FLOW: Tangible Tool to Facilitate Design Processes Robin van Oorschot, Patrícia Lima, Behnam Chaboki, Claudiu Serban Mads Clausen Insitute, SPIRE Centre Alsion 2 DK -­6400 Sønderborg +45 71627825 rovon11, palim12, becha11, clser11;; @student.sdu.dk ABSTRACT This paper presents an understanding of how Tangible Models add value in creating a team’s Design Process. First we give a brief overview of the work been done in the field of tangible (business) models and investigate different kind of Design Processes Models. Then the discussion is driven into a case study of a tangible tool to facilitate design process named “FLOW”. The FLOW model makes easier the tracking of the design team’s process as well as helps them in deciding their next phases and actions. We argue that tangibility in the FLOW model encourages all members of the team to contribute during its use, it helps getting ideas to the discussion table, thus creating common grounds of understanding. Also the flexibility allowed by FLOW’s components through affording mistakes and easily arranging elements on the surface, contributes to getting the participants easily started with mapping their process and assigning meaning to their arrangements. Keywords Tangibility, Design Process, Design Models 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Tangible Business Models Mitchell and Buur [9] are the first to call tangible business sketches. They conclude that these tangible sketches ‘Facilitate thinking in systems, create simplicity, express the vivacity of the business, make it easier to think big, provoke new connections and associations, support story telling, work across language barriers, and provide easy to recollect experiences. In addition the interactive and collaborative nature of tangible business models show potential as catalysts to co-­construct new possibilities for innovation.’ [9, p4] 1.3 Towards a Tangible Design Process Model We recognize the value of tangible models, which inspired us to start a project to create a Tangible Model for Design Processes. Design Processes are often described as linear processes which run through different stages, but in practice this belief turns out to be almost always wrong (e.g. [4], [6]) An interesting aspect we find about the tangible business models and the Tangible Interaction Frogger is that they are to some extent based on theory (business model theories and human computer interaction theories in these cases) but they still provide users a room to explore outside the boundaries of that theory. This is what also seems to be beneficial for Design Process Models -­ to go beyond and allow exploration outside of the predefined models that are described in literature. In that way we can see how Design Processes theories are applicable in a specific project. But first, let us map out what kind of Design Processes theories are described in literature and used by different design teams. 2. DESIGN PROCESS MODELS Design literature describes literally hundreds of Design Process Models, which are all different but at the same time also have a lot in common. We describe three different Design Process models that give an indication of the diversity. 2.1 Double Diamond Model The Double Diamond model provides a graphical description of the Design Process. It was developed at Design Council in 2005. [2] Design Council describes how ‘Divided into four distinct phases, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver, it maps the divergent and convergent stages of the design process, showing the different modes of thinking that designers use.’ (See figure 01) Later, Buur [1] mentions how Tangible Business Models help ‘to allow people without formal business education to take part in business model discussions means moving beyond text and spreadsheets.’ [1, p1] 1.2 Tangible Interaction Frogger The promising work in the field of Tangible Business Models inspired two of the authors to explore the value of Tangible Models in the field of Human Computer Interaction. Theory from the Interaction Frogger [10] was made into a Tangible Interaction Frogger [3], which was presented at SIDeR ´12 in Gothenburg. Chaboki et. all describe how ‘making theory tangible’ allows to ‘connect design theory used in the academic world to a practical design tool that can be used by designers in as well the academic world as in the industry.’ [3, p4] Figure 01: Double Diamond Model The Double Diamond gives a nice overview of the different stages and design teams can define which activity (Ethnography Research, Prototyping, Production, etc.) fits in which part of the Design Process. 3. TANGIBLE DESIGN PROCESS TOOL Design Process Models have the great challenge of representing as good as possible the past or future project paths in order to guide teamwork, though teams have different objectives, opportunities, limitations and results. For instance, the same project will be often represented in different ways by different individuals or groups of individuals which are part of the same team. 2.2 The Process of Design Squiggle The Process of Design Squiggle shows the Design Process in another way. Damien Newman describes on his blog how a design process contains an ‘abstract, moved to the concept and then finally the design’ [11] (See figure 02) This all leads to an understanding that a tool, designed with the aim to facilitate design processes, must be flexible enough to empower the users to create models in accordance with their and their project’s needs. Whereas the Double Diamond model illustrates the Design Process by four clearly defined steps with a divergent and a convergent element, the Process of Design Squiggle highlights more the uncertainty within the Design Process. When it comes to Tangible Process Models, a similar logic can be applied by providing users the opportunity of discussing and thinking together. Thus the tool needs to contain flexible pieces that enable users to co-­create a coherent understanding of their own design process. Thereby, with all this concerned, a tangible process tool, called FLOW, was developed by the authors of this paper in the beginning of 2013 (See figure. 04). Figure 02: The Process of Design Squiggle 2.3 Design Space Christopher Heape talks about Design Space instead of Design Process as being ‘the construction, exploration and expansion of a conceptual space’. Heape tested his model with design students and tells that ‘one conclusion that can be drawn from the concept of Design Space is that it is possible to conceptualize the design process in a way that more closely reflects design students’ actual experience of designing, as the interweavings in a Design Space take their departure point in those resources of the how of the students’ doing that naturally emerge when they engage their design tasks.’ [8, p7] (See figure 03) Figure 04 -­ FLOW: a Tangible Design Process Model FLOW is a tangible tool designed to help teams to build and visualize design processes. Composed by a set of elements with different sizes and colors, it intends to encourage discussions and making the Design Process as well visual as tangible. 3.1 Elements The FLOW is composed by (see figure 05): ‡$ foldable magnetic white board Figure 03: Design Space ‡&olorful magnetic, peanut-­like shaped pieces, in different sizes ‡Transparent magnetic platforms in different shapes The idea is that in this moment any member of the team is more than welcome to write down elements of the project, even when they are not very willing to grab the whole team’s attention. By combining everybody’s contributions, the table can be quite easily filled out with the elements of the process. (See figure 06) 3.2.2 Placing and Connecting The design team can place and connect the pieces on the board. Elements can be placed on top of each other as well as underneath. Again, this all depends on what the design team decides that is better to represent and how they want to represent it. Figure 05 -­ Main elements of the model With a writable surface, all the pieces are flexible enough to be used for different levels of information. Since all pieces are magnetic, they are all also easily connected to the board. The board with all pieces can be attached to the wall. For example, during tests sessions, some teams decided to place the pieces that represented past actions underneath because they thought that they were activities that cannot be changed anymore. Others just mentioned that it was easier to see the whole phase by placing the transparent piece on top of the others (See figure 07). 3.2 How to Use No matter the objectives of the project or its current status, the tool provides a simple way to discuss and visualize the process within two main types of action: 3.2.1 Labeling Throughout discussions between the team workers, the pieces are chosen accordingly to the projects characteristics. For instance: the transparent platforms may represent the phases of the project (“Concepts”, “Prototyping”, etc.) whilst the red big pieces might be the activities of the phases. The yellow ones might be the outcomes or deliverables of each phase while the very small pieces may contain the deadlines, and so on. Figure 07 -­ Connecting elements Although presented in sequence, these two types of actions do not need to be done in that specific order. Thereby, these are not rules that should be followed in order to achieve a specific result. Instead, they are guidelines to help users understand how FLOW works and be able to co-­create their own way of making sense of it. 4. Discussion Now we further discuss the values brought by the FLOW in order to enrich the understanding behind the reflection. These values are: Tangibility, Flexibility and Design Space. Figure 06 -­ Labeling the color and shapes Tangibility brings a touching experience by empowering users to think with their hands[7]. This encourages them to use physical elements as subject of discussions and helps to turn an abstract argument into a more concrete and clear point. Besides, it might reduce the negative impacts of timidity in teamwork. In other words, the possibility of writing down an opinion without being pushed to speak (and, thereby, leaving a “comfort zone”) welcomes everybody to contribute. In this case, FLOW: helps the teamwork to get started, engages people with different ways of thinking, overtakes languages barriers and creates a common understanding between teamworkers. Flexibility addresses two important characteristics of the FLOW: its affordance of mistakes and the possibility of easily moving things around. These both characteristics mean that users can start using the pieces (by writing and positioning elements) without being completely sure of how the model will look like in the end. The importance of these characteristics is grounded on the relevance of helping team workers to get quickly started, even when all the parameters are not clear yet. It actually helps them to find the answers that they might have being looking for by trying possibilities. 6. REFERENCES [1] Buur, J. 2012. Participation design of business models. In Proceeding of the 12th Participatory Design Conference. [2] Design Council description of the Double Diamond .2005. Retrieved February 14, 2013 from http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/designprocess. Design Space is a value presented by the arrangement that the team can make with the set’s elements. The combination of a 2D space with 3D pieces that can be overlapped creates multiple possibilities of representations and meanings associated with them -­ from what the overall movement and the specific relations between elements of the process can be visualized. [3] Chaboki, B., Yao, J., Wu, Y., van Oorschot, R. and Torguet, R. 2012. Interaction design feedback and feed forward framework: making the interaction frogger tangible. In Proc. of SIDeR’12, Göteborg, Sweden (2012). In comparison to similar solutions, we acknowledge that some equivalent advantages among them and the FLOW might be found. Post-­its, for instance, are easy to be attached and moved around and also clearly accept mistakes. They also invite people to contribute without needing to leave their comfort zone, but they do not really create the kind of meaning that the 3D overlapped can create. Whiteboards permits (almost) unlimited creative possibilities though in the same time the exact ‘unlimited’ options provided might be a blocking factor for teams who find it hard to start or agree on things. It affords mistakes as well (by being easy erased), but it might not be the best solution in terms of sharing or transporting the representations. Flipcharts work well as physical presentation and are easy to be transported in short distances, but do not really leave room for quickly fixing mistakes. Gantt Charts [5] (or related management tools) can easily be shared with others, but are mostly individual tools to be updated by managers or team leaders and, thereby, does not invite for team discussions. [4] Chidgey, J. (1990) A Critique of the Design Process, In Design Technology Teaching, p 44-­45 Trenthan Books 1990 [5] Clark, W, and Gantt, H.L. 1923. The Gantt Chart, a working tool of Management, New York Ronald Press. [6] Curtis, B. Krasner, H and Iscoe, N. 1988. A field study of the software design process for large systems. Commun. ACM 31 1268-­1287. [7] Goldin-­Meadow, S., 2006, Talking and thinking with our hands, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15 (1), pp. 34-­39. [8] Heape, C.R.A. 2007. The Design Space, PHD Dissertation for SPIRE at the University of Southern Denmark. [9] Mitchell, R. and Buur, J. 2010. Tangible Business Model Sketches to Support Participatory Innovation. DESIRE Conference. However, moving deeper in what each of these tools aim to achieve, the understanding that comes out is that they do not compete with each other in terms of functions and uses. Instead, these similar tools complement each other and can be used together in order to reach better results. [10] Wensveen, S.A.G., Djajadiningrat, J.P., Overbeeke, C.J. 2004. Interaction Frogger: a Design Framework to Couple Action and Function. DIS2004 pp. 177-­ 184 ACM, New York. 5. Conclusion [11] The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, Central Office of Design. Retrieved February 14, 2013, from://v2.centralstory.com/about/squiggle/
Have presented the FLOW, it becomes relevant to clarify that our intention is not to argue that a certain tool should be able to fulfill all needs of building design processes. Instead, the thinking embodied in the contributions of this paper is based on the values that Tangible Models add to the Design Process.