A3OlgaLiskinWalterMahfuzMikelKingAntonioGonzalez

A3OlgaLiskinWalterMahfuzMikelKingAntonioGonzalez

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

Olga Liskin, Antonio Gonzalez, Mikel King, and Walter Mahfuz

1. Who was Herbert Simon

Antonio Gonzalez:

Herbert Alexander Simon was an American Nobel prize winner and writer. He did research on different fields, mainly, psychology, computer science (artificial intelligence), philosophy of science and sociology, economics, among others. His book is about his observations on the nature of things, he compares the design "methodologies" in the natural and artificial world. In the natural world the design is based in evolution, while in the artificial world is based on the desires and needs of the creator.

Olga Liskin:

Herbert A. Simon was a polymath who outstandingly contributed to and even developed a whole variety of domains, such as artificial intelligence, complex systems, attention economics, organization theory, information processing, decision-making and problem-solving. For his work and publications he received a lot of appreciation and was awarded with the Turing Award (1975), the Nobel Prize in Economics (1978), the National Medal of Science (1986) and the von Neumann Theory Prize (1988). In "The Sciences of the Artificial" Simon explores artificial intelligence, the science of design and the organization of complexity. The thesis of the book is that artificial entities are contingent to the purposes of their designer but could have been different if the purpose was a different one (in contrast to natural entities).

Walter Mahfuz:

Herbert Simon, a graduate from the University of Chicago, worked at UC Berkley, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Carnegie Mellon. His areas of expertise covered many fields (from politics to psychology, including economics and computer science). His interdisciplinary studies won him some very prestigious awards, including a Nobel Prize in Economics, a National Medal of Science, a von Neumann Theory Prize, and a Turing Award. In his book, Simon discusses models and processes that are beneficial in our interaction with the natural world - they include reducing redundancies, "decomposability", and design.

Mikel King:

Herbert Simon was a man who was interested in many fields such as psychology, economics, and artificial intelligence. His interdisciplinary studies brought him many prestigious awards, including the ACM turing award and the Nobel Prise. I think what is most interesting is that he was a psychologist. I think he wanted to understand how humans created their world, especially with regards to how humans created things. I think it was him being a polymath and his curiosity about the artificial that lead him to writing his book. Simon's book is all about how things are created and how there is a science behind how it is designed. I think Simon wanted to bridge the gap between disciplines by finding a common theme between them and to Simon, it was the concept of design. As the article mentions, Simon believed a tone-deaf engineer and a mathematically ignorant composer could carry on a conversation about design. The book discusses the nature of things in the natural and artificial world. It also analyzes concepts such as complexity and symbolic systems. The book addresses how his concepts fit into the natural and artificial world and how in turn his concepts are influenced by the environment.

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

Antonio Gonzalez:

For me, in the computer science area, Herbert Simon's idea of how the stakeholders, users, of any project should be a part of the design is really interesting, mainly because historically, it has been proven that if you want your software application to make it's mark on software history, at least so far, it should be released for the users to use and improve it freely.

Olga Liskin:

For me the chapter "Human Development" embodied a very interesting concept. This showed how user participation developed over time. Beginning as informants, users turned into analysts, then into designers and finally even into coaches. It shows how all participants call learn from each other over time and thereby develop and improve their contribution to the project. Participatory design should concentrate on turning users from informants to designers or even coaches and not on just "involving users in any way" because I think that it is this development which produces the most valuable ideas for a design.

Walter Mahfuz:

There are two unique concepts that I have not considered before, and therefore caught my attention. The first one is the concept that humans control the natural world with design (or more specifically, by creating the artificial world). The second one is the organizational design that allows systems to "live", or develop itself through time.

Mikel King:

The most interesting concept to me was the need for design representations to be intelligible to all the stakeholders. In order for design work to be accessible and meaningful for all stakeholders, the gratuitous use of terminology and formalism must be eliminated. This concept highlighted to me the importance of crating models and prototypes and showed how they allow all stakeholders to take part in a meaningful discussion about the design.

3. What did you not understand.

Antonio Gonzalez:

The article mentions several times the roles and the diverse contributions that the stakeholders should do in a project but it never mention how you become a stakeholder. Thinking in software development, what makes you stakeholder or even better what makes you a useful stakeholder? There should be methods to decide who and why you should become a stakeholder, because if everybody becomes one, the amount of input that you will end up with is endless and most of the times useless, at least in my experience.

Olga Liskin:

I would like to know more about the "Ant crossing the Beach" story. Especially which exact impact the environment has on the complexity of a design is interesting for me. Some other examples besides the parable might be useful to determine which parts of the environment cause what kind of complexity in design, and why.

Walter Mahfuz:

Herbert Simon, as we do, lived in a capitalist society. From a business point-of-view, the concept of stakeholders (or clients) participating in design is quite old because what is not appealing to end-users will not be sold. So, even if indirectly, design (which in a capitalist society is mostly used for profit) in the 20th century has been determined by the consumers. Actually, much of Marketing entails research that must be done before launching any product. What I don't understand is the difference between Simon's user participation in design and what has been common practice in the business world before his time.

Mikel King:

What I did not fully understand is how Simon had such a non-deterministic view of design and how he did not believe in having very fixed goals when starting a design. I fully understood the concept that many initial goals never coincide with the final goals of a design. I think flexibility is a key word in that many unforeseen things arise during the design process that will shift goals entirely. However, without fixed goals, I many times feel that designs can lose focus. I would like to learn more about how Simon believes that complexity can be decomposed and how design goals can shift without losing focus.

4. First Discussion

This article made us aware of two trends in designing goals; goals that are well defined and that have structured boundaries and goals that try to solve a continuous, sometimes, endless purpose. On the first category, let's consider the following problem: We live in a really hot place and we want to make it more comfortable. To solve this problem somebody came up with the idea of air conditioning. The problem is solved and the only improvements left are on the method to do so, not on the actual solution. On the other hand, the organizational designs described by Simon are not intended to be a solution for an immediate purpose, but rather a "template" that will guarantee room for adaptation and improvements. This form of design involves more layers, or dimensions, than the one mentioned above. Naturally, this form builds on the previous one. Probably the most complex task behind a living system is identifying where there might be future changes to our environment, and how these unknown changes might be incorporated. The challenge here lies on not solving a problem, but identifying boundaries that shall be respected and at the same time opening doors for future decision-making. By definition, this design process is only over when the design itself is no longer used. In other words, the stakeholders keep it "alive".

5. Second Discussion

The problems that were presented in class became drastically easier to understand when the representation was changed. Thus, when the stakeholders (the creator of the design, the problem solver, the mathematical player, the visual player) are considered and feedback from these stake holders are considered, the problems can be made interesting, challenging, or whatever the desired response is. Tic-Tac-Toe has endeared over the years and there is something to learn from that. Although the number scrabble problem and Tic-Tac-Toe are the same problem, their representations are different, and thus their values are different. The fact that Tic-Tac-Toe is such a commonly played game is a testament to the fact that its representation makes the problem easily understandable but also interesting to the user. However what is also interesting is to see that the Number Scrabble representation offers value as well. If your task is to program Tic-Tac-Toe, the number scrabble representation makes it easier to program the logic behind the moves the computer would make. Thus, different representations can add different values, and it is through user participation that we must decide which representation is more valuable. Especially when people have to deal with models or representations of problems in their everyday life or work, the representation determines how effective and successful their work on the problem can be. Further the ease to deal with a certain representation depends on a person's experience and background. As a result it is quite likely that a designer may prefer a very different representation than a user does. This is why it is very important that the users (or even all stakeholders) participate in the design and examine if they can easily deal with a proposed representation or even propose an own representation that is for example commonly used in the user's field.