Tuning of design to support tuning in use

That phrase I think really summarises  what I want to achieve in my research, though it does not cover whole idea.

Micro-adjustments in design process

I see micro-adjustments(m-a) as a way to sensitize design practices rather than a complete restructuring of processes. I can demonstrate how can we go from abstract ASD meta qualities to a kind of checklist to more concrete micro-adjustments.

Here are some micro-adjustments in design process that can be useful for informing the formulation of ASD micro-adjustments. they are not directly related with the agency sensitive design but they will demonstrate how I can define or formulate such micro-adjustments. The suggestions as micro-adjustments for kind of best practices were taken from Designing Interactive Systems book by David Benyon.

i) Understanding Phase: 

• Prioritizing requirements: || - must have, - should have, - could have and - want to have. (m-a by setting an adjective and categorizing)
• Acting out requirements: || a technique requires designers to work with a script writer t odevelop a short stage play based on the requirements that have been generated. This is acted out by trained actors with the stakeholders making up the audience. This is followed by a discussion helping to provide a rich understanding of the hopes, fears and concerns of the people. (m-a by introducing an additional activity right after an existing activity.)
• Improving questionnaires: || -specific questions better than general ones, || - closed questions are usually preferable to open questions, || - consider a "no-opinion" option, || - appearance, order and instructions are vital, || -add introductory and concluding notes, || - make return easy. (m-a by suggesting a particular type of alternative against the others. // m-a by adding an extra option,  // m-a by showing the importance of an existing way of doing things in a more careful way, // m-a by making some tasks or activities easier for participants)
• Improving workplace ethnography: || - most can be gained in the early stages when the main design issues are unclear, || - most information is gained where people collaborate in some observable way, and share information and artifacts in real time, || -multiple analysts can be valuable, - video and audio recording is valuable in capturing data, but field notes remain vital. (m-a by pointing out the importance of an existing activity and its order in time, // m-a by describing a particular activity to obtain a common need/information for design, // m-a by including additional actors )

ii) Envisionment Phase:

• Improving prototyping: ||- allow easy and rapid modification of interface details and functionality, ||- for designers who are not programmers allow direct manipulation of prototype components, || - facilitate reuse of code, ||- not constrain the designer to default styles for interface objects. (m-a by modifying an existing functionality, m-a by considering different types of co-designers and addressing their needs, m-a by offering alternatives for defaults)

iii) Design Phase:

• Conceptual  design using scenarios: || - complement the scenarios with some of the more visual envisioning techniques, - think hard about underlying assumptions, ||  - include good characterization and develop a number of personas, || - provide a rich contextual background, this grounds design decisions in real life, forcing the designer to think about practicality and acceptability (m-a by supplementing an existing technique with materials in different modality, - m-a by rethinking the assumptions carefully, m-a by making available the real life context info,)

// m-a by setting an adjective and categorizing
// m-a by introducing an additional activity right after an existing activity
// m-a by suggesting a particular type of alternative against the others
// m-a by adding an extra option
// m-a by showing the importance of an existing way of doing things in a more careful way
// m-a by making some tasks or activities easier for participants
// m-a by pointing out the importance of an existing activity and its order in time
// m-a by describing a particular activity to obtain a common need/information for design
// m-a by including additional actors 
// m-a by modifying an existing functionality
// m-a by considering different types of co-designers and addressing their needs
// m-a by offering alternatives for defaults
// m-a by supplementing an existing technique with materials in different modality
// m-a by rethinking the assumptions carefully
// m-a by making available the real life context info 

Agency as Tuning

Tuning can be a useful metaphor for designing for agency. I've been talking about different forms of agency since the beginning of my research. Tuning metaphor can be helpful for describing emergence and evolution of different forms of agency. According to the context, we can define a set of tunable properties of relation (between two agents or more...) , the extent the transforming assemblage enables/constraints tuning of those properties will explicate whether relational agency is promoted or not!?

What can be the tunable properties of an interaction? are they properties/attributes that an agent has? or are they properties emerging out of  interaction? ANT claims that everything is an "effect"! i.e. emergent. Thus, even the properties we think that belong to humans or material things might be emergent. This can be partly true for analytical purposes. However, what kind of stance would be useful for this research? Relationality of agency is the key concept of the research, but ultimately we in a way need to relate results to humans, their motives, needs, intent, joy etc.. That is a kind human-centrism or human-orientation seems inevitable. As a result we, as designers/researchers find ourselves in a position, which asks us to ultimately focus on transformations of ways humans perceive and act. What extent can humans tune their capacity in relation to other humans/artefacts and environment and their materialities.
 
Again, What can be the tunable properties of an interaction ( in use phase )?
these properties are dependent on the type of case and activity.  Anything can be seen as a tunable property but we can delineate some important properties. This list is neither extensive nor complete just a start point of defining and working with some common properties of relational agency...

- Forms of the assemblage: relative position and roles of agents in the assemblage
 what could be the ranges of tuning.. tuning could be at a metaphorical level as well.

- Patterns of acting: movement patterns of humans
- Modes of perception: and awareness of humans
- Modes of engagement: transparent and reflective

What can be the tunable properties of an interaction ( in design/production phase )?
This question is related with the design time agency..


representations of forms of relational agency?? - may not be needed!

Creating a new assemblage vs Redesigning an existing assemblage

I need to discuss differences between designing a new system and redesigning an existing system in the context of ASD. My current studies focus on designing new systems and my results will inform mostly design of new systems/assemblages. However, I should also discuss what other dimensions a designer may need to consider for projects involving redesign. For instance, contextual design might provide with a useful basis to integrate agency sensitive qualities for redesign of existing systems.

Mind Map II

Here is another more readable version of previous conceptual map without connectors.

Mind Map

A mind map which shows many useful connections between concepts, phenomenons and approaches.

Relationality Lens / Quality

It seems that almost everything can be considered relational. Things become meaningful in relation with another thing. Thus, everything can be seen as an effect. So can agency. The important point is how much we consider this characteristics of things. How much do we consider its implications? How much do we know what a relational view of agency requires? How do we know whether our (design) practices embrace this notion of agency or not? Should we try to control it? or diminish it? or support it?

Designing for agency asks us to recognize this characteristic and support it. However, sometimes a limited or controlled level of relationality might be required, in those cases (such as high performance systems or higher reliability required systems), at least an awareness of relationality and consideration of implications of our decisions on agency are desired.

Relationality quality asks for:
i- understanding of mutual influence, shaping and co-constitution of actors and artefacts.
ii- embracing emergent and improvised action.
iii- considering system as an assemblage/network of actors, artefacts or collective hybrids.

i- what does it mean? what does it involve?
ii- how can we embrace them?
iii- what happens when we start to use the notion or metaphor of assemblage?

Multiplicity Lens / Quality

From the ASD lenses document:
- flat design hierarchy
- multiplicity in representation
- constructive engagement with diversity
- participatory activities (multiple sources of influence)
- cognitive justice and valorizing marginal views

Against the accounts of neutral and deterministic accounts of technological agency. feminist technoscience approach claims that agency is not an attribute of humans alone but enacted and performed in socio-material configurations and intra-actions. This view opens up for the reconfigurations of design and use for more ethical effects such as cultivation of cognitive justice, the equal treatment and representation of different ways of knowing the world. The implication of this approach is that design becomes an adaptive and intra-active process in which more desirable [and sustainable] configurations of people and technology become possible.

Cognitive justice asserts the diversity of knowledges and the equality of knowers.

Donna Haraway:
How can we do justice to our different knowledge practices and at the same time share a common world? (Knowledge as embedded and situated) by democratization of science and technology as a requirement for the answer!

Visvanathan and Maja Van Der Velden:
Monocultures, western science view >> as the museumisation of indigenous knowledge(that means it is only useful for historical display) and scientific endeavor.   Science contains its own grammar of violence that needs to be addressed. Cognitive justice is not only about participation but cognitive representation: The idea of participation fundamentally accepts the experts’ definition of knowledge … experts’ knowledge is represented as high theory and layperson’s ideas as a pot-porri of practices, local ideas and raw material.   Thus democratization of science should be extended to include alternative sciences. It should be possible to validate other forms of knowledge.   

The solution, he argues, lies in a political economy and cosmology based on the following principles of cognitive justice:
• All forms of knowledge are valid and should co-exist in a dialogic relationship to each other.
• Cognitive justice implies the strengthening of the 'voice' of the defeated and marginalised.
• Traditional knowledges and technologies should not be 'museumized'.
• Every citizen is a scientist. Each layperson is an expert.
• Science should help the common man/woman.
• All competing sciences should be brought together into a positive heuristic for dialogue.

In this new relationship, framed by the principle of cognitive justice, it becomes possible to validate other forms of knowledge and to validate laypersons as experts. This validation is not an automatic justification for local practices but a “positive heuristic for dialogue” and will expand the democratic notion of citizenship, from voter and consumer to the citizen as knower. A dialogue of knowledges in order to create a new or alternative conception of Science.

Haraway shows that the alternative to this strong relativist position is not the single view, as argued by Nanda, but “partial, locatable, critical knowledges” in a dialogical relationship (Haraway 1995). This relationship is guided by epistemic responsibility and critical inquiry, not by an “everything goes” position that is as equally “from nowhere” as the positivist position.

Cognitive justice is first of all a call for making other ways of knowing visible, in particular the knowledge of the defeated and marginalised. Their relative validity will be realized through their inclusion in the heuristic dialogue between (conflicting) knowledges. they should be treated equal in terms of access to and participation in dialogues of knowledges.

This inclusion should not be understood as an automatic justification for local practices but as step towards a “new global language within which you can locate a local practice, or a multiplicity of local practices.


With cognitive justice there is no objective expert position from which to design and develop technology.

In theory, a design process based on cognitive justice would lead to technologies that are more flexible, because they accommodate diverse interests, and more democratic, because they incorporate diverse values. In practice, the full participation of end users, including their diverse knowledges in each phase of the project, leads to technical solutions that provide a better overall fit. As the study of ecological systems shows, diversity plays a crucial role in a system’s ability and capacity to adapt to change and to solve problems. In the absence of diversity, development can stumble and social, economic and cultural disruption will follow (Apffel-Marglin & Marglin, 1996; Lal, 2002; Shiva, 1993).

Cognitive justice enables diversity and it is in this meeting of the knowledges of participants that effectiveness is generated.

Johnson et al. (1998) argue that a diverse, non-competitive system is more successful in problem solving than a competitive, survival-of–the-fittest system. This may be the result of diversity enabling self-organisation. Thus the diversity and self-organising capacity of a system are interlinked. Self-organisation, the process in which global order comes forth out of local interactions, builds forth on both the differences and commonalities found in the local entities that form its diversity. A self-organising system uses collaboration and decentralised local control to network the local entities. 

What design principles encourage cognitive justice? Adaptive technology design that changes acc to the needs of users.  Design becomes more process oriented, an ongoing dialogue between design, designers and users as designers. It also changes the perception of the lifetime of design.

• Flat Design hierarchy: no expert privileges.
• Multiplicity in representation: diversity and participation.  also participation of artefacts. participation of artefacts can mean different things in production and use phases. for instance, in a participatory workshop, any material used or engaged can influence the design process differently.  consideration of these different materialities and their effects on perception and construction of design problem and solution space. Although we usually quite conscious about our selection and design of participatory activities and artefacts involved in those activities. We need to further think bout our choices and consider what kind of perceptions and actions are inhibited while we encourage some particular kinds. (are there any examples considering effects of different materialities?? if there exists some, how to find them?)
• Cognitive Justice: The concept of cognitive justice is based on the recognition of the plurality of knowledge and expresses the right of the different forms of knowledge to co-exist. Co-exist in design and use. involving different users with different backgrounds who will be part of the future assemblage/the system. if possible some indirect stakeholders who are likely to be affected by use  or non-use of the system.
• valorizing marginal views or assumptions: it is strategy of Critical Technical Practice and Reflective Design as well.

Visibility and Accessibility Lens/Quality

Visibility is probably the most important quality for supporting agency. if actants can see or perceive the environment and other actants in it (related to his interests), this brings a possibility of creating a connection between perceiving and perceived actants. This connection is the starting point of relational agency. By means of making visible all the actants in a design case, we can facilitate the emergence of different forms of agency (each temporary assemblage with different configurations may lead to a different capacity and series of effects and we can consider them different forms of agency). it is directly related with increasing the awareness of one actant towards self, others and environment. if an actant has awareness, it can get connected.

Questions and Answers: 

- One fundamental question: what does making visible mean? so there should be someone who "makes" things which are apparently hidden or invisible, and in need of more attention or in need of being recognized. does it mean that the thing becomes perceivable by others. does this guarantee that it is going to be recognized? not necessarily, but this process may help it to become one of the matters of concerns. 

- What to make visible? actants, artefacts, processes, roles, infrastructure (any contextual element. however, too much visibility might create confusion and may invade privacy, it should be carefully managed. for instance, peripheral or ambient awareness/visibility might be a suitable way. )

- when to make visible?  visibility in production phase (for cognitive justice(initial step, more needed), for recognition of roles and contributions and for  explicating possibilities of new couplings or assemblages ) and visibility in use phase (more control and care are needed for preserving privacy, but explicit interaction at some degree can still be beneficial for accountability and emergent, improvised and collective action)

- how to make visible? focus/nimbus model?? participatory design techniques, awareness literature. public availability of resources. e.g. co(a)gents- stuvidpi... To Be Investigated.