A3HoehlKohMcCabeMeyers

A3HoehlKohMcCabeMeyers

To Do

1. try to explore the web to get an idea
   • who Herbert Simon was
   • what Simon's book is all about (one summary about this book can be found: http://www.cyberiapc.com/writings/almossawi_2005_2.pdf)
2. which was the most interesting idea/concept you learned from the article?
3. articulate what you did not understand in the article but it sounded interesting and you would like to know more about it
4. discuss what the following statement means to your group:
   • Simon discussed social plans and policies as designs. He considered the Marshall Plan and the U.S. Constitution as specifications for organizational designs. These designs are not mere blueprints, as are some of the key examples elsewhere in the book (clocks and houses), but starting points for living systems that grow and evolve over time- systems whose structure and consequences cannot be anticipated at the time of their design.
5. discuss what the following statement means to your group in relationship to the problems which we explored in the last few class meetings (Number Scrabble versus Tic-Tac-Toe; Mutilated 8x8 Matrix; Mutilated Chessboard):
   • Intelligibility of Design Representations - Meaningful user participation in design requires that the discourse constituting the design work be accessible to all stakeholders.

Group Members

Jeff Hoehl, Kyuhan Koh, George McCabe, Jane Meyers

1. Who was Herbert Simon

Herbert Simon was a psychologist at CMU whose research area was not limited in psychology. His books and research papers cover various fields from cognitive psychology, computer science, sociology to economics. He is considered one of the pioneers in today's important scientific domains such as artificial intelligence, attention economics, complex systems, organization theory and etc.

He received Turing Award for making 'basic contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing' in 1975 and Nobel Prize in economics for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations in 1978.

The book, the sciences of the artificial, is all about design. It describes all guidelines for design; from design process to considerations of design.

2. Most interesting idea/concept you learned from the article?

As Carroll mentioned, Simon added a chapter abut social activities from the second edition. Simon considered social plans and policies as designs. This idea makes us see everyday things from the different view. In some point of view, Social plans or activities are quite similar to software development. Both of them have a goal (at least an initial goal even though it is manageable or not), stakeholders, and designers (public officers or programmers). These three components seem to be essential for design activity.

If social activities can be considered as designs, then how about daily human activities where social activities based on? Can we consider our daily life activities as designs? There is also a goal (at least for a day), stakeholders (we), and designers (also we). We design ourselves, maybe some people do not agree with it, through our daily life as public officers do for social plans and programmers do for their new software. Maybe Simon might want to tell 'design is actually all around us even now', I think.

3. What did you not understand.

Simon's discussion of participatory design emphasizes the need to involve users and stakeholders early in the design process and the need for designers to deeply understand the involved human activities. However, this does not seem to fully account or suggest practical solutions to the case wherein the users provide bad feedback and bad suggestions. For instance, if one were to take the design of traffic signals, nearly all users would state that their ideal system would be to always have green lights. Yet, designing a traffic system that had green lights all the time would obviously lead to disastrous consequences. On a practical level, how does one detect and account for user requirements that are detrimental to the betterment of the larger system? In other words, how should designers gain a deep understanding of human activities using participatory design when suggestions by users may be counter-factual and the best solutions unknown?

4. First Discussion

The Marshall Plan and the U.S. Constitution are examples of plans that were created to outline a general set of principles and guidelines to follow rather than specific details. In doing so, they provided a structure within which goals could be accomplished without restricting the actions to achieve those goals to a narrow set of paths. More importantly, however, is the fact that both frameworks were created to intentionally allow for amendments so they could be adapted over time. In fact, the entire legal system is generally set up in this manner. Laws are open for interpretation and challenge by those required to abide by them and processes exist to allow for change to better suit the needs and opinions of the general population. In this way the Constitution, laws, and regulations adapt over time to keep up and stay relevant with changing public opinion, beliefs, political climates, and economic contexts.

This system provides significant implications for software contexts. Although software is often perceived to be inherently malleable, it reiterates the need for software designers to intentionally plan for future adaptations. This should be followed not only in the design process, but also after implementation and distribution of a software product. For example, mechanisms should be put in place to allow users to provide feedback regarding software design issues after it has been released and is in active use. Furthermore, designers should actively seek to understand how systems are being used after release and continually improve future versions of software systems. In other words, software should not be viewed as having a final state or ever viewed as a finished product. Rather, much like the Constitution, it should be seen as an inherently iterative framework that can be updated and improved as environments and uses change. This idea echoes much of how the SER (Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, and Reseeding) Model applies to design environments and user-generated content. However, one can take the principal and apply it to software systems themselves. Software solutions should be seeded and created using participatory design, but then be allowed to evolve and be reseeded back into use. Through these iterations the software will become more attuned to the needs of the users as well as their environment.

5. Second Discussion

In the article, Carroll reiterates Simon's claim that in order to have meaningful user participation, all stakeholders need to have access and be involved in the design process and discussions. This mindset runs counter to most professional cultures where jargon, terminology, and problem framing methods are common in communication but uninterpretable by outsiders.

In class we discussed several logic puzzles including: the Number Scramble, Tic-Tac-Toe, and the Mutilated Chessboard. The ease of which we solved these puzzles often reflected differences in strategy, problem framing methods, and assumed rules. The quickest way to solve the mutilated chessboard involved coloring the 8x8 matrix like a chessboard and noticing two white or black corners were removed rendering the surface impossible to cover with dominos. The more eyes and the wider diversity of eyes, looking at the 8*8 the increased probability that someone would notice the similarity to a chess/checkboard and apply described the strategy. This problem also emphasizes the importance of presenting information in an broadly understandable way, for example how can designers present information such that participants can also see the checkerboard and not the 8x8 matrix.

We also discussed representing the same problem as either the number scramble or a tic-tac-toe game examples. Imagine meeting a company to propose a new design for a tic-tac-toe game. Although the program logic may eventually work as described in the Number Scramble example, this design description would be much less meaningful than the equivalent visual game of tic-tac-toe. Even at the most basic level with a game as simple as tic-tac-toe, their is a tremendous difference between these two designs, although in fact they solve the same problem. Communicating these potential problems by involving all stakeholders early in the process hopefully brings to these issues to light.