Ferg's Blog » Public Engagement

Olympic Day 2010 – An update from the International Olympic Academy

Fjbisset — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:10:18 +0000

Well first of all, apologies for my recent social media hiatus, particularly from this blog, I’ve been trying to cut back in an attempt to finish writing up my MPhil dissertation on Measuring Motivation and Engagement, there will be more on that once it’s done. For this past week and for the next, I’ve also had the privilege of being able to attend the International Olympic Academy (IOA) in Olympia, Greece, as part of my work as GB’s Young Ambassador for the Youth Olympic Games. Today, the 23rd June is also Olympic Day, so where better a place to celebrate?

Ahead of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August The British Olympic Foundation and The Get Set For London 2012 Team are marking Olympic Day with a challenge to all school age children to blog about five new things they have done for each one of the five Olympic rings, so within that context I thought I’d let you know five of the highlights of International Olympic Academy so far, and hopefully within that, some interesting reflections on the Olympic Movement. Details of the Get Set Competition can be found here.

1. First new thing must be the 200 new people under the age of 30, from 95 different countries that have descended upon Greece for this year’s IOA, just like the inaugural Youth Olympics coming up in the Singapore this summer and London in 2012 – the Olympic Movement and the Olympic Games wouldn’t exist without participants. In fact that was the subject of IOC Member Peter Tallberg‘s presentation yesterday, which gave an overview of the different ways that the IOC is seeking to open itself up as an organisation, become more democratic and better support it’s athletes. This is with a view to increasingly better support and seeking guidance of members of public and the communities that host The Games. This was a frank presentation that acknowledged that the IOC has plenty to learn in this area. The discussions that followed covered some of the controversy over the coverage of both the Beijing Games and Vancouver protests and what the participants feel the IOC can do differently in future in this respect. The great thing about being part of such a diverse and energetic group of people, as I am here, is that there are no shortages of people to challenge your perceptions, whether in discussing the role of sport in resolving tensions in Sudan or in ensuring gender equality and empowerment all over the world there is plenty to learn from this great bunch of people!

2. The second new thing this past week was attending an open air classical music concert and opening ceremony at the top of the hill of Sphyx in Athens for the opening ceremony of the IOA, it was a stunning setting being overlooked by the Parthenon, various awards were bestowed on eminent Greeks for this contribution to the Olympic Movement, with awards also being made to Sir Philip Craven head of the International Paralympic Committee and to Irena Szewińska who also presented to us later on in the week.

3. The third new thing this week has been visiting the site of, and understanding more about, the Ancient Olympics. The ancient site of Olympia, of which I can’t help but admit I am now mayor on Foursquare, is fascinating and helped us all gain a clearer understanding of the inspiration behind the Modern Games, particularly the ideals of the Olympic Truce which called for an end to hostilities between Greek states during the Ancient Games. This truce is something that the IOC campaigns alongside the UN to uphold every time The Modern Games is hosted. The role of sport in creating global peace is the title of the proceedings of this session of the IOA and the focus of most of our discussions.

Bumball from a2activity.dk

4. The fourth new thing this week been playing bumball, this is apparently a Danish game which involves wearing pieces of velcro on your chest and bum and using them to catch and carry a velcro ball – in effect it is a cross between touch rugby, netball and nothing you’ve ever played before but it’s really good fun and made up one of our early morning physical activities before breakfast this week.

Team Scandinavia on the start line at Ancient Olympia

5. The fifth new thing this week is in some respects not a new thing at all, but rather, confirmation that the Olympic Movement, celebrated today on Olympic Day is far more than the Olympic Games. The Olympic Movement headed by the IOC aims to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace. This was backed up by a surprising statistic from Peter Tallberg’s presentation that 92% of the IOC’s revenue goes to the development of sport worldwide. It has been inspiring spending time understanding what the Olympics and the Olympic Values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence mean to so many young people from all over the world. Perhaps if we all work together, as we have been over the past week, we can all help make the Olympics that little bit better for everyone. Happy Olympics Day!

Do you value the Olympic Games? How can the Olympic Games be designed better?

Fjbisset — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:07:35 +0000

The Youth Olympic Games is chiefly a celebration of the Olympic Values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence. In my new role as GB Youth Ambassador for the Games to held for the first time in Singapore this August, I’m really interested to know what you all think about the Olympics and what about it you personally do or do not value?

In chatting to some people in the design world recently I know that many people don’t see the relevance of the Olympics to them personally and admitted to not really understanding the relevance of Olympics to society at large. Do you share this feeling or does the Olympics mean a lot to you?

Really any answer or reflection short or long that you fancy giving would be incredibly welcome here, it will help me understand how best to support the Young Athletes I’ll be working with over the next few months explore their social and environmental responsibilities to you, as it will be you who they are representing at the Youth Olympic Games this summer.

As Young Ambassador for Great Britain what message would you like me to pass on to the British athletes and if you aren’t British what message would you like passed on to the Olympic community at large that might in turn influence how much you value the Olympic Games and its ideals? Let me know via the comments link below or via Twitter (@fergusbisset) – I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Introduction to the Fundamentals of Motivation

Fjbisset — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:40:29 +0000

I am currently writing a short chapter for the forthcoming Service Design textbook This is Service Design Thinking. In the spirit of co-creation and participatory design which this publication is attempting to embody I would be very interested to hear what you think about my introduction and the scope of the chapter I am writing. I would really welcome your feedback and suggestions. Presently, it reads as follows:

Motivation has been described as the “energisation and direction of human behaviour” (Reeve, 2005). A fundamental concept in the understanding, regulation and support of human behaviour, Motivation has been debated and discussed for time immemorial. From Confucian and Sanskrit philosophy in the East to that of the Greek political philosophers and Christian biblical scholars in the West: The symbiotic relationship of the individual and their environment and attempts to understand the governing principles of this relationship have been one of the most central questions to ‘energise and direct’ humanity’s thoughts, beliefs and creativity. Defining not only the social structures of the societies in which we live but the political, educational and creative philosophies that govern and sustain them.

Mook (1987) provides a fuller account of the historical evolution of Motivation and in turn the recursive nature of Motivation within society. History builds a case for how significantly a society or community’s conception of ‘motivation’ underpins its philosophical and political stance and behaviour. For example Pre-Enlightenment era Europe was governed by the Christian church and thus the values of the church transcended national boundary, in much the same way that for example modern day Islam and Judaism often transcends or paradoxically in the case of countries such as Iran and Israel respectively, epitomises national or political identity.

There is little escaping the fact that our motivations or how we explain and conceptualise them digs deeper into our own psyche and that of our societies than very often as designers we are prepared or entitled to look. Furthermore, if Design Thinking and Service Design hold the key to solving larger more complex social problems as (Burns, Cottam, Vanstone, & Winhall, 2006), Brown (2009), Martin (2009), Loevlie (2009) and Miller and Rudnick (2009) have claimed, do we need to start being more capable and comfortable at asking those questions and visualising and conceptualising the responses?

This chapter seeks to explore as succinctly as 8000 characters allows what modern day psychology and its literature can contribute to overcoming these sometimes uncomfortable ethical, political and social conceptualisations and how, in addition to existing and established Service Design tools and processes, it might be able to support us ‘design thinkers’ as we seek to ‘energise and direct’ human behaviour through the design and creation of innovative products, systems and services.

Thank you all in anticipation of your help and really looking forward to hearing from you, either via Twitter or via the comments form below:

Motivational Design Framework v.0.1

Fjbisset — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:25:04 +0000

Apologies for the recent blogging hiatus, in large part due to the launch last week of The Ergonomics Real Design Exhibition at the Design Museum which I have been working on over the last year and half. I’m also recently back from the excellent Nordic Service Design Conference in Oslo. I will post more on both of those things in due course. In the meantime, I’ve also been working on my MPhil in Intrinsically Motivating Design and recently developed a model that I hope to validate as a tool to help designers design Intrinsically Motivating and behaviourally self sustaining systems, services and products. I’ve posted this on Wenovski as well so apologies for the cross posting if you’ve already seen it there. I’d really welcome your feedback on this and if you have any questions or would be interested in offering me an opportunity to validate the model then give me shout either in the comments below or at hello@fergusbisset.com.

My research into Human Motivation and its relationship with design has seen me exploring a lot of organismic theories of human behaviour, those are the theories that suggest we are naturally predisposed or energised to grow or seek new challenges, affiliation or environments in order to remain healthy, happy and fulfilled.

Obviously not everyone is in agreement on the underlying mechanisms of human motivation and behaviour, there are many models, but these are issues that we as designers revisit often in the form of the well intentioned but hideously over-cited and rarely understood Maslow’s Hierarchy is based on such a humanist/organismic perspective.

My own research is exploring a newer an more updated model of which I attach an early draft below, one that also represents the iterative and dynamic nature of human behaviour – something that is overlooked in Maslow’s version.

My model and the research that underpins it (predominantly Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory) indicates that in order to remain psychologically fulfilled we need to balance three psychological needs for AUTONOMY (Self Reflection, Independence, Empowerment), RELATEDNESS (Socialisation, Care and Concern for and from others), COMPETENCE (Feelings of efficacy, self control and accomplishment).

Deci and Ryan’s premise (and mine) is that only by balancing and fulfilling these core psychological needs will we be truely HAPPY and HEALTHY. My model attempts to illustrate how these INTRINSIC (some might say INNATE) psychological needs are often balanced against EXTRINSIC design factors and criteria and just as with Maslow’s Hierarchy if we want as designers to design systems and services that leave us feeling fulfilled they will need to address all of these INNATE HUMAN with EXPLICIT DESIGN capabilities and specifications.

If an intentionally or accidentally designed system cannot SELF REGULATE, or as you say Arne, “balance” EXTRINSIC and INTRINSIC demands it ultimately will become unsustainable.

To help make this idea more explicit I will elaborate – much of industrial design is focussed on the SENSORY features of products, services and systems, whilst interaction design and ‘soft design disciplines’ are interested in COGNITIVE levels of interaction. Recently of course, as most of us here will be aware Design has begun to shift towards more ORGANISATIONAL or ‘Service’ perspectives in an attempt to satisfy the ‘NEEDS’ of its users and customers. Or perhaps if I put it more cynically – in an attempt to continue to generate value for stakeholders in the design process. This shift in the focus of design, as is well documented, has occurred as a result of technology that initially enable ‘interfaces’ and more recently high levels of social connectivity and networking.

With my model, I hope to help move design one step closer to exactly the call you’ve made here Arne, by helping designers to understand how their expertise in manipulation of SENSORY, COGNITIVE and ORGANISATIONAL affordances and data can be better focussed on meeting users genuine SOCIAL, COMPETENCE and AUTONOMY needs and in turn designing systems that are by consequence self motivating, sustaining and perhaps as you allude here ‘caring’.

What does everyone think?

What Are User Needs?

Fjbisset — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:38:56 +0000

My research around the past couple of posts on participatory processes and the responses they have generated have helped focus my attention on an issue that has interested me for some time – the question of “User Needs”.

Tim Brown on Change By Design from IDEO on Vimeo.

As the above video nicely represents, many of the early proponents or more successful marketers of ‘design thinking’ have often backhandedly justified the core value that ‘design thinking’ represents in terms of how it better fulfils ‘user needs’. Or at their most honest like in the video above (around 1min in), justified design thinking as the process of converting ‘needs’ to ‘demands’.

In reading and writing about Design, I can’t help but stumble across the term ‘user needs’, without ever finding a particularly compelling definition of what it is in any given context, let alone independent of context.

Having seen that horrible video above a few weeks ago and blown off a bit of steam on Wenovski about it at the time – I couldn’t help but be reminded of it when I read this rather cynical, but actually quite apt historical review of the term ‘user needs’ in a psychology paper today:

“A need is a construct (a convenient fiction or hypothetical concept) that stands for a force (the physico-chemical nature of which is unknown) in the brain region, a force that organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying situation.” (Murray, 1938, pp. 123–124 in Deci and Ryan, 2000).

Aneed is a construct (a convenient fiction or hypothetical

concept) that stands for a force (the physico-chemical

nature of which is unknown) in the brain region, a

force that organizes perception, apperception,

intellection, conation and action in such a way as to

transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying

situation. (pp. 123–124).

As a designer who over the past few years has done quite a bit of rummaging around in psychology books and papers, perhaps with a view to fulfilling some of my own user needs and requirements!? The issue of ‘needs’ whether psychological or physiological is a term that again crops up quite a lot. I’ve long personally held the suspicion that the designerly version of “user needs” was somehow different from the social scientist’s. However, if Murray as cited above is to be believed the term may be used as indiscriminately and cynically in psychology circles as it seems in design circles.

I’m not for a minute disputing that user needs are a real and important driver of both the work of designers and psychologists alike. I wholeheartedly believe that there are designers out there who strive to cater for genuine user needs and requirements. But if so what are they? Do we have a consistent definition amongst us that isn’t just a justification for making things in a way that people will want to buy them?

Is the whole concept of user needs a smokescreen behind which designers just do whatever they want and take your money in the process?

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this so please either tweet them to me @fergusbisset or use the comments box below to let me know what you think. It’ll really help my Masters research into Motivational Design and judging by the video above it might even help our integrity as a community.

Experience Service Design

Fjbisset — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:39:25 +0000

This past week I have been in Finland attending the Experience Service Design conference and workshop in Kuopio Finland. I’d like to take this opportunity straight off the bat to thank Satu Miettinen and all those at Savonia University of Applied Sciences who helped organise this hugely enjoyable week. It was also fantastic to meet Twitter friends Lauren Currie, Arne Van Oosterom and Marc Stickdorn as well as numerous other new friends and faces – thank you all!

Lauren has in typical fashion done an excellent job of summarising the workshop she was running on Tuesday and Wednesday in the following video:

Experience Service Design from Lauren Currie on Vimeo.

Lauren’s Flickr photos also give you an insight into the week. Whilst thoughts on the week, particularly the conference on Monday, from one of the keynote presenters Nico Morelli can also be found here.

I’m going to elaborate some of my own thoughts from the presentations on Monday in subsequent posts, particularly the presentations of Arne and Marc and that of Renato Troncon on the role of aesthetics and philosophy in Service Design. However, in the rest of this post I want to share some pictures and a brief summary of the workshop I was participating in.

The workshop was run by Arne, Marc and Mikko Koivisto co-editor of the book Designing Services With Innovative Methods. Whilst the primary aim of the workshop was to empower attendees in their understanding and use of service design methods, the chosen context in which to do so was a local health care clinic in the town of Kuopio where the workshop was being held.

Patients at the Viretori Clinic

This clinic known as the Viretori, provides elderly people the opportunity to come and receive basic health care checks, administered by students at the University thus serving as a training and educational service for students as well as providing a medical one for elderly members of the community.

Educational and Healthcare Services All in a Oner!!

The identified problem was with a lack of engagement in services offered by the clinic to the elderly people of the town. This of course was having a knock on effect on the students education and motivation to participate in the initiative.

One of the exciting features of the workshop was the opportunity to explore Marc Stickdorn and his colleagues at MCI’s new mobile based tool for logging customer journeys. This Android based software allows you to log and rate touch points as you walk through the journey, then download them and catalogue them when you are back in the studio – really innovative and exciting stuff!

Using MCI's ServiceFellow Mobile Service Touchpoint Logging Software

It wasn’t all hi-tech though, with traditional methods and collaboration very much the point of the exercise. These were a great opportunity to get to know our Finnish hosts better as well as get to know the meriad of nationalities attending the conference courtesy of the Nokia Only Planet project.

Plotting User Journeys the old fashioned post-it note way!

The one and half day workshop culminated with the presentation of the group’s concept, which following interviews and observation of the users and service environment suggested empowering the elderly users with more ownership of the clinic, it’s presentation and activities. Our recommendations and reflections on the process were presented to all the conference participants on the final day and will also be put to the management of the clinic in the near future.

Presenting the Results (courtesy of Marc Stickdorn)

Altogether the week was an immensly enjoyable one, both for the networking opportunities it presented and new friends made, but also for the chance to explore service design within a hugely diverse group and learn from the results. Thanks again to all those involved.

Certified... (Again courtesy Marc Stickdorn)

I’ll be posting some further thoughts from the Kuopio experience in due course.

Designers as Coaches

Fjbisset — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:20:54 +0000

In response to my last post, Jonathan Baldwin asked the following question:

The idea of designers who are interested in the ideas rather than the finished artefact raises interesting pedagogical issues. How are they encouraged and rewarded in current educational environments?

His own thoughts can be seen in the comments page and ask some probing questions of the way that design is currently taught and communicated. My own answer to this question is central to my current MPhil research and indeed current day job. Thus I’ve reposted and rephrased some of what I wrote by way of response. Having had my annual review this week it fits in quite nicely with an update on some of my latest thinking. Any feedback, correction or diversions much appreciated!

As a designer who evolved to be a ‘design thinker’ as much as a ‘design doer’ largely as a result of my parallel life as a ski racer and professional (yes honestly, professional) ski instructor, the issue Jonathan highlights is one of big personal interest to me.

The problem occurs I think in that education seems rather quick to push or support people people into either ‘doer’ or ‘thinker’ camp. Doers, learn CAD and workshop skills, manufacturing processes and off they go resigning themselves to never seeing an end user again. I jest, but purely to make my point!

Holistic thinkers, in my experience undernourished in many ‘product’ or ‘graphic’ courses procrastinate in the face of unfulfilling practical assignments or labour and over intellectualise their more fulfilling graphic and research/ethonographic oriented projects.

Either way both hop from lily pad to lily pad of academic requirements without necessarily reflecting on why or whether their current task is serving some wider (social or personal) goal.

Frog Flickr-CC by Rainforest_Harley

Often sold the idea that coming to university will guarantee them employment (and worse) that they deserve such employment by default and based on their perceived rather than actual skills and skillsets, the education system generally doesn’t seem to be good at opening us up to genuine self reflection.

That is self-reflection that occurs as a result of thinking you are good enough to win a competition and then finding out that actually you are not. Education as I see it should expose students to these real and yes sometimes brutal challenges, guiding them not towards ‘explicit solutions’ but rather the tools and mindset to reflect upon and redesign their approach. It is certainly something that any junior designer will experience as soon as they start working in the real world, or particularly at present, trying to find employment in the real world. For more on the ‘dark side of design’ see this post.

The parallel here, is the professional athlete (or serious amateur) for whom life is one big systematic and seriously demanding long term process. A process punctuated by a series of competitions (or perhaps design briefs) in which they have the chance to evaluate their performance against a set of defined rules or criteria. If they are successful there might be some prize money, a car or a free trip to Madeira. If they are not they instead go away with valuable feedback on their performance.

Educators and Designers should (from my perspective and as I am currently outlining in my my masters studies) be the coaches in this analogy. Helping and supporting the learners and users to reflect and re-evaluate their behaviour against long term behavioural, ecological, social and basic needs fulfilment. Providing them with proven tools and methods and analysing and experimenting with new innovative methods where appropriate to incrementally push the boundaries.

If I wanted to employ someone, I wouldn’t want to see their portfolio so much as I would want to see their ‘training plan’ and performance objectives for the duration of their employment (or study) with me. At present this seems to be something that only happens at a post-graduate or in research based education in this and to my knowledge any other country.

Such a strategic, performance oriented view would in my opinion also help overcome the whole Black Swan / ego / genius design problem of assuming that an individual’s past success guarantees future performance. Instead, allowing individuals to stagger their satisfaction and intrinsic reward for their pursuits in a much more incremental and balanced manner.

Originally posted as a comment by Ferg on Ferg’s Blog using Disqus.

Making Design a Concrete Experience

Fjbisset — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:58:59 +0000

“Design uses the whole person’s mind & body…”

This as I interpret it in my own recent contribution to the ‘Design Thinking debate is framing Design from a situated-cognition perspective. Again, saying that the activity of Design is inherently bound to it’s context of activity and therefore it is impossible to completely rely on empirical definitions of what design is or how to practice it. This is a controversial statement and one that can undoubtedly take a bit of time to come to terms with. I’d like to briefly use this post to elaborate how this idea has evolved in my mind and through my recent research into skill acquisition – as such it can be considered the full fat version of my previous post. It contains about 700 words and will therefore take about four minutes to read.

Concrete courtesy of Katorisi and Wikimedia Commons

‘Design Thinking’ of the sort discussed in the past months online debate and that first brought to our collective attention by IDEO represents “a community of practice” that is to say a socially mediated or mutually agreed definition of what design thinking is and how design thinkers should practice it. IDEO has very successfully wielded old media and more recently new media savvy to leverage it’s definition upon the world, thus increasing the awareness or ‘social definition’ or it’s Design Thinking ‘community of practice’. IDEO has done this so successfully in fact that like so many successful communities of practice the term ‘Design Thinking’ has become hugely widespread in its usage and definition, with the fringes of the community taking this definition and it’s processes and bending and moulding them to suit there own purposes and requirements. ‘Design Thinking’ has thus developed ‘social capital’ in terms of it’s ability to describe the tacit knowledge and processes of designers. A term that many people within the design and now business community understand and possess their own definition of.

What is clear however, is that the broader that ‘community of practice’ has become so to has the definition of ‘Design Thinking’. As I argued in my previous post it is now such a broad term that it is being rejected by aspects of the community it is supposed to represent. Indeed, judging by the comments to Collopy’s article it is being rejected by a large proportion of the design community, particularly those at fringes of the established design community in the evolving service design industry who are seeking at present to develop their own ‘community of practice’ and distinguish it from what has gone before.

The term ‘design thinking’ is not concrete. It therefore only exists as a social construct and it’s application is entirely dependent upon, influenced by and subject to its context.

This week I want to look at how then to develop ‘social capital’? Or more specifically how to teach or engage others with the essence or definition of what it is that you do as a service designer? How you become an Expert Design Thinker or Service Designer without an agreed definition of what that actually entails? More importantly, even if you or the institution that educates or employs you possesses such a definition, how do you communicate this to the rest of the world in terms that are meaningful and valuable to them? How do you interact with their “communities of practice”?

This is what might be referred to as establishing Legitimate Peripheral Participation, a process of individuals in this case entering the ‘design thinkers’ or ‘service design’ community and developing their skill gradually over time so as to become experts in the domain. In the terms of my recent research in Skill Acquisition and Public Engagement, this can be described as the transition from abstract observer to concrete experience. This process is perhaps better known as experiential learning.

I’m aware of a number of initiatives or individuals working on projects that are simultaneously attempting to develop ways of guiding people through this process towards concrete experience and education of ‘service design’ or design in general, I highlighted Participle’s Loops Initiative and Small Fish already. In the next few posts I plan to elaborate my own thoughts on how using the whole body and mind is key to developing ‘concrete experiences’ and key to successful engagement.

Language Matters – is ‘design thinking’ dead?

Fjbisset — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:30:48 +0000

For this title I have to credit Fred Collopy who’s excellent article this serves as a response to or perhaps continuation of.

For those who haven’t been following, there has been quite a bit of discussion in the blogosphere recently about the term ‘design thinking’ and it’s relationship with systems thinking.

Collopy’s article on Fast Company and the largely positive responses it has received are leading to the consensus that to quote Bruce Nussbaum on Twitter:

[Just as] MIT [and] Harvard embrace Design Thinking…designers reject it. Wow. Is Design now too big for designers to handle? Do designers ” get” DT?

From the large number of service designers following this discussion and contributing to it, to name but a few Arne van Oosterom, Lucy Kimbell, Lauren Currie, Jonathan Baldwin my award for the best comment has to go to Lucy Kimbell:

“the problem with the phrase Design Thinking is the word design and the word thinking.”

More Intellectual Gymnastics courtesy of Zaphgod on Flickr

I’m opening the following idea up for discussion, but I think what we are seeing as design’s Cartesian anxiety develops is a transition away from institutionalised definitions of design or it’s processes. A shift that exacerbates or only continues the long documented product-to-service shift that occured prior to the economic melt down. I’m willing to be wrong about this however and I certainly welcome comments or claims to the contrary.

Personally, I’m fascinated that in the same week as the Twittersphere alleged that IDEO (the original proponent of ‘design thinking’) had laid off half of it’s London office and open sourced it’s toolkits, we are seeing the cracks emerge or as Bruce ventures above, the outright rejection of institutionalised design practices. Maybe I’m getting carried away but it seems that even Harvard’s ever provocative Usman Haque was getting in on the act this week – denouncing the 20th century corporate mentality of ‘straight line thinking’.

To take Collopy’s argument a stage further, design is a process inseparable from action. In being inseparable from action, design as an activity becomes heavily influenced or equally inseparable from it’s environment or context of application. This is something that co-design activities and many service and participatory approaches to design appear to have recognised or at least responded to for some time.

However, if true this places us in the realm of design becoming an activity dependent on situated cognition a point I made indirectly in a previous post here and greater elaborated over the last month here and here. Designers becoming coaches or facilitators in design practice within a smaller, more limited and specialised context, as discussed here.

By further leaps and bound of intellectual gymnastics, and perhaps actual gymnastics if you take the whole mind-body thing too seriously, it’s not illogical to propose that the future of design education might in Haque’s ‘Capitalism 2.0 landscape’ come to rely on a more cognitive-apprenticeship approach of designer’s learning and practicing their craft just as traditional apprenticeships taught woodwork and mechanics.

Indeed in a week where there have been well articulated discussions about the large number of ‘surplus’ design graduates it is great to see Participle’s Loops Initiative and the fantastic Small Fish initiative (both via Redjotter). Design thinking might have died this week but as these two endeavours prove design is very much alive and designers can handle it very well thanks!

Smallfish Presentation

View more presentations from jase.coop.

Fabricant Should Be Aware – Persuasion Requires More Belief and Less Judgement

Fjbisset — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:56:13 +0000

I’ve been mulling over Robert Fabricant’s ‘Ethnographic Defense’ post from the beginning of the week. Mulling because when I first read it I got quite worked up and decided to leave it until I’d calmed down a bit. I’ve just now (via @fredcollopy) seen another eerly similar article by Fabricant on Core77 and felt I had to respond on behalf all designers who believe in empowering rather than diminishing their users:

Fabricant closes his discussion on the ethics of Persuasive Design and User Centred Design with the following statement:

“users are not very self-aware. Shouldn’t designers be?”

The article serves as a discussion of how some of the currently employed or mooted Persuasive Design techniques might be considered by users to be “contrived or manipulating”. If I’m being honest, there’s not much more contrived or manipulative than his closing statement in the article, I’ll repeat it again:

“users are not very self-aware. Shouldn’t designers be?”

Hardly a statement likely to breed trust confidence or satisfaction in the design profession by their clients and consumers. Coming a few day’s after I’d read this article by Kicker’s Jen Bove summarising this presentation which also addressed the issue of ‘user needs’. I’ve been struck by the conflicting views of designers in their assessment of user needs and the best ways to repond to them.

There appear to be those designers who view their users as helpless ‘pinballs‘ (thanks Dan!) or those who have belief and trust in their users and wait for it…might even be prepared to involve and empower them in the design process. To clarify it seems Fabricant is positioning himself as only willing to engage with users if as a design professional he maintains a superiority or controlling influence. Whilst Bove in her talk seems more content by empowering her users through co-design and collaboration and admits rightly that as a designer she “has more questions than answers”.

I discussed some of these same ideas in my last post here about user’s expectancy for success – as my current research into designing motivationally engaging experiences demonstrates – the first step to engaging with your users is by making them aware of whatever new technology you want them to use. Thus, in a Motivational Design approach encouraging Awareness is the first responsibility of a designer. Making this new pattern of behaviour or technology relevant involves understanding not what user’s need, but rather how they learn and adapt to new situations and circumstances – their skill acquisition process. As a designer it is fundamental that you believe that your users are capable of and you empower them for behavioural change otherwise you, the designer and facilitator of their new behaviour or experience, are damned from the start by damning them.

The challenge as I see it for designers is being content to play a secondary supportive or coaching role in the process of persuasive design “Encouragement” as Albert Bandura might refer to it. Too often it seems that designers are more intent on pushing their own “genius of insight or perception” or the latest “cool technology” as opposed to truely recognising and supporting what users need or the best way to engage with them.

Industrial Design may have evolved from a Bauhaus ideology of making things aesthetically pleasing so that users felt inclined to purchase them over less attractive products and I concede it may have done so with some success, evolving to the point where designers are polished and capable enough to address more than simply a user’s perceived aesthetic need but also more recently their percieved emotional and social needs as well.

This as I discuss towards the end of this previous post has lead to a sitution where designers are declaring as Fabricant does in his Core 77 article this week:

What if the ‘users’ themselves are the problem? What if users represent not a coherent set of needs but a messy mix of desires and influences?

From where I’m standing it’s actually designer’s messy mix of desires, influences and egos that are the problem. Through the work on my Masters on Motivational Design and Public Engagement I plan to share with you an alternate approach to Persuasive Design, one that believes in supporting a user’s confidence and skill acquisition process, not diminishing it.

Ferg's Blog » Public Engagement

Olympic Day 2010 – An update from the International Olympic Academy

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Do you value the Olympic Games? How can the Olympic Games be designed better?

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Introduction to the Fundamentals of Motivation

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Motivational Design Framework v.0.1

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What Are User Needs?

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Experience Service Design

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Designers as Coaches

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Making Design a Concrete Experience

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Language Matters – is ‘design thinking’ dead?

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Fabricant Should Be Aware – Persuasion Requires More Belief and Less Judgement

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