Title
Deconstructing Design
[and why designers wear black]

Title
THE CONTEXT

Title
SPEECH [can become] GESTURE
3

Title
“…there is no meaning to be
found in the actual text, but
in the various…’virtual texts’
constructed by [readers] in
their search for meaning.”
Rebecca Goldstein
4

Title
IDEA + SQUARE = ORIGAMI
IDEA [can become] ORIGAMI
5

Title
M3 METHODS LANDSCAPE, 2008
6

Title
[Practicing Magic @ Apple] 7

Title
PRACTICING MAGIC SINCE THE AGE OF 4…
8

Title
9

Title
THE ELEMENTS [of magic and intuition]
10

Title
[Observing]
11

Title
[Observing]
12

Title
WHAT DO YOU TASTE? [fruity sample]
13

Title
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
14

Title
15

Title
16

Title
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS
17

Title
what do you not see?
Time
Emotion
Spatial Relations
Behavior
Conversation
Gesture
Needs 18

Title
[Recognizing and Forming Patterns]
19

Title
20

Title
21

Title
DISCOVERY HAPPENS WHEN WE ARE FORCED TO CREATE NEW PATTERNS
22
(SEE THE HIDDEN GIRL?)

Title
THE HOLE IN THE WHOLE
Challenge expectations
Look where no reasonable person would look
Turn things on their head, literally
Play contradictions
Draw on the most absurd implications of an idea
Collect anomalies
Pay attention to outliers
23
Try doing the impossible

Title
24

Title
[Analogizing]
25

Title
26

Title
JONATHAN HARRIS: THE WHALE HUNT
27

Title
28

Title
CROWDSOURCING A DESIGN THROUGH CO-CREATION
Crowdsourcing
Through Co-Design
Laura S. Richardson, M3
Greg Burkett, ASU
Vincent Lam, M3
29

Title
30

Title
[Deconstructing]
31

Title
DECONSTRUCTION IN DESIGN - MUSIC
32

Title
DECONSTRUCTION IN DESIGN - MOVEMENT
33

Title
DECONSTRUCTION IN DESIGN - PLEASURE
34

Title
35

Title
NINE DIMENSIONS OF PLEASURE
Nine Dimensions
(Seven listed here)
Location in the mouth
Bite Material Thickness
Bite Material Hardness
Bite Surface Area
Surface Texture
Visual Properties
Lip Engagement
Taste was excluded
36

Title
37

Title
PLEASURE ANALYSIS RESULTS
38

Title
[Dimensional Thinking]
39

Title
FORM BLIND
40

Title
POWERS OF 10
41

Title
LITERAL DIMENSIONS
42

Title
Stakeholder: Surgeon
Focus: Moment of Use
Concern: Function
Approach: Faster, Lighter, More Powerful
43

Title
METAPHORICAL DIMENSIONS
44

Title
[Transforming & Synthesizing]
45

Title
SYMBOLS [CAN BECOME] SMELL
46

Title
SYNTHETIC COMPREHENSION
47

Title
EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO MEDICAL ID CONCEPT
Presented at IDSA 2007
Art & Science of Measuring Emotion
48

Title
Presented at IDSA 2007
Art & Science of Measuring Emotion
Frog’s Design Mind, Tasting Rainbows Winter 2007

Title
CHOCOLATE REVISITED
50

Title
TCHO BLOG
51

Title
[Make. More. Magic.]
52

Title
SLIDE NOTES
Page 3: Linguistically speaking [and for those who have heard of French philosopher, Page 8: I’ve been practicing magic since I was four
Jacques Derrida], deconstruction focused on taking something that already existed, such
as speech, and through translation, making it into something else. Page 9: Of course, back in my day we didn’t have the wonderful schools they have now.
All joking aside, the question remains – what is in the magic? Why can’t we describe it? I
Page 4: Rebecca Goldstein tried to explain the essence of deconstruction by saying: [read think it comes down to something so fundamental, so elemental…
quote] Replace [readers] with [researchers] and the meaning becomes clear.
Innovation and Insight are not from the obvious, actual texts (such as interviews, Page 10: …that I felt compelled to express it as a periodic table.
photographs or other made artifacts from our research) – rather it is from our ability to These elements of design research “magic” can be mixed together as compounds to help us
effectively construct “virtual texts” - to take our research and mold it into something else, translate the research into something that becomes meaningful and innovative.
something that “becomes” Sfumato may be the only one that isn’t clear – that’s because it’s the italian form of the
phrase “up in smoke” – our ability to handle ambiguity and chaos is crucial.
Page 5: In a recent TED talk, Robert Lang described how he extended the art form of Because of time, I can only discuss a few of the ones that we have leveraged at M3
origami to heart stents and vehicle airbags. As he so eloquently described it “you take an
idea add it to this empty square and it becomes beautifully detailed origami.” Here he is Page 11: I experienced TCHO at Adaptive Path’s UXWeek back in August. After lunch one
describing the process: If you think about it – what he does, he takes an idea then day, TCHO did a tasting demonstration. Let’s take the fruity sample out – what do you taste?
combines it with some translation to get a robust design is not much different from what we [moment of silence for tasting]
do with our research. Note his last comment – it’s really hard. Why is it so hard? Because How many of you bit right into it and munched?
we struggle to articulate what happens in the square box, translation. For Robert, it turned How many of you noticed its fruity undertones?
out to be a mathematical equation. What is it for us? How many of you remarked on its texture?
How many savored it over time?
Page 6: Some might say “it’s our methods, right?” This diagram was the result of the M3
Design Research team finding as many of the research methods in the public domain as Page 12: If that was about taste…this is about what you see. First, how many of you have
possible, you can see some of the sources consulted here, and then the resulting mental been to the WTC site since 9/11? About a year and a half ago I became very interested in
model of how those could be organized. While you might not 100% agree on our the idea of altar and artifact analysis. However, I wasn’t interested in individual altars or
breakdown, consider the area of translation. It’s rather light compared to finding and artifacts, I was more interested in what we could learn from a group altar. I found that the
discovery or analysis and evaluation. How many of you have used this word to describe largest altars were those associated with tragedy – princess Diana’s death and 9/11. And
what happens? “magic.” When we went through this exercise, we also put up a card called then I get a call from my father. The VA Tech tragedy happened and my sister, a senior at
“magic” because there is something that happens in translation that is hard to put a finger the time, had opted out of her German class a week prior to her class being massacred.
on, let alone describe as a method. If it was really as simple as methods, we’d all be out of This particular set of photos is from the WTC – see what you observe.
jobs. It’s the magic clients pay us for. At least this clears up one thing for me – I know why
designers wear black…apparently we perform a little witchcraft… ;o) Page 15: Part of observing is 1) knowing what to look for; and 2) seeing the essence
of things in an instant. It is absolutely an acquired skill. Karl Von Frisch, winner of the
Page 7: Here’s the master warlock himself. He’s been practicing magic for awhile… Nobel Prize in 1973, decoded the dance language of bees by not merely looking, but
actively observing and seeing. And whether we approach the photographs metaphorically or
literally…

Title
Page 221: What was unique about this book, is it actually came with the 9 photographs, so
Page 16: I believe we are often observing with “eyes wide shut”
that the reader could hunt for clues as well. We find at the end of the book, that the most
You might be thinking – well, of course. You aren’t there performing ethnographic
important clue wasn’t in the separate photographs, instead it was only when the detective re-
interviews, or contextual observations, you aren’t there to see it with your own eyes. And
ordered the photographs into a 3x3 matrix and stepped back to see the whole, that he found
you would be right, but it’s even more than that.
the missing piece. The important point is this: The curator, who had been trained in
photograph analysis, couldn’t see what was right in front of her.
Page 17: First, Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has else seen and How often do you think that happens to us? The most critical part of research is not
thinking what nobody else has thought. I’ve had the benefit of looking at hundreds of getting the data, but making sense of it. Now, if I re-arrange the photographs, are you
photographs from both sites and one of the most simple, but compelling ideas stemming able to see the whole? Discovery happens when we are forced to create new patterns.
from artifact and behavioral analysis is the idea of providing the largest blood donation
collection center of its kind, anywhere, at the WTC site. The theme of blood, the need to Page 23: Absence is just as important as presence. Yet we are often not trained to
give, the time constraints of many visitors warrants a meaningful, participatory activity that look for nothingness.[Story about interview, which led to 3-day research at library and
is life giving. yielded the interviewee’s dead daughter]
Page 18: Secondly and more importantly, It’s no longer enough to ask “what do we ASU Medical has a curriculum dedicated to medical ignorance – it covers how to ask
see?” but to ask “what do we not see?” Our eyes see in two dimensions…how do we questions and recognize blank spots in the map of medicine.
see and understand the third or even the fourth? Ancient physicians tasted urine to identify According to the curriculum “hidden ignorance must be surprised” – research is designed to:
a patient’s sickness, which is how we know today that a diabetic’s urine is sweet.
[see powerpoint page]
Seeing with our bodies…observing through touch; Understanding the dimensions of time,
sound and emotion and gesture, all of these contribute to observing.
So, now I’m curious – do you think you experienced the chocolate? Page 24: For an example of forming new patterns, check out the May/June issue of
Interactions Magazine, in which the M3 design team discusses a different approach to
Page 19: There are so many ways of looking at the same object or idea, yet most of design. Because of time constraints, I won’t be able to discuss our approach here, but I
us see one way. encourage you to check out Interactions Magazine if you haven’t already.
Page 20: A few years back, there was a book called In Soft Focus, about a photographic Page 25: As humans, we learn by making analogies, but as researchers we must be
curator who becomes the fixation of a mad man, a killer, who sends her nine photographs. able to make stronger and deeper analogies than most. Consider Da Vinci’s analogy of
Using photographic analysis, she finds clues in each photograph. the ripples of water correlating to sound rippling out through air – something he couldn’t
even see, he was able to deduce from an analogy.
Page 21: As you can see from the highlighted text, she finds patterns in the clues.
Page 26: Analogies have been applied to some of our greatest designs: Chris Wilkinson’s
bridge is the analogy of a human eyelid.
Page 27: As a researcher, I’m also interested in how we can re-think what research we
gather. How we can express it differently to unearth new insights? Take Jonathan Harris,
artist and computer scientist, who spent 7 days in Alaska. To frame his story, he told it from
the perspective of his heartbeat.

Title
Page 33: Edward Muybridge had the photographic challenge of capturing a horse with all 4
Page 28: Consider these two photographs again.
hooves off the ground; he knew he had to capture movement he couldn’t see and so his
The idea of a group building on one another’s work, re-making the meaning of an object
solution was to place cameras along the race track that would be tripped by the horse as it
together, led me to re-think how our team had been approaching participatory design.
ran past, thereby deconstructing movement down to individual frames
We wanted to know, what are we missing by not enabling the crowd to co-create together,
to share a common kit rather than mirror images of separate kits? Can we really enable
Page 34: A client recently asked M3 to redesign an intra-oral device. One of their
collective creation through participatory design?
requirements was that it be perceived as more pleasurable. How would you approach such a
design challenge? For the M3 team, it began by understanding all the opportunities for
Page 29: What we know: Groups are powerful. Conversational insight reveals that
pleasure in the mouth through deconstruction.
participants build on each other’s ideas to jointly construct a new understanding
that none of the participants had before.So, we set up the research to enable our
Page 35: Consider the following diagram from the Journal of Texture Studies: just the one
understanding of group participatory design. We brought in five teenagers and the context
property of texture can be further deconstructed – what we perceive is tied to extra-oral and
was expressing the ideal game experience. The first participatory activity was an individual
intra oral properties as well as cultures, norms and expectations.
image collage, we moved on to a second participatory activity involving the group
expressing their desire for aspects of game components, which finally led to the group co-
Page 36: Through our experience and sensorial expertise, we narrowed our focus down to
creating the expression of the ideal game experience through a single toolkit.
nine pleasure dimensions, seven which are pictured. Lip engagement - The lips are the
second most sensitive part of the body.
Page 30: Because this paper is still in progress, I’ll share one brief clip so that you can see
for yourself. While at first blush, this doesn’t seem meaningful, rather a little silly. Making of
Page 37: We ran 12 participants through 55 samples, milling many of them in house - not
“the man” and singing together. However, keep in mind this is one minute of dialogue out of
including the competitors. [describe process]
a 45 minute exercise. While we would never literally translate their responses, the group
was intimately collaborating and laddering off of each others ideas, moving from deciding
Page 38: The outcome was this pleasure graph. It gave the our team (comprised of
on a game concept, to what might happen when the box is opened, to creating characters.
researchers, industrial designers and mechanical engineers) definitive product aspects to
What I find most interesting, however, is the deep analogies this group made – this joint
design more pleasurably. This product is still in development, so this is all that I can share.
construction of a new understanding – in which the weapons of the game was a weapon
fought for in 1964, freedom of speech.
Page 39: When you think of dimensional thinking, what comes to mind?
Page 31: Now I turn to deconstructivism – in architecture, it meant the dismantlement of Page 40: Perhaps the Bauhaus, which recognized that their art students were uniformly
building components. To break apart or dissect. If we apply this to design research, we can form-blind and helped them develop their dimensional thinking by intersecting geometric
gain a deeper understanding and surprising insights. shapes in plaster to see how the shapes interrelated.
Page 32: The music you are hearing is from American composter, Charles Ives. In his Page 41: Or perhaps its charles and ray Eames powers of 10But how does dimensional
quest to reproduce non-musical sounds, he would race outside during a thunderstorm and thinking extend to our research?
listen to the church bells ringing in alarm and then try to create them on his piano. The
sounds seemed impossible to recreate and so he began focusing on the “cracks between Page 42: From a literal perspective, our M3 design teams brainstorm innovative approaches
the piano keys” - in other words the microtones between the standard notes of modern to collapsible structures through origami.
western music.

Title
Page 50: And so now we have come full circle back to the piece of chocolate you tasted
Page 44: From a metaphorical perspective, we approach design challenges dimensionally.
before. This time I want you to taste chocolately, but bring a synthetic awareness to it.
This is a proprietary methodology called The Triptych.
Really observe the chocolate. Don’t merely taste, but feel. Open yourself to all of the
possibilities of experience and expression. This time, with eyes wide open.
Page 45: I’d like you to consider the following:
Can you smell the alphabet?
Page 51: A final note – in my attempt to experience the chocolate as fully as possible, I
Can urine be put to music and the different frequencies be heard?
expressed it as a continuum of taste. After I opened my eyes, the Tcho presenter said to the
Can we listen to a DNA protein sequence?
crowd, “the founder likes to call this one a roller coaster ride.” I looked at my drawing and I
The answer to all is yes.
had expressed exactly that. Could Tcho do an even better job describing their chocolate?
And can we as researchers do a better job of translating our work through magic?
Page 46: Transforming is changing concepts from one form to another for comprehension.
Too often we might advocate one method or one approach and expect only one answer. Page 52: I think the answer to both is “yes.” So, let’s go make more magic.
How many people here learned only way one of thinking about the periodic table? Did you
know there are 450 valid representations?
What about how we learn the alphabet as children? We see symbols or gesture, we hear
how they sound, we might feel their form – what about how they smell and taste? What
does CAT smell like to you? Would dyslexics confuse a b or a d if one smelled like banana
and the other like Drakkar?
Page 47: The result of this transformational thinking is synthetic understanding in which
sensory impressions, feelings, knowledge and memories come together in a multimodal,
unified way. True synesthesia is a neurological condition in which senses are conjoined –
for example, seeing letters or numbers in color, or hearing music in color or tasting shapes.
How we can utilize this gift is through associational or learned synesthesia in which we
consciously try to extend our understanding by conjoining senses, memories, experiences,
things seen or unseen. Associational synesthesia occurs in half of all young children, but
only 5 – 15% of adults.
Page 48: When I ask for an emotional response to a product and I get a painting…
Page 49: Or if I want to track an emotional response to a product over time and I get
sound I am getting a synthetic response. Keep in mind Jonathan Harris’ photographic
heartbeat…synthetic response.