Dear Ken:


I would like to suggest a small correction to your post... 

During the past 10 years, I have taught a course on Systems of Representation at the Media Lab Helsinki that is part of Aalto University but not affiliated with Aalto Design Factory. As part of the work done during this course, students develop applications that are routinely used in real world exhibitions in major museums in Finland.

Here I send you a link as an example of a very recent project (2010) in which students developed a physical tangible interaction device using ReacTIVision as well as a novel way to display connections between the items in the exhibition. (The students who participated are fully credited here.)

<http://www.laurasebastian.net/projects/mapping-modernism/>

Note: As part of the educational activities in the project I also organized a special discussion session at the museum in which Mr. Perttu Rastas, a well-know curator and media person in the art scene was invited to present and offer his comments to the students. 


The application developed by the students had an impact:

1. The project was invited to participate alongside other top European heritage projects in Archaeovirtual 2010 <http://www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/archeovirtual/modernism.htm> in Paestum, Italy.

2. Laura Sebastián Magaña, a post-graduate student from Spain who was visiting the Lab and who participated in the project has also written an article (in Spanish) that was published in Aminima, one of the top new media publication in Spain: <http://www.laurasebastian.net/files/mappingmodernism.pdf>

3. Design Museum Helsinki has requested that the application be further developed to include other exhibitions.

4. Colleagues in other European projects in heritage who have seen the application are now also interested in developing similar approaches.

In this case I am only speaking of my own experiences at Media Lab Helsinki. However, I am aware that other colleagues in the Lab have been involved as pioneers in similar practices for at least the past 10 years. 

With best regards,


Lily Díaz



On 10.7.2011, at 4.34, Ken Friedman wrote:

> Dear Ranjan, Johann, and Fil,
> 
> This is a quick response to your posts on acting before analysis.
> Action may take place before analysis in design, but your examples are
> of a different kind than policy design, the subject of the thread.
> 
> The example of the cows involves a single individual designing a system
> to manage a problem under his own control on his own property. It does
> not entail systems of the kind one deals with in maritime security.
> 
> Policy design typically involves large-scale systems with many actors.
> Problems arising in policy design generate the difficulties that Rittel
> and Weber identified in their work on wicked problems. Policy design
> involves goals, plans, and strategies together with enabling laws,
> treaties, and regulations, followed by programs and tactics to implement
> them. Policy design generally involves multiple actors, often from
> different stakeholder groups, sometimes from different organization and
> even different regulatory situations. The planning horizon is extensive,
> and you generally can’t try rapid prototypes in the field.
> 
> While you can learn a great deal by observing students at work when
> they think and design, you can’t learn much about policy design. You
> learn about creative proposals and ways of working that you may later
> bring to bear on policy design.
> 
> Whether a student develops a great proposal or a bad one in solving
> thorny problems for a course, nothing happens to real human beings.
> Imagined consequences affect imaginary people in the imagined situation
> whose problems we imagine trying to solve. Depending on the subject,
> design students create mental models that build cities, restructure the
> work-flow of a hospital, transform fuel efficiency, feed orphaned
> calves, or make new chairs. But nothing more than thinking and modeling
> happens until students take their mental models into the world, doing
> the hard work of bringing the idea from mental model into living
> application. This happens only rarely, in special programs such as the
> Aalto Design Factory or the WhizKid Games project we developed here at
> Swinburne to work with autistic children. 
> 
> Policy design is also different to the world of designing artifacts or
> small-scale systems accessible to control by a single individual. In the
> world of policy design, small changes that are nearly invisible to most
> of us can have major effect. Let me give you two cases of real-world
> policy design that are in the news with respect to social welfare in the
> United States. In social security planning, changes to the basis on
> which the government calculates cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) can
> improve the lives of retired people or tip them into poverty. One debate
> before the United States Congress involves such a change. Some people
> propose a new method called “chained CPI” to calculate adjustments
> (Let’s leave the technical details to the side. It’s a new way to
> calculate COLA that will save money by reducing payments to the
> retired.) The proponents of chained CPI represent it as a minor
> budget-saving proposal. It’s minor for them, but it would effectively
> end cost-of-living adjustments through a series of economic austerity
> tricks. Millions of Americans depend on social security for 90% of their
> income. This minor adjustment makes a huge difference to them. For some,
> it will mean living on a diet of bread or cat food. For many retirees
> with ongoing mortgage payments or those who live in rental properties,
> it will mean homelessness. A similar issue involves proposed changes to
> the US Medicare program. Over half of all Medicare beneficiaries have an
> income of less than $22,000. For many, some proposed changes mean no
> medical attention and no prescription drugs. This is a case of policy
> design. Seemingly minor figures buried in a large plan can mean reduced
> life quality for millions. Proposed changes in Medicare would likely be
> a death warrant for several hundred thousand whose coverage will change
> so drastically that they do not have access to the health support they
> require to live.
> 
> This thread began in a response on policy design. This is a specific
> and limited instance of design. Student design activities or small-scale
> design projects are not cases of policy design. These require more than
> an art school perspective, particularly when policy covers such
> large-scale issues as public health systems, maritime security, or
> pension indexing, large-scale systems involving multiple actors and
> multiple overlapping legal or regulatory regimes. 
> 
> You and Jonas pointed to situations where we can act before analyzing.
> I agree. I’ve often taken action before undertaking a full analysis.
> This is entirely reasonable in situations where the stakes are moderate
> or low, especially when I can rapidly reverse the effects of a wrong
> decision, monitoring the effects of my decision to follow the
> consequences. This is often necessary when the effects of inaction are
> likely to be worse than the effects of a wrong decision. Designers do
> this all the time. Expert designers working in context have a background
> of mental models, heuristics, and experience – sometimes including
> research – to permit skilled judgment in practice. 
> 
> Policy design situations are generally too large and complex to permit
> action before analysis. Time horizons, budgets, and stakeholder
> constraints make consequences far more significant than any other kind
> of project we address.
> 
> Action before analysis works most of the time for what most of us do.
> This is especially true for those who analyze and reflect on the their
> actions. Starting with analysis is important when people design policies
> affecting many people, especially when we design policies for other
> people that may not affect us.
> 
> In this thread, I’m not describing all the kinds of design we
> consider on this list or in our work. I focus on policy design.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ken
> 
> Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
> Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
> | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3
> 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design 

----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Lily Diaz
Professor of Systems of Representation
and Digital Cultural Heritage
Head of Research
Department of Media
Aalto University, School of Art & Design
Finland
+ 358 9 47030 338
+ 358 9 470 555 (FAX)
<[log in to unmask]>