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Crossing Boundaries: fostering interdisciplinary artspractice and human computer interaction research
teamsPamela Jennings
Human Computer Interaction Institute and the School of ArtCarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
ABSTRACTThis paper examines the learner-centered methodology used todesign technical and physical components for the ConstructedNarratives project. Our approach demonstrates how aninterdisciplinary team of designers, artists and technologistcan exploit the opportunities inherent with “symmetry ofignorance” to solve complex wicked design problems anddevelop the gestalt generative design methodology. Teammembers completed a self-report questionnaire to assess theusefulness of the team management and work process for theproject.
General TermsManagement, Documentation, Design, Experimentation.
KeywordsTangible user interfaces, computer supported collaborativeplay (CSCP), design thinking, meta-design, symmetry ofignorance, shape grammars, extreme programming, gestaltgenerative design, architecture design theories, interactive art.
1. INTRODUCTIONThe goal of the Constructed Narratives project is to develop aframework for the design of social interfaces, or “discoursewranglers,” whose function it is to facilitate discourse, andsupport the intersubjective contextualization of ideas,assumptions and beliefs among its users. The social interfaceis a catalyst for the transformation and reinvention of thesocial and cultural environment. [1] Constructed Narratives i sa block-based construction game that is based on the form andfunction of children’s construction toys but designed foradults. The act and metaphor of construction is used toillustrate how a simple artifact can provide an interactiveplatform to support discourse between collaboratingparticipants. Providing them with a convivial tool toarticulate their problem solving activities.
Wicked problems are indeterminate and composed of multipleformulations of the initial design question and a bevy of
plausible solutions. Wicked problems do not have stoppingrules or definitive tests to validate the result. Wickedproblems produce multiple justifiable explanations. Thebreadth of the explanation is dependent on theweltanschauung (intellectual perspective) of the designer. [9,2]
Wicked problem solving is integrated into two stages of theConstructed Narratives project. First is the game experiencedesign for end users. The second, an most relevant to thispaper is the development of a system architecture that cansupport a modular system of physical artifacts. This secondwicked problem presented our research team with multipleopportunities for system requirement negotiation, balanced bydesired functionality and aesthetics of the artifacts.
2. PROJECT TEAM DEVELOPMENTAssembling an interdisciplinary research team with eachmember as an equally valued stakeholder is a desiredmanagement goal of interaction design and human computerinteraction research projects. This goal can only be attainedwhen inclusive work methods are the norm and policy of theorganizational structure. Solving complex design problemsrequire a greater diversity of knowledge and technical skillsthan can be provided by a single individual. A method forsolving wicked design problems encourages the integration ofknowledge and practice from the arts and sciences. [2] Thetheory of “symmetry of ignorance,” points out the inherentdifficulties of organizing and managing a collaborative teamwith members from unique disciplines. [9] There is strength indiversity. That strength comes with the price of high hurdlesto overcome. Individuals on a collaborative team bring to theproject discipline-bound methods of practice that can lead tocommunication breakdown. The opportunities afforded by“symmetry of ignorance,” can be cultivated to produceinnovative products, only if the team operates in a learnerfocused, nurturing and respectful environment that is lead by amanagement system that can recognize the synergies betweenteam members and institute productive work methods.
2.1 Team Selection Process
Carnegie Mellon University students with advanced technicalskills can select from many high profile research projects tostretch their academic and intellectual curiosities. A majorchallenge to building the project team for ConstructedNarratives was the recruitment of this same pool of students
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to work on an interaction design and software architectureproject situated in the School of Art.
The caliber of students applying to work on the ConstructedNarratives project was very high. The final selection criteriawere based upon their academic majors; prior work experience;participation in activities beyond their academic major, and acontagious enthusiasm to work on the project. The selectedstudents were highly focused in their tasks, and yet flexibleenough in their thinking to take on a project that was ripe withwicked problems, and complexity.
The final project team was comprised of undergraduate andgraduate students representing the School of Design, Schoolof Drama, School of Computer Science, Electrical andComputer Engineering, Masters in Information ManagementSystems, Human Computer Interaction Institute, and theEntertainment Technology Center. None of the students kneweach other academically or socially prior to working on theproject.
2.2 Team Meetings
Exploit ing the opportunit ies inherent with aninterdisciplinary research team requires a neutral meetingplace where collaboration, creativity and taking risks canhappen. The artist’s studio in the School of Art served as thisneutral safe space where social creativity flourished. Althoughthe space was familiar to one team member, this was the firstopportunity for most team members to spend a significantamount of time in the School of Art.
Giving the stakeholders of a design project decision-makingresponsibilities is empowering. This act of empowermentensures the development of optimum design solutions giventhe scope and level of the team member’s skills. The act ofempowerment also promoted a self-efficacious “can do”attitude that transcended individual concerns over taskdifficulty or effort required to achieve a solution. The researchteam set out to design and develop a multi-layered systemarchitecture for a tangible user interface network. The workprocess was divided into activities that evolved around fiveproject components; project management, artifact design, userexperience design, circuitry design and software programming.Keeping a project memory for team member transitions wascrucial. Team members were required to submit a digitalreport. The reports enabled a cataloguing of potentialtechnology and design solutions that could be examined forcost analysis and feasibility of implementation. The onlyguidelines for the digital report was that they had to be clear,concise and referenced. If these stipulations were notfollowed, then a revision was required. All reports werecompiled into a project notebook that was duplicated for allteam members.
Mandatory full team meetings were held at the end of eachweek. This meeting created a forum for each team member toreport his recent research. The order of reports was alternatedeach week to give the topic of most importance ample time fordiscussion. Research topics included literature search onresearch projects with similar attributes to the ConstructedNarratives project, architectural and design theories andpractices that informed the design of the artifact, various
hardware components and their feasibility for the project, andnetwork interfacing protocols. Creating a softwarearchitecture that supported the connectivity of independentphysical components was a rather complex problem to solve.The artifact, technology and software design all had profoundimpact on each other. The issues of aesthetics, experiencedesign, communication protocols, and hardware solutionswere the source of great discussion, debate, brainstorming, andwhiteboard diagramming.
Smaller focus group meetings, held in the beginning of theweek, provided a forum for development of specifications forcomponents of the design. Focus group meetings weredivided into two categories, software and hardware technologydevelopment and artifact and user experience design.Although it became necessary to create separate meetings fortechnology and design considerations, these core componentsof the project were not segregated or relegated a ranking ofimportance over each other. The segregation of design andtechnology development is very common in computerinterface development projects. It is not unusual for thedesign team to be brought into a project after the specs of thesoftware system are developed. Our technique of integratingall team members in full team meetings from the inception ofthe project, as well as having team members who are bothdesigners and technologists helped to engender anappreciation for all design and development considerations.This technique, along with an implicit acceptance of the theoryof “symmetry of ignorance,” by all team members helped tosupport an efficacious design and development process.
2.3 Team Work Process
T h e a b i l i t y a n dwillingness to learn andteach in a collaborativeknowledge-basedenvironment is paramountfor the successful designof a complex system. [7] Each team member broughta high level of diverseknowledge in their coreresearch areas, yet theyexperienced large learningcurves as a result of a
couple of factors. The chosen technology solution wasdesigned for developing very large component networks.Using the system required that team members learn enoughabout the basics of electronics to handle the programming,learn a technology-specific programming language, and learnthe functioning of the systems multi-component softwareinterface. The design of the block artifact presented many hardproblems to solve, despite its simple visual form. The userexperience design work required team members to grapple withunderstanding theories of semiotics and shape grammars.
Recognizing the high learning curve, elements of the ExtremeProgramming (XP) software development methodology wereborrowed and molded to fit our work process. ExtremeProgramming is a gestalt approach to software design wherethe whole is much greater than the sum of the parts in terms ofefficient software development process. Extreme Programmingis a deliberate and disciplined approach to software
Figure 1: Extremeprogramming in action.
development that stresses customer satisfaction, empowersdevelopers to confidently respond to changing customerrequirements and emphasizes team work where managers,customers and developers are all part of the team. ExtremeProgramming emphasizes four essential elements,communication, simplicity, feedback and courage.Programmers keep their design simple and clean. They getfeedback by testing their software starting on day one andimplement changes as suggested. An important technique ofExtreme Programming is programming in teams. This processrelies on the fact that better software design and problemsolving can occur with greater diversity in the thoughtprocess . [4] The concept of Extreme Programming wasextended to all aspects of the Constructed Narratives projectfrom programming to artifact design. Standards, for writingcode and artifact prototype development, were established inthe beginning of the project. And methods for testing softwareand hardware designs were implemented that allowed a paralleldesign process where software, hardware and artifact designcould proceed independent of any interdependence betweensystem components. For example, after careful planning of thenetwork communication protocol, a prototype circuit boardwas developed to facilitate hardware dependent softwaredevelopment. This enabled simultaneous development ofsoftware and hardware.
2.4 Team Self Report Assessment
A self-report assessment was administered following the firstfour months of the project. The short answer questionnairewas designed to assess each team member’s feedback on thework process, their contributions to the project, andsuggestions for work process improvements. Samplequestions included: Did you find the team meeting process tobe effective?; Did you participate in team programming and/ordesign sessions?; Did you find the preparation of reportsbeneficial to the process of understanding new technologies,processes, and concepts?; How would you rate your learningcurve for the areas of the project that you were responsiblefor?; and What was challenging? Three out of four teammembers completed and returned the questionnaire. Thefourth team member completed the questionnaire, but it waslost in the shuffle of graduating and leaving campus.
Responses from all teammembers indicated thatthe report process wasbeneficial in helpingthem organize their ideasand keeping track ofdetails that would havebeen lost i n thebrainstorming process.The reports also helpedteam members keepfocus on their individualtasks while giving theman intermittent sense ofaccomplishment in the
weekly oral summaries.
3. DESIGNPROCESS“Complexity in designarises from the need tos y n t h e s i z e d i f f e r e n tperspectives of a problem,the management of largeamounts of informationrelevant to a design task,and understanding thedesign decisions that havedetermined the long-termevolution of a designedartifact.” [5]
D e s i g n e r s t y p i c a l l yemploy early conceptualideas or primary generatorsto frame a design process.The primary generator is aseed from which thedevelopment of conceptsa n d s o l u t i o n s arec u l t i v a t e d i n t o aproducible artifact. [3] TheSER Model: Seeding,Evolut ionary Growth,Reseeding process [6] is analternative description ofthe horticultural metaphorfor design process. TheSER model emphasizes thetransformation of complexdesign systems over time.The seed or primary
generator is developed to allow modularity, extensions, andadjustments as the design process matures. The iterativenature of design lends itself not to the immediate design offinal solutions, but to the creation of design spaces where theprimary generator or seed can be mulled, sampled, and coaxedinto a plausible design solution. The primary generator for theblock artifact was based on the computational architecturedesign methodology of Shape Grammars developed byarchitect George Stiney. The primary generator for the ShapeGrammar methodology was Froebel’s kindergarten gifts. [10]The seed for the Constructed Narratives project is the blockartifact.
Exploiting opportunities inherent in “symmetry of ignorance”requires the use of boundary objects [8] that serve as externalexplorations of ideas. These boundary objects are used toarticulate tacit knowledge and ideas that may be too complexto describe verbally or linguistically. It provides a means forteam members to interact, react and negotiate around a conceptusing concrete representations to create a common languagefor understanding and critique. [5] Each discipline representedin the project team contributed unique bounding objects tothe design process. The computer programmers contributedwhiteboard diagrams, schematics and applicationprogramming interfaces (API), the designers contributedsketching and prototyping artifacts using paper and othermalleable materials, the artists brought an understanding ofthe narrative structures and semiotic systems.
Figure 2: Team members grapplewith understanding semiotics andshape grammars.
Figure 3: Brainstorming anddiagramming during a full teammeeting.
Figure 4: Software network protocolschematics developed during abrainstorming session.
4. CONCLUSION“We live in a world where problems often require thecollaboration of stakeholders from differentcommunities, each seeing the world from their ownperspective, each having their own backgroundknowledge and their cognitive, computational andphysical tools and artifacts. Exploiting the symmetryof ignorance as a source of power requires not only awillingness to talk to collaborators, but alsoexternalizations that allow people to think and toargue about and that help them to createincrementally a shared understanding of the designproblem.” [5]
Multiple iterations of sketches, scaled drawings and physicalmodels led to the design of the Constructed Narratives block.The fluidity of this process enabled us to draw upon thetechnique that could best answer the design or developmentquestion of the moment. Simple drawings and quick cardboardmockups were the most useful in aiding the brainstormingprocess. The development of scaled drawings with exactmeasurements and scaled physical models were important tothe integration of hardware components. Functional andaesthetic design requirements were negotiated through iterativebrainstorming and experimentation that supported a process ofadding, substituting and removing design elements to inventan optimized solution.
The core components of the Constructed Narratives projectwere developed simultaneously. Maintaining a clear line ofcommunication between team members was crucial for theprevention of misalignment with tightly coupled componentsof the system. Overall, the team honored the importance of thedigital and oral reporting. As we pursued the design anddevelopment of the working prototype and software system, afew elements became out of sync with each other. For example,the size of the block body did not take into consideration thesize of the final circuit board with all the connecting wires. The third component of the SER model, reseeding describes theprocess that occurs once a design has been tested. The currentstate of the system is synthesized and re-conceptualized basedon the information and analysis gained through thedevelopment of the original idea. The result of the reseedingprocess is a new system that is used for future evolution of theconcept.
5. REFERENCES[1] Broeckman Andreas(2000) Public Spheres and Network
Interfaces in Vectorial Elevation: Relational ArchitectureNo. 4, edited by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Mexico City:Cultura y la Artes Mexico.
[2] Buchanan, R. (1995) Wicked Problems in DesignThinking. in: V. Morgolin & R. Buchanan, editors. TheIdea of Design: a design issues reader. Cambridge,Massachusetts: MIT Press.
[3] Darke, J. (1978) The Primary Generator and DesignProcess, in proceeding of EDRA9.
[4] Extreme Programming,http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
[5] Fischer, G. (1999) Symmetry of Ignorance, SocialCreativity and Meta-Design in the proceedings ofCreativity and Cognition 99, ACM press.
[6] Fischer, G. Scharff E.(2000) Meta-Design: Design forDesigners in the proceedings of DIS2000, ACM Press.
[7] Greenbaum, J. and M. Kyng, ed. (1999) Design at Work:Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
[8] Resnick, M., (1992) Beyond the Centralized Mindset:Explorations in Massively-Parallel Microworld, inDepartment of Computer Science, Cambridge, MA:Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pp. 176.
[9] Rittel, H. (1984) Second-Generation Design Methods. InDevelopments in Design Methodology, N. Cross (ed.) NewYork: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 317 –327.
[10] Stiny, G. (1980) Kindergarten Grammars: Designing withFroebel’s Building Gifts, in Environment and Planning B,Vol. 7, pp. 409 – 462.
Figure 5: (left) Team process of examining the visual matrix forvisual attributes of the shape grammars. (right) Final three shapegrammars.
