• large-scale designs (political arrangements, physical arrangements)
• conceptualizing the problem in a particular way ---> leads to specific ways of solving the problem
• we need not so much a "correct" conceptualization as one that could be understood by everyone

architects and software engineering: communication between clients, designers and users

"symmetry of ignorance" (Rittel): there is nobody among the carriers of knowledge who has a guarantee that his knowledge is superior to any other person's knowledge

• find the limiting resource (e.g. information versus attention)

News Program ---> Infoscope

High Functionality Systems

going to the moon ---> a "complex" problem along one dimension; sources for success:

exceedingly cooperative environment

employing a single new organization

single, highly operational goal

the American Constitution:

"the founding fathers did not postulate a new man to be produced by new institutions but accepted as one of their design constraints the psychological characteristics of men and women as they knew them, their selfishness as well as their common sense"

in computer system design: we have to take into account the cognitive strengths and limitations of human beings

think more clearly

production paradox

human error versus human nature

the human costs of computing systems

who is the beneficiary and who has to do the work

• problem representation
• how to cope with inadequacies in our data
• who is the client?
• limits on the planner's time and attention
• ambiguity and conflict of goals in societal planning

• organizations are formed based on specific conceptualizations and representations (see Marshall plan; see object-oriented programming versus functional programming)
• conceptualizing the problem in a particular way implied organizing the agency in a manner consistent with that conceptualization
• what is needed was not so much a "correct" conceptualization as one that could be understood by all the participants and that would facilitate action rather than paralyze it

• predictions have two prerequisites:

theoretical understanding of the phenomena to be predicted

phenomena are sufficiently regular that they can simply be extrapolated

• the heart of the data problem for design is not forecasting but constructing alternative scenarios for the future

• feedback:

this can be gained trough a rapid prototyping methodology and through actual needs

will lead to systems which fit an environment of needs

feedback mechanisms by continually responding to discrepancies between a system's actual and desired state, adapt it to long-range fluctuations in the environment without forecasting ---> see this under the perspective: end-user modifiability, unselfconscious cultures of design, situations, talking back

• designers = dual role of the artist and professional
• in city planning, in the design of software systems (if we regard them as embedded systems) ---> the boundary between the design of physical structures and the design of social systems dissolves almost completely
• balance cost against quality (e.g., in computer systems, in medical care)
• the members of an organization or a society for whom plans are made are not passive instruments, but are themselves designers who are seeking to use the system to further their own goals
• example: Denver Public Library

• 1991: final design competition
• 1995: construction finished
• requirement: 15 years without major modifications
• question: a library in the year 2010? - books, CD ROM, .... ---> we are not only designing for a given context: we construct the context
• client: city of Denver ---> committee (old librarian, techi, user of the library...)
• who owns the problem??

client(s), designers, customers, specialist, ......

architect, structural engineer, contractor, bricklayer, ......

create ownership through participatory design

• events and prospective events that enter into our value system are all dated and the importance we attach to them generally drops off sharply with their distance in time and location
• new laboratories have vastly increased our ability to detect and assess small and indirect affects of our actions
• modern analytic tools have taught us, how to detect good and evil in minute amounts and at immense distances in time and space (see our efforts to construct a "software oscilloscope")
• defining what is meant by progress in human societies is not easy -----> question: is this what human factors research does???
• who has the knowledge to frame the problem?

• attending to the needs of the moment (e.g., putting out fires, the urgent displaces the important) takes precedence over attending to the needs for new capital investment or new knowledge

• see problem with planning groups/research groups

if successful ---> they get too much involved

if sufficiently well protected ---> they may be unable to influence decisions in the operating organization

• the ambiguity and conflict of goals in societal planning
• search guided by only the most general heuristics of "interestingness" or novelty is a fully realizable activity
• exposure to new experiences is certain to change the criteria of choice ---> each step of implementation created a new situation; and the new situation providing a starting point for fresh design activity ---> incremental, evolutionary design (e.g. in software engineering: co-evolution of specifications and implementations)
• complex designs that are implemented over a long period of time and continually modified in the course of implementation has much in common with painting in oil
• Picasso: there is nothing worse than a white canvas ---> we need understanding and support tools for this process
• social planning without fixed goals has much in common with the processes of biological evolution

• to create system / a world which offer as many alternatives as possible to future decision makers, avoiding irreversible commitment that they cannot undo ---> adaptable, end-user modifiable systems
• allow people to design ---> the act of envisioning possibilities and elaborating them is itself a pleasurable and valuable experience
• to leave the next generation of decision makers with a better body of knowledge and a greater capacity for experience
• planning without fixed goals = biological evolution