Fall 2011 Course Schedule
Class #1 – Introduction to Course (September 20th)
Class logistics, expectations, plan.
Brief introduction to cybernetics: its history, participants, models, and implications for design (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #0: Detailed description handed out in class: Take today’s NYT front page; select an article; list the systems described; pick one and diagram it; then diagram all the ones you listed; explain how they are related.
Class #2 – First-order Systems (September 27th)
Pre-Readings
Readings required before class:
- Dubberly: “Models of Models” (Download PDF)
- Dubberly, Haque & Pangaro: “What is interaction? Are there different types?” (Download PDF)
Optional additional reading:
- Reference models: First-order feedback systems (Download PDF)
- Dubberly & Pangaro: “Cybernetics and Service—Craft: Language for Behavior-Focused Design” (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #1: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Choose a system that involves feedback and regulation to achieve its goals. Using the cybernetic models presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 sheet. Can be a hand sketch or software rendering.
Class #3 – Requisite Variety (October 4th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Pangaro: Requisite Variety in Mechanical, Biological, and Social Systems: An Introduction (Download PDF)
Optional additional reading:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #2: Detailed description handed out in class: Identify a system that includes automatic feedback. Then, determine if your system has requisite variety; explain your judgment. If it doesn’t, explain why. If it does, propose modifications to the system to achieve it, relative to your definition of it. Create a diagram of the system on a single 8.5 x 11 inch page.
Class #4 – Second-order, learning systems (October 11th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Reference models: Second-order, Learning Systems (Download PDF)
Optional additional reading:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #3: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Design a 2nd-order feedback interaction. Choose a system that is capable of changing its own goals and design an interaction that involves learning. Using the cybernetic models presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet.
Class #5 – Conversation (October 18th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Dubberly & Pangaro: “What is conversation? How can we design for effective conversation?” (Visit Site)
- Reference models: Conversation (Download PDF)
Optional additional reading: TBD
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #4: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Model a conversational system. Identify a system that requires (true or effective) conversation to function. The system should involve conversation that can be observed, which means that it is exteriorized in some way. This excludes conversations that takes place entirely in the head of a single person unless there is an interface of some kind which requires the person to express key elements of the conversation via that interface. Using the cybernetic model of conversation presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet.
Class #6 – Designing for Conversation (October 25nd)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Designing for Conversation—imagined for designers (Download PDF)
- Designing Engagement—imagined for a service organization (Download PDF)
- Replacing “design thinking” with “conversations for design” (View Video)
Optional reading
- Some additional links not given above can be found at Designing for Conversation
- Geoghegan, Dubberly, Esmonde, Pangaro: Notes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations (Visit Site)
- Elaboration of the ideas in Notes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations (Visit Site)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #5: Modified model of conversational interaction, as defined in class in real-time.
Class #7 – Bio-cost (November 1st)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Dubberly, Maupin, Pangaro: “Bio-cost: an economics of human behavior” (Download PDF)
- Early attempt to apply bio-cost as a pragmatic metric (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #6: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Pick any product, software interface, or service. Isolate a logical portion of it, and consider it from the perspective of bio-cost. What is your sense: is it low, high, or average for other experiences like it? Name those analogous experiences. Now, create a measure of bio-cost of the current experience. Then, propose changes that would modify the bio-cost of use, and estimate by how much it could be changed.
Class #8 – Models & Design (November 8th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Dubberly “Why modeling is crucial to designing & design research” (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #7: The primary challenge of today’s design problems is, according to Horst Rittel, one of argumentation: What is the goal of the design activity? Who gets to say so? What is it like to come to agreement on the goals, no less the means? The class is challenged to self-organize and to agree on goals for this assignment, based on their prior experiences in the class. At their option, they may focus on improving understanding of existing models and assignments; push their understanding to new challenges; or whatever they agree on. The only requirements are that [a] all students participate and [b] the result is handed in by the usual deadline, before class, by email to the instructor and the TA. The outcomes will be reviewed in the next class, in detail.
Class #9 – Design History & Wicked Problems (November 15th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- RIttel & Webber “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” (Download PDF)
Additional materials for in-class review (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #8: By consensus and in light of the course as a whole, decide as a group how to vary the prior assignment and then execute it. Use criteria such as: where new learning would be valuable; dividing the tasks for completion within the timeframe; distribution the effort evenly among all the students; and, as before, a sensitivity to the issues of problem formulation and agreement on goals.
Class #10 – Organizational Language and Regeneration (November 22th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
- Dubberly, Esmonde, Geoghegan & Pangaro ”Notes on the Role of Language and Regenerating Organizations” (Visit Site / Download PDF)
Additional materials for in-class review (Download PDF)
See also Innovation Concept Map.
Assignment for Next Class
TBD
Class #11 — Introduction to Class Project (November 29th)
Required before class
Review of “The Lightbulb Conspiracy” (View Video, 52 minutes)
Consider the following questions as you view the film:
- What is the relationship of the concept of “variety” to the ideas in this video?
- Are designers and engineers each responsible in the process of making products? How?
- What do you think about the segment on the iPod battery?
- Did you read any of the caption about the video on YouTube? What did you think?
- Has your thinking changed after viewing the video? How?
Detailed definition of the Final Project to be handed out in class.
Class #12 — Project Topic Review & Maturana’s “Metadesign” (December 6th)
Required reading
Class #13 — Project Preparation Review & von Foerster’s “Ethical Imperative” (December 13th)
Required reading
- von Foerster: “Ethics and Second-order Cybernetics” (Visit Site)
Class #14 — Public Public Presentations (December 20th)
No readings for this week.
Each student presents final assignment, in a public setting with outsiders invited, including members of the design community.
The single absolute constraint is 7 minutes maximum time for each student, which will be strictly enforced.
While alternative methods to presentation are encouraged, the goals remain the same:
Schedule
Fall 2011 Course Schedule
Class #1 – Introduction to Course (September 20th)
Class logistics, expectations, plan.
Brief introduction to cybernetics: its history, participants, models, and implications for design (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #0: Detailed description handed out in class: Take today’s NYT front page; select an article; list the systems described; pick one and diagram it; then diagram all the ones you listed; explain how they are related.
Class #2 – First-order Systems (September 27th)
Pre-Readings
Readings required before class:
Optional additional reading:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #1: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Choose a system that involves feedback and regulation to achieve its goals. Using the cybernetic models presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 sheet. Can be a hand sketch or software rendering.
Class #3 – Requisite Variety (October 4th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Optional additional reading:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #2: Detailed description handed out in class: Identify a system that includes automatic feedback. Then, determine if your system has requisite variety; explain your judgment. If it doesn’t, explain why. If it does, propose modifications to the system to achieve it, relative to your definition of it. Create a diagram of the system on a single 8.5 x 11 inch page.
Class #4 – Second-order, learning systems (October 11th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Optional additional reading:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #3: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Design a 2nd-order feedback interaction. Choose a system that is capable of changing its own goals and design an interaction that involves learning. Using the cybernetic models presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet.
Class #5 – Conversation (October 18th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Optional additional reading: TBD
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #4: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Model a conversational system. Identify a system that requires (true or effective) conversation to function. The system should involve conversation that can be observed, which means that it is exteriorized in some way. This excludes conversations that takes place entirely in the head of a single person unless there is an interface of some kind which requires the person to express key elements of the conversation via that interface. Using the cybernetic model of conversation presented thus far, define a system and its interactions via a diagram on a single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet.
Class #6 – Designing for Conversation (October 25nd)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Optional reading
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #5: Modified model of conversational interaction, as defined in class in real-time.
Class #7 – Bio-cost (November 1st)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #6: Detailed description to be handed out in class: Pick any product, software interface, or service. Isolate a logical portion of it, and consider it from the perspective of bio-cost. What is your sense: is it low, high, or average for other experiences like it? Name those analogous experiences. Now, create a measure of bio-cost of the current experience. Then, propose changes that would modify the bio-cost of use, and estimate by how much it could be changed.
Class #8 – Models & Design (November 8th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #7: The primary challenge of today’s design problems is, according to Horst Rittel, one of argumentation: What is the goal of the design activity? Who gets to say so? What is it like to come to agreement on the goals, no less the means? The class is challenged to self-organize and to agree on goals for this assignment, based on their prior experiences in the class. At their option, they may focus on improving understanding of existing models and assignments; push their understanding to new challenges; or whatever they agree on. The only requirements are that [a] all students participate and [b] the result is handed in by the usual deadline, before class, by email to the instructor and the TA. The outcomes will be reviewed in the next class, in detail.
Class #9 – Design History & Wicked Problems (November 15th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Additional materials for in-class review (Download PDF)
Assignment for Next Class
Assignment #8: By consensus and in light of the course as a whole, decide as a group how to vary the prior assignment and then execute it. Use criteria such as: where new learning would be valuable; dividing the tasks for completion within the timeframe; distribution the effort evenly among all the students; and, as before, a sensitivity to the issues of problem formulation and agreement on goals.
Class #10 – Organizational Language and Regeneration (November 22th)
Readings
Readings required before class:
Additional materials for in-class review (Download PDF)
See also Innovation Concept Map.
Assignment for Next Class
TBD
Class #11 — Introduction to Class Project (November 29th)
Required before class
Review of “The Lightbulb Conspiracy” (View Video, 52 minutes)
Consider the following questions as you view the film:
Detailed definition of the Final Project to be handed out in class.
Class #12 — Project Topic Review & Maturana’s “Metadesign” (December 6th)
Required reading
Class #13 — Project Preparation Review & von Foerster’s “Ethical Imperative” (December 13th)
Required reading
Class #14 — Public Public Presentations (December 20th)
No readings for this week.
Each student presents final assignment, in a public setting with outsiders invited, including members of the design community.
The single absolute constraint is 7 minutes maximum time for each student, which will be strictly enforced.
While alternative methods to presentation are encouraged, the goals remain the same:
Students must submit their presentation deck and their essay BEFORE class begins.