"User" focused? Perhaps a Bad Idea.

For the past decade or so there has been a trend in design centric work towards titles that include ..."user"... user-research, user-centered, user-experience, etc. I am guilty of thinking in these terms myself. You may ask what is wrong with these ways of thinking and in some cases I think it's just fine. But, what keeps eating at me is the word itself — "user." It implies a very utility based concept of what a design is or should be. The design becomes a thing to be used — a tool. This again is fine provided you have a very broad definition of what a tool is. And that works for me. But I fear that few people hold that broad definition.

"Use" is largely singular in it's direction. "Use" based design focuses on artifacts that are acted upon or used to act upon other objectives. What happens to "meaning" when "use" becomes the priority. Humans are meaning making machines. So, when we design for use rather than meaning we forget that the artifact acts upon us whether we intend it to or not. Whether we like it or not designed artifacts change us. They mean something to us. They force meaning upon us and we have no choice in the matter because we are genetically programed to draw meaning from everything we experience.

Let's look at a very simple example — say a shovel... a sheet of metal strapped to the end of a stick that is used to move dirt. A poorly designed shovel sends a message to the person who will use it. Perhaps the meaning of such an artifact could be... "we don't really care... just do your job" or "hey we've got your money now and what did you expect... it's a SHOVEL!" If we understand that meaning will be drawn from everything we design then the way that we design shifts. "Use" is still there and as important as ever but a design then is not just about efficiency or utility.

Look closely at the wooden spoon pictured at the top of this post. There is meaning to be drawn from that spoon. It's shape, it's color, etc. means something. It will mean something different to different people. The person who will use it may not draw some deep profound meaning from it. But, there will be some kind of meaning drawn from the experience of using it. The tide of "use" in design is too strong I think to change things now. And that worries me... a LOT!

I would like to make a plea for — "Meaning-Centered Design."

My concern for this began some time ago when I read this article...

"The Birth of the User"

You should read it.

My Three Mutation Scenarios

I have done a great deal of participant observation in playtesting/design processes in the development of new designs. Over time I have observed three general ways that mutation occurs. I think that it is worthwhile to discuss these as it may be helpful to designers of all disciplines. There are no answers here. But, rather these perhaps can provide an interesting way to think about how we design.

First, the most common way it seems that mutation occurs is as a designer works on a new design they draw from past experiences (figure b). In this model a designer take ideas from artifacts and experiences that they have had in their past life and adapts them to the design at hand. This can in some cases be thought of as intuition. A designer perceives patterns in the project that they are working on that resemble patterns that they have see in other designs. The designer is able to adapt these old patterns to serve objectives and needs in the new design.

Second, and perhaps the least common scenario happens in a sort of closed system between the designer and the project at hand (figure a). In this scenario the designer "grinds" on their design and perceives relationships and possibilities purely within their current design. The designer develops new ideas strictly as a result of seeing patterns, relationships and possibilities within the design at hand. This is a sort of "pure brute force" approach and it's possible that this scenario is extremely rare or even that it never truly happens. Is it possible to design without referencing our past experiences in some way? It seems impossible. But, I want to leave open the possibility that on rare occasions this sort of closed system designing does happen. 

Third, and in my opinion the most powerful scenario, is when a designer is working with other people (figure c). These other people may be designers, playtesters, co-designers or simply some other types of acquaintances. In this model other people share their experience with the primary designer — feeding these ideas to the designer who applies these new ideas or together they find ways of applying past experiences and observations to the design at hand.

Of course it is most common for there to be some combination of these three scenarios that happen during the creation of a new design.

Earlier in my research I developed a very simple model that looked much like the second scenario (see below).

The reason for using this model was manifold but one of the primary purposes was to position the design in the middle of an evolutionary process. The designer becomes a source of mutation as ideas move from artifact to design-mind and back to new artifact. This model should more accurately be extended (see below).

This model is intended to illustrate how ideas move through artifact to design-mind, back to artifact and then to design-mind again. I think that this model shows how ideas evolve over time. If you look closely you'll see that I've added an ellipsis to left of the 1 on the left end and another to right of the 3 on the right end. This is meant to imply that the model repeats as ideas move through time and space.

These two models that I have been using in the past seem to work fine but are limited to showing the process in a very fundamental way. After attending a protospiel last month I began thinking about the evolution process and came up with the three scenarios present at the beginning of this post. I think "figure a" and "figure c" are an interesting extension to my older models.

As with most of the things I write or make these are all just ideas that I think are interesting. I'm just getting it of my head :)

Greater Than Board Games

One evening sometime in mid-March 2013 I was laying on the couch watching some worthless piece of television crap. My wife Vicki was siting in her chair at the end of couch playing sudoku or doing some such thing on her laptop. This had become our every evening. We'd come home from work, fix dinner, eat dinner and then "veg" for an hour or two before going to bed. She in her chair doing her thing... me on the couch doing my thing... day after day... week after week... month upon month. This had become the routine and it had been going on for a few years. It was slowly driving me crazy! I felt like we were alone together and I hated that feeling. Vicki loved games. Me... not so much. So, what happened that evening seemed extreme and shocking to me. Words came out of my mouth — something along the lines of, "let's go buy a couple of board games."

I was skeptical and apprehensive as we brought those first two games home, as we unboxed them, as we tried to understand the rules and play them. But, something kind of amazing happened as we played. Not only were Vicki and I no longer alone together — I saw wonderful things in those games. I was seeing complex systems in action, concept maps coming to life before my eyes, rich interaction and user experience. My relationship with Vicki was slowly and deeply being enhanced and my design brain was being fed a wonderful feast.

It's been over two years since my feet hit the path of board games and we now have a rather large collection of games (see the photo above). We play about six games a week — sometimes a few less and oftentimes many, many more. Modern board games are amazing and they have come to infect nearly ever part of my life. I'm not sure if there is some moral to the story here. I'm sure there are many. But I am also sure that I have a wonderful wife and we now share a deeply interesting hobby. In some ways we have become research partners as I have come to focus my work on how the designers of these games think and work. I hope it never ends.

Boardgame Designers as Anthropologists

I am a designer-researcher-teacher-anthropologist. How's that for a hyhpenated career title? Lately I've been thinking of myself as a design anthropologist and I feel that's an apt title for who I am becoming career-wise. I should be working on various research papers right now but here I am blogging. I had one of those ideas today that seems too interesting to not write a little about. So, here I am.

In my research I have turned to the study of board game designers. These people are awesome! In parallel to this I have been studying anthropology, it's methods, theories and history rather heavily for the past year or so. And it occurred to me today that board game designers might be wise to see themselves as cultural anthropologist. Weird right? Well, maybe not so weird as you'd like to think.

At the core of most cultural anthropology is a method catagory called "participant observation." This includes dozens of more specific methods but the foundational one is "fieldnotes" which can take the forms of "jotting," "sketching (in words)," "drawings,"  and many others. But the key idea here is that you spend time with the people you are interested in and take some form of notes describing events, ideas and whatever else strikes you as interesting or useful -- you participate, you observe and you take notes. What is this if not playtesting! Playtesting of course differs in some significant ways but my point here is that anthropological methods could be adapted to playtesting and perhaps yield some pretty interesting or even great results.

If participant observation were more thoughtfully incorporated it could reveal tendancies in gameplay such as king-making, alpha-gamer issues, etc. It believe it has the potential to provide many other types of insights but I need to keep this short.

Similar methods are used in various design disciplines. In user-experience and interaction design there is an emerging method called "participatory design." This method involves a design-researcher creating a set of tools or artifacts that they share with potential design users. The researcher provides the users with some set of instructions and cuts them loose to play with the tools and ideas. The researcher takes notes, collects feedback from the users and analyses the session and its outcomes. All of this is then taken and applied on some way to generate or improve a design. Doesn't that sound a lot like playtesting? 

Just some thoughts… I think this is a big idea. Now back to work ;)

Here are a couple of references ...

Bernard, H. R. (2011). Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Rowman Altamira.

Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. University of Chicago Press.

Sanders, E. B. N., & Stappers, P. J. (2012). Convivial toolbox: Generative research for the front end of design. BIS.

and a couple pages of fieldnotes I generated during a 20 minute visit to a local Starbucks…

Graphic Design and IX/UX

Ramble, ramble, ramble... rant, rant rant...

Recently I had a conversation in passing with people deeply embedded in IX/UX design. I was surprised to learn they considered graphic designers as less promising candidates for IX/UX design. I was so stunned in fact that I was left a bit speechless and frankly a little depressed. So, I have been reflecting on this a lot lately. Perhaps it is my own training that leads me to believe that graphic designers have high potential to be the very best IX/UX designers. My early training included the notion that the "concept" is foundational for any good design. Layered with this were strong emphasis's on understanding systems and semiotics (though I did not learn that it was called semiotics until later). I was taught that understanding design principles allowed a good designer to cross design disciplines. In my undergrad I designed 3D, 2D and time based projects.

The focus on concept was so strong in my undergrad education that student's portfolios coming out of the program were often lacking in visual appeal (at least that was my experience). Developing a compelling concept is a key factor in designerly ways of framing and redefining a problem statement. This pursuit of concept forces a designer to constantly revisit, rethink, re-frame and re-write the problem. It also is a catalyst for iteration as the problem evolves. It creates an integral feedback loop that joins the problem with the design space.

Systems thinking is what sets a good graphic designer apart from a mediocre one. A good graphic designer not only understands that there is a system across visual elements, pages, media and artifacts of all kinds but that the system includes the user, the context of use and the sociocultural context. Good graphic designers understand that designing in-between the elements of a system is crucial — i.e. it's as much or more about the relationships between the elements of the system than the elements themselves. It is in these in-between areas that leverage points can be designed into the system. This is where real and powerful design happens.

An understanding of semiotics is perhaps the most important quality of a good graphic designer. Many may not have an explicit understanding of semiotics. But all have at least a deep intuitive understanding. This understanding is a knowledge that every physical/visual element or system of elements that you create MEANS something. Making sure that users interpret your design the way that you intend is what makes you a designer. If you create a semiotic system that is misinterpreted you have probably failed. Semiotic systems not only create meaning but also enable people to use your design and can evoke emotion. Affordances and signifiers are inseparable — so, a poorly crafted signifier makes a design function poorly or not at all.

Good graphic designers are trained both formally and through experience to think/work in these ways. This makes them prime candidates to move into IX/UX design. These abilities can function for them on two levels. At a low level these skills allow them to work within design teams as a communication hub — crafting custom visual languages that unite the team and move projects forward in unique and powerful ways. On a higher level it makes them a valuable asset. An intuitive understanding that all design is about creating an experience enables a good graphic designer to transfer their abilities into the IX/UX design space.

All this rambling and ranting are based on my personal experience as a designer. I'm not entirely convinced that experience is shared by all graphic designers — I suspect there are many who do not share a similar experience. I believe that many graphic design undergrad and graduate programs fail to provided the foundation that I feel I have been so fortunate to receive. There needs to be a shift in such programs to help students establish a foundation first as designers and second as graphic designers.

Think Like a Designer?

What does it mean to think like a designer?

• Knowing that the problem can and should be redefined

• Knowing that there is never a single “best” solution

• Knowing that abductive reasoning is an acceptable path

• Understanding that users provide information... not solutions

• Being able to iterate freely

• Always returning to and questioning the problem

• Being able to abandon one line of thinking and take up another

• Realizing that an abandoned path can always be returned to

• Understanding that you must make things, many things... quickly and as early as possible

• Understanding that making things is research

• Knowing that ideas can come from strange places and looking there

• Embracing the idea that your design will be picked up by others and adapted for different uses

• Being comfortable with ambiguity

• Realizing the need to embrace complexity — simplicity is being replaced by clarity

• Knowing how to set boundaries — everything is connected but that doesn’t mean your design has to address all the connections

• Thinking in systems — look for leverage points and design them into the project

• Understanding that it’s less about the parts and more about the relationships between them

Playtesting as a Catalyst for Evolution

Over a year ago I started attending these things called "Protospiel." These are events organized by board game designers allowing them to playtest their games with other designers as well as with publishers and gamers. This last protospiel was my fifth and I can honestly say that I love them. Every time I attend one it seems there are surprises. There are always games that are very enjoyable and there seems to always be one that is hard for me to bear as it is just bad. But, it is all done in a spirit of camaraderie. I had been thinking of these events as a venue for user-testing and I guess I never really thought much about that until a few weeks ago.

At the last protospiel I took a bunch of photographs. When I returned home I sat with a professor from my research group and showed him some of these photographs. I was a little surprised at some of his comments and it has stirred my mind. One of his comments was that to him these events seemed more like design sessions than user testing. I like that! And I think to a large degree it is true.

Many of these designers come with games that are very rough around the edges. Some even come with only ideas and a bag full of blank cardboard bits, cards, felt tip markers, colored cubes and other raw game making materials. Over the course of one of these 3 day protospiel weekends games are not just tested but created, changed, designed, re-designed, overhauled, and in some cases fine-tuned. These processes can happen at these events in a very collaborative way and in an environment that is friendly and open.

I am a strong believer in "thinking through making." In the process of making, a designer is forced to think about the structure and behavior of the system that they are creating. Changes to a design can happen on the fly throughout the process of making as the designer thinks and re-thinks the design. But, I believe that in the context of playtesting at a protospiel there is more happening. It is not only "thinking through making." Playtesting and all that it encompasses at one of these events can change the way that a designer thinks about designing and designs. I believe that it can change their personal design philosophy. This happens not only as they work on their own designs but also as they playtest other creator's games and discuss concepts, themes and mechanisms.

The evolution of a designers philosophy can happen through the playing of a prototype. Something not just about the discussion over a game but something about experiencing the mechanisms of the game can change the way a designer thinks. Yes there are those "ah-hah" moments but more often it is an almost imperceptible, subtle shift. These subtle shifts accumulate over time and are manifest as a slow evolution of the designers personal philosophy.