2012年11月5日 星期一

week 8. the logic of annotated portfolios


The logic of annotated portfolios: communicating the value of 'research through design'

摘要:
1. "Limited rationality"  在 RtD 中的重要性
2. abstraction 的不可行性
3. 科學正規化設計的不可行性

1. p. 68
Cooper and Bowers: Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in terms of two conceptual and historical 'waves'.

First Wave HCI predominately used the
methods and theories of experimental cognitive psychology
to understand such scenarios. First Wave HCI tended to be
critical of perceived tendencies in ergonomics and software
engineering to not take the user seriously as an active
cognizing individual. In contrast, according to Cooper and
Bowers, Second Wave HCI was critical of the First Wave
for not capturing the social identity of the user, the social
organization of the user’s activities, and the social context
of computing technology. The growth of Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) as a research field
was cited as emblematic of Second Wave concerns.

the Third
Wave is characterised by non-work settings and topics such
as lived-experience, intimacy, pleasure and embodiment.

 notice: embodied interaction 通常不是 work settings, 所以 1st 的 experimental cognitive psychology 和  2nd 的 Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 並不適合.

2. Manifesto Pieces  in HCI

   Ludic Design (Gaver)
   Reflective Design (Sengers)
   Ambiguity  (Gaver)

3. p. 69

RtD 的源頭: (RtD 只看 artefact, 認為 thinking 會自己出現在 artefact 中)


This phrase
has its origins in Frayling [11] and denotes “research where
the end product is an artefact – where the thinking is, so to
speak, embodied in the artefact, where the goal is not
primarily communicable knowledge in the sense of verbal
communication, but in the sense of visual or iconic or
imagistic communication.”

4.

Gaver warns against
importing inappropriate standards from other disciplines,
but unlike them, he does not map design research so as to
develop anxiety-relieving ‘criteria for rigour and
relevance’. Instead, he is concerned to head off (阻止) a creeping (躡手躡腳的)
scientism’ he fears may lurk (潛伏) behind such anxieties or be
crudely seen as their remedy.


Gaver gives various characterisations as to
what design theory could be – “generative”, “suggestive”,
“provisional”, “aspirational”, “annotative” – which point to
a very different identity from the explanatory and testable
theories which dominate thinking about science.


Feyerabend’s Against Method is a subtle
philosophical argument against adopting universal
standards for conduct in the sciences.

...Rather, Feyerabend is urging us to be aware of
the limits of all rationalisms.

5. p.70


Textual accounts (published papers, documents,
descriptions, catalogue entries, whatever) in RtD have an
indexical character. That is, they point to features of
artefacts of interest and connect those features to matters of
further concern. They highlight features and make them
topical for discussion within a given community.


Barthes [2] made
analogous points about how photographs and text (e.g.
captions) interrelate in newspaper and magazine articles.
The text points to features of interest and establishes
connotations’ (言外之意) with other concerns not explicitly depicted.



Gaver [12] puts it that textual accounts of artefacts,
including any theoretical pronouncements about them, are
to be seen as  annotations.  He continues: “Beyond single
artefacts, however, annotated portfolios may serve an even
more valuable role as an alternative to more formalised
theory in conceptual development and practical guidance
for design. (AP 比正式理論更有價值)


If a single design occupies a point in design
space, a collection of designs by the same or associated
designers – a portfolio – establishes an area in that space.
Comparing different individual items can make clear a
domain of design, its relevant dimensions, and the
designer's opinion about the relevant places and
configurations to adopt on those dimensions.”


6. p. 71

OVERVIEW

...


  • Typically a portfolio can be annotated in several different ways reflecting different purposes and interests and with different audiences in mind. 


  • Annotations and the designs they annotate are mutually informing. Artefacts are illuminated by annotations. Annotations are illustrated by artefacts.

...




Annotations 
are a major resource for creating a portfolio. Works do not 
speak for themselves. They are annotated so as to show
how they fit into a portfolio of related endeavour.



7. p. 73

Annotations can configure use, appreciation, aesthetics, and
scientific value, as well as suggesting future research and
design possibilities. An annotated portfolio is a pragmatic 
thing. It is not an abstractly organised collection of work. I
have already said that how we annotate and how we select
works for inclusion in a portfolio reflects interests and 
purposes. Interests and purposes are future-looking. They
shape what we can expect people to do with designs
(questions of use and usability), how they will appreciate
and value designs (questions of aesthetics), and what
knowledge we can expect to derive from all this (questions
of science, broadly construed).



8. p. 75

CONCLUSION


Having situated Research Through Design (RtD) as a
characteristic contribution to Third Wave HCI, this paper
has noted the disciplinary anxieties [8] that this research
tendency has given rise to.


p.76


Annotations were characterised as indexically
connected to artefacts, while connoting topics of broader
interest to whatever the intended audience might be.



An annotated portfolio has a self-conscious logic of limited 
rationality. Any particular set of annotations is perspectival,
allowing other annotations to be made. Annotations allow
family resemblances to be reasoned about, rather than
deductions made. Annotations help us understand what has
made a body of work characterful.



Annotations have weak explanatory and predictive power
and tend to be local to a particular portfolio of work. This is
a (welcome) feature of their limited rationality.



Annotated portfolios relate to past occurrences and future  possibility in a different fashion than that suggested by the  notions of explanation and prediction commonly discussed  regarding theory.

Annotated portfolios are  descriptive (of past occurrences) and intended to be  generative inspirational (of future possibility) with their primary  business constituting a portfolio in close contact to the existing ‘ultimate particulars’ [12, 33] of design – the actual  artefacts themselves. This dual of descriptive/generative is,  perhaps, a more truthful designerly orientation to past/future than explanatory/predictive.



descriptive/generative v.s. explanatory/predictive.


9.


Annotated
portfolios insist on the indexical ties between texts about
designs and the designs themselves. Annotations and actual
artefacts are seen as mutually explicating and illuminating.
In this sense,  annotations are not abstractions as they
cannot be ‘dragged away from’ the particularities of actual
artefacts (abstraction deriving from the Latin  abtraho
meaning ‘I drag away’). They retain their attachment.

Gaver 對科學解釋的疑慮, 在高壓的學派政治壓力下:


Gaver [12] is suspicious of the potentially coercive (高壓的)
disciplinary politics behind attempts to normalise design
research through a more ‘scientistic’ construal of what HCI
should be about.


Ref:

http://www.mce.ndhu.edu.tw/~gimewww/epaper/9501/epaper9501.htm#explain


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