digital I feel safe to write these words. More than ever I am filled with self doubt. Maybe I have been going down a wrong path. Maybe graphic design does not need to concern itself with any of the things that I have spent the last 8 years pursuing. If that is true than it's time for me to come to grips and pull the plug. I will concede that graphic designers do concern themselves with notions of user-experience, interaction, systems-level and human-centered design. But, do they do these things well enough? If so then why should I concern myself with any notions of change?

Not long ago I told a friend that I would be happy teaching design the same way that I was taught design 20 years ago. I had a great experience in my undergraduate education. I would be happy to go back to that model. So, why have I felt compelled to do anything differently? Return to your roots. All is well. Let's make things that look great, things that seem like they will solve a problem."

I have been reflecting on these words since I wrote them.  But, things have grown more complicated since then. I have been researching the future of "graphic design" and -- there is no easy way to say this -- it doesn't look great. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that the job market in "graphic design" will essentially be stagnant for the next eight years -- 1% growth. This makes me sad but also very curious.

It appears that other areas of design potentially face a much brighter future. UX and IXd in particular seem to be faced with a very bright future. It seems that I may be on to something with the concepts that I teach in my classes. I have been weaving thick threads of user-research and other IX/UX design notions into my graphic design classes. It has been challenging because both students and some of my faculty colleagues are resistant to the idea that graphic design education needs to change.

It is true that thin threads of IX/UX ideas have been used in some areas of graphic design for decades. But, these threads have been weak, inconsistent and have rarely used the same vocabulary as IX/UX. Increasingly I believe that we as graphic designers and design educators must adapt or face a strange and in my opinion undesirable future. That future is one where graphic designers are brought onto projects toward the very end of development and tasked with creating visual designs based on pre-established specifications -- i.e. graphic designers become computer monkeys.

My vision of the future is much different. It is a future where graphic designers understand and use IX/UX methods and are valuable team members that are brought onto projects before they even begin. It is a future where visual design becomes central to every step in the progress of a project. It means that graphic designers must understand user-research and how to use visual design to make that research better. Preparing students to do that type of work requires a paradigm shift. It means holding off on the design of the grail and beginning with designing the tools (i.e. visual research) that will be used to craft the grail.

It's Not About the Games

I have had on numerous occasions over the past three years people make suggestions or recommendations for me -- suggestions and recommendations that assume I want to teach or pursue game design. I want to be clear -- I have no such desires. It's true that I have a deep interest in the design of tabletop games and yes I have dabbled in designing such things. But, my interest in board game design lies in what other types of designers can learn from the concepts, methods and outcomes inherent in the design of tabletop games.

I believe very strongly that the concepts, methods and outcomes found in board game design can be powerful, powerful tools for designing almost anything. Furthermore, when used in the classroom, board game design can be an extremely effective, efficient and enjoyable means of teaching students (of all design disciplines) principles that will make them better designers. In the five different courses that I have developed and/or taught over the last three years I have used board game design in only one of them. Board game design principles could be extremely useful at any level of education. But, I strategically use game design in the 200 level course that I teach. I believe that the game design principles that I can leverage in the classroom are foundational. So, while those principles can be powerful at all levels it is best to introduce them at an early level in a design students education.

Grail Syndrome

 or Why I am a "Process" Guy

There is in graphic design (and other design disciplines) a tendency to fixate on the "thing" -- the artifact, the whatsit, the object that we believe will be the end of our design process. It can be a blinding obsession that can result in premature design-ation. The "thing" is our sirens on the cliffs, the big red shiny button, the beautiful glowing destination that calls to us like the bug to the zapper, it is our holy grail. It's difficult for me to describe in mere words the overwhelming power that the grail has over us as designers. I have begun calling this obsession the "grail syndrome." This syndrome is real and pervasive. It can result in designers falling in love with early ideas and clinging to them until the bitter end even though those ideas may be bad ones. The syndrome can result in designs that ignore any other number of  problems that should be addressed in order to generate effective, enjoyable and efficient designs.

For designers who don't understand the extreme importance of the context-of-use or the humans-we-design-for or the goals we are trying to help those humans reach, the call of the grail often ends badly. We must understand not just the grail itself. We must strive for a deep understand of it... in context... with humans... and goals. This "grail" is the literal object of our design efforts and it is often referred to in design as the form. Present day forms are rapidly evolving and accelerating in complexity. In the last twenty years we have experienced a radical shift in the types of designs that people interact with. We have moved from relatively static designs like printed catalogs to kinetic experiences like websites and mobile technologies. It is difficult to keep up with changes of this magnitude that are happening at such a rapid pace. And more importantly it is increasingly difficult to predict what we will be faced with fifteen, ten or even five years from now.

Teaching design in such a world is very exciting. It's tempting to spend most of ones time teaching students how to deal with forms that are currently in use. To some degree it is necessary to do this. But, I feel that too much emphasis on this is time misspent. Unlike the scale and speed of the evolution of form, the evolution of "design process" has been much slower. We frame, we ideate, we empathize, we iterate, we test -- these are things that designers have been doing for generations.  An emphasis on "design process" encourages students to understand design in terms of systems, humans, contexts and goals. These are concepts that don't change much over time and as design educators these are where we should be spending most of our efforts. We can prepare students for the rapid evolution of forms by teaching these concepts along with strategies for dealing with complexity (but, complexity is probably a topic best left for future post).

Design Prototype Fidelity Addendum

Last week I wrote a post about the fidelity level of design prototypes. This topic has been on my mind for some time. Shortly after making last weeks post I created another graph that I think is noteworthy. Much like last weeks graph/post I have no quantitative research to back this up. I have been studying design and designers for a couple of decades now and these two posts reflect my personal experiences. Today's graph reflects how an experienced designer might create prototypes of increasingly high fidelity as a design project progress from its early stages to it later/final(?)/ship state. As with last weeks post this progression may depend on the type of design project that a designer might be working on and the client that the designer is working with. Sometimes it might be appropriate to create prototypes at a very high level of fidelity much earlier in the design process. So, these graphs are intended as rough "rule of thumb" models.

Design Prototype Fidelity as an Affordance for Change

I'm working on a paper that discusses low-fidelity, rapid prototyping for user-experience design. I have an interest in paper prototyping — why it's useful and important. Low-fidelity, rapid prototyping is any quick, rough way of approximating how a design will look and/or function. This is often done just with paper and markers. But it may be done with other common materials that might be found around the office -- paper, markers, tape, glue, rubber-bands, paper-clips, etc.

I also have an interest in affordances. An affordance is "a property in which the physical (or arguably visual) characteristics of an object or environment influence function." For example when you see a large wooden rectangle embedded in a wall and there is a metal knob at waist height on that rectangle -- you assume that's a door. You can assume that by twisting and pulling the knob you can open the "door." A door knob is an affordance that indicates there are certain things you can do.

So it occurred to me today that these two interests work well together. Of course it is one of those seemingly obvious connections.

We do pencil sketches on paper because they are easy to change and easy to change quickly. The low-fidelity of the materials of pencil and paper afford us the ability to change our sketches. As the fidelity of a prototype becomes higher it becomes increasingly difficult to change. A low-fidelity prototype of an iPhone app may be done with several post-it notes stuck to the screen of the phone. Drawn on the post-it notes are a series of screens that represent how the app looks and functions. Peeling off one post-it note after another gives an approximate experience for using the app. Changes to such a prototype can be done in seconds. As the prototype is slowly evolved by the designer the prototyping moves from pencil on paper to digital wireframes and beyond. As the prototypes increase in fidelity it becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming to make changes.

There is enormous value in using low-fidelity prototyping in the early stages of a design project. The low-fidelity of the prototype affords the designer the ability to make changes easily, quickly and very inexpensively. The fidelity level of a prototype acts as an affordance -- low-fidelity acts as an affordance for a high degree of changeability and high-fidelity acts as an affordance for a low degree of changeability.