SD5001_1516_15117003G

ABDUCTIVE IRRATIONAL APPROACH
CONCEPTUALIZING A NEW DESIGN STRATEGY
DATTA, MANAS A [STUDENT]
STUDENT ID: 15117003G
ID & BM , School of Design
JULY 21, 2016

© 2016 Hong Kong PolyU, IDBM 2015 – 16, Group 4

Table of Contents
1 Background ..................................................................................................... 3
2 Design strategy Vs Organisational strategy & Business strategy ....................... 4
3 The generic work flow of Design strategy ........................................................ 5
4 The I – methodology Vs The Abductive irrational approach: ............................ 6
5 The Abductive Irrational Approach ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.1 Defining the terminology: ......................................................................... 9
5.2 Conceptulization of the “Abductive Irrational Approach”: ...................... 10
6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 17
7 Drawbacks ..................................................................................................... 18

1 Background

With technologies changing at the speed of the blink of an eye, the race of staying
ahead has pushed companies to move from technology - centric to user - centric
products. The companies that once boasted of their ‘Origina equipment
manufacturer’ tag have now shifted the paradigm to ‘original design manufacturer’.
However, with the world becoming one big global market and the flow of
information being made by a few clicks of the mouse, there are numerous solutions
available to a single problem, sometimes_ so much so that there are products that
self – create a problem to justify the solution that they can offer. One such example
is the big data analytics that drives markets from preambles of the information
received from the numerous social science experiments. But this information can
often generate a fallacy where the solution that they suggest is made self -
redundant by the time they get implemented. This might be caused due to ever
changing dynamics of the social environment. A more formative approach, where
the solution is not just data-driven but have elements of participation by the inbound
user, may give a more sustainable solution to a problem.

Some of the early initiation of this methodology can be cited back to late nineteenth
century when processes like the ‘3 C’s of strategic triangle’ were used. The 3 C
constituted the consumer, the corporation and the competition. However, the
question that still lies at the helm of design is that how far does the process needs to
involve user for the suggestion and how much does it needs to rely on the data that
is in front of it and where does a design strategist fit in the whole context. There exist
a thin line between overdoing what is necessary and under-doing what is
compulsory. An analyst from different streams has long devised their own tool to
create their own answers. The three most prominent approaches being the 1)
perspective from above, 2)the perspective from the horizon and 3) the perspective
from within.


This paper tries to research a new approach called “Abductive Irrational Approach”
and where does it stand among all the existing formative approaches.

2 Design strategy Vs Organisational strategy & Business strategy

Some of the early predecessors of design strategy were the organizational strategy
and business strategy. The organizational strategy was the strategy that existed
during the second industrial revolution till the early nineteenth century.
Organizational strategies were usually concerned only with the production given the
low level of competition that was there in the market. People were more concerned
about getting a raised standard of living and ergonomic products barely existed. This
was a time when the prominent business was that of textile and power. The
organizational_ strategy was usually concerned with 1) the running of the company
i.e. its financial and organizational structure, 2) the ways to increase the efficiency of
the factories and 3) creating new markets by making new products. The eccentricity
of the product was in the functionality more than the ergonomic factors. The market
was product driven rather than user driven.

Business strategy was the first step towards the development of user – centric
markets. With the initial needs of the user already getting fulfilled, they started to
realize their needs that needed recognition from the organization. This lead to the
development of strategies were factors like price differentiation and product
uniqueness started to come into existence. Similar products were studied and
feedbacks were taken from the focus groups to make a product more adaptive to the
user. This can be said to be the first initiation of design strategy as the market started
to realize the potential where a user opinion would so arguably make or break the
outlook of product in hand.


Design strategy although always existed but was always looked as the step – father of
product. Design was always looked upon as something that was born out of technology
rather than a separate entity at all. It was sublimed as a form of art and was looked
upon as only something that was there to give product a good look and to be so much
concerned with the functionality of it. Though designers were included in the
companies like Philip design, SONY, Heramn Miller and so forth, their job was limited
to give the products a niche or differentiating look. It was only during the late half of
the nineteenth century that design started to gain a stature equivalent to technology.
Design strategy was instutionalised as a separate entity that was held in equivalence
to operational and business strategy
3 The generic work flow of Design strategy

Figure 1
As stated by Kenichi Ohame, “ a strategy seeks a clear understanding of the
particular character of each element of a situation and then makes the fullest
possible use of the human brain – power to restructure the element in the most
advantageous way”.
A generic work flow of design strategy shows five steps that is usually carried out for
developing a product namely, 1) research, 2) concept, 3) design, 4) develop and 5)
implement. These five steps are repetitive and a continuous cycle that goes on an on
until the product either becomes obsolete or is discarded due to advent of some
completely new product that marginalizes its predecessor.
•Analyse
•Create
•Test
Research
& Analysis
•Analyse
•Create
•Test
Concept
•Analyse
•Create
•Test
Design
•Analyse
•Create
•Test
Develop
•Analyse
•Create
•Test
Implement


There are three formative approaches that are ususally considered in general
namely, 1) design perspective ‘from above’, 2) design perspective ‘from the horizon’
and 3) design perspective ‘from within’.

While the ‘from above’ design perspective is usually more product driven strategies
used in frameworks like 3C (consumer, competition & company), 4P (product, price,
promotion & place) and so forth, the ‘from horizon’ perspective is more user driven
used in frameworks like 5C (context, company, consumer, competition & content).
However the ‘from horizon’ context is better off than ‘from above’ context given the
inclusion of the user in the design strategy, they have a loopside of developing
products that over the period of time can turn the empathy into intolerance and
impatience. Some of the ‘from horizon’ design concepts are UBER and INSTACART. But
the growing convenience for the user is making them so technology dependent that
minor laxities causes an outrageous eruption of emotion in the most unsolicited
manner.
4 The I – methodology Vs The Abductive irrational approach:

Figure 2
user
orientied
Design
thinking
I " World
view"
i
"Personal
view"
Design
doing
People
centric


The I – methodology approach uses the ‘from within’ approach where the designer is
the user. This synchronises the problem and solution space in a relatively
superimposed position where the designer experience with the problem and his or
her acumen with the design methodologies help him strategise a concept in a more
isosynchronous manner. It works on the pretext of 3P (people, profession & person)
where the designer wears all the three hats.

However, the I – methodology has a drawback. As is always the case, every design
problem is unique, the solution has to be thought of in a similar manner. Given that,
_although I – methodology requires the designer to be the user, it still has
predefined directives that have a possibility of creating biases that would lead a well-
worn path. And sometimes, following the less travelled path often leads to a better
destination.

Abductive Irrational is one an approach that can be said to have its origination from
an I – methodology but is dissimilar to it as it has no predefined methodology. During
the process of creating a solution, never was the process used to guide the approach
in a specific direction. It was designed as a strategic approach where each step was
used as a stepping stone for the next step and often the next step was a step back
that was developed only after due diligence of analyzing the last step

5 The Abductive Irrational Approach

In an experiment that was conducted by Kenneth O Stanley, a computer scientist on
the website picbreeder.org, a number of simple line images were put forth on the
website where the user could play around with the pictures via simple functions like
evolve or breed and so forth. Some of the designs that were generated were
completely random where every last image was arbitrarily played with and finally

ended up becoming recognizable features. The interesting finding was that, when
the similar design was tried out via reverse processing the image, the result were
entirely different. This leads to a very fine finding that when we are dealing with a
complex problem, we don't know the final solution or even the final solution space,
then how can approaching a prescribed methodology can help give design solutions
that are truly out of the box.

This finding of not deciding the step that needs to be taken after getting to the last
step helped the group to develop a methodology that was kept out of bias where not
knowing what to make out of the last step helped the team to analyse the step and
then figure out what needs to be the next step. In another way given that the
process was carried out using five different people from completely different
backgrounds, made certain that there can be no biasing possible given the cultural,
educational and professional dissimilarity of every individual. The interesting thing
during the entire process was that never during the ideation, it was known that
where the process would end and what possibly could be accomplished in the end.
This maintained a level of novelty and curiosity in the entire process.

Another advantage that could be made out of the process was that the solution
space was made wide open as any direction being taken was a possible right
direction as the end part was unknown.

Figure 3

5.1 Defining the terminology:

1. Abductive:
The utilization of incomplete information from qualitative and quantitative
research to develop a loose end framework and then using Bayesian probability
analysis to check the validation of the developed hypothesis. This form of
approach increases the areas of research that could be incorporated given that
the research is not contextually but rather content driven. The second criterion
is to have open ends to keep the passage flexible and open to a broader
bandwidth of fields.

2. Bayesian probability:
Bayesian methodology is an approach to probability calculation where
unknown quantities are used to model all sources of uncertainty in a
statistical model.

The objective Bayesian_ probability measures the possibility of a proposition
that corresponds to a reasonable belief that is mutually shared. To put forth the
information in layman language, if a sample is randomly selected out of ‘n’
number of data than against a reasonable belief if all the sample agrees to the
belief than the probability of that belief being prominent within the entire
sample can be put forth in the form a mathematical model,

P(Φ | n) = p (Φ) X p (n|Φ)/ p(n)

Where, Φ = proportion of agreement of sample on a particular belief
n = sample size picked out of the data.

3. Irrational:
Trying to work outside the bend and not following a predefined path where the
outcome might influence initial finding given that the area of research is market
driven and predetermined. Sometimes to come up with a new innovation, it is
necessary to take a leap from the existing norm.

5.2 Conceptulization of the “Abductive Irrational Approach”:

1. Brief of the design problem
“Help create high quality and UNIQUE LIFE MOMENTS for inhabitants within
the INTERIOR OF A HOME, by designing an ECOSYSTEM of connected products
including natural light management.”

The proposed design solution/ innovation should address the followings: 
[a] WHO? to home inhabitants in major cities of China (Mainland and Hong
Kong – ‘must-have’
[b] WHY? in order to improve their quality of life 
[c] HOW? through a relevant offer of connected products

2. Development of the rational framework:

STAGE I: Conceptulisation framework of the design strategy

Step I:
Given the loose end and looking at the background of_ the history of IoT, the
team re-calibrated the design brief to make it more empathetic and used the
‘home emotion’ and ‘life moments’ to build up a framework around it. Five

designers in the group enacted the focus group to ideate the rationality of the
framework.

Step II:
Memories were shared via casual discussion, keeping the only parameter to
be fixed as the memories have to be related to home.

During the initial brainstorming session, it was found that the strongest
memories that one has been from the ‘first home’ that each user lived in. out
of all the memories shared within the group, the memories that were agreed
upon by all the user were made into a a cluster.

Step III:
The agreed memories were discussed with twenty-five more users to develop
a_ Bayesian probability. Surprisingly it was found that all the memories that
were initially agreed upon turned out to be rather mutual with the second
sample of people who were selected on the random basis. This finding gave a
strong validity of the set of beliefs that were developed.

Step IV

Figure 4

Given that the validity of sample of beliefs was already tested, a loose
framework was created around each emotion_. The emotions were then
checked for relativity with each other and if there were any regional findings
among it that could be used for further isolation of each emotion.

The idea was not to breakdown the emotions into basic but to embrace the
complexity and try to understand the emotional correlation of each of the
shared memories and further looking at the ways used to personify these
emotions by a more tangible activity.

Step V:
On brainstorming, all the emotions, some of the findings that were developed
were like home is more about ‘me’ rather than the general notion of a family.
It's dynamic and it's more an emotional perseverance than physical presence

None of the findings were preempted and this helps_ the team to make
decisions and draw conclusions as one moved forward and information
revealed at each step.

STAGE II: Research Analysis & Validation

Step VI:
Given that an understanding of the home and emotions were already defined,
PEST research was conducted to find out the existing scenario in the selected
market. The concept was to see the existing competition the do a quick trend
analysis to initialize the home as space.

Step VII:
Expert interviews were conducted to validate the findings from the market in

context of available competition and to see what possible physical spaces can
be used as contextual space to develop solution spaces

Step VIII

The introduction_ of Gestalt psychology to see the emotional buildup of a
physical space. Gestalt psychology is long used in different environments to
check the simulation factors in user. For instance, amusement parks are one
good example of such place where a necessary differentiation has to be taken
into account when designing rides so that the effect is neither over – powering,
nor is it a boring activity for the user.

Figure 5

Some of the elements that were studied under the Gestalt were namely 1)
nearness of similar objects in house, 2) similarity between different objects
that were put together, 3) continuity among these objects, 4) symmetry of the

objects against the asymmetrical objects in the house and 5) grouping that
were done in a standard house.

Step IX:
The science of emotions was studied against the general definition of
happiness. Findings from existing research were used to study the impact of
happiness as an emotion on the life cycle of the user. The general idea was to
understand what is the actual happiness definition and which are the most
dominant reason for a happy life among the general prevailing factors like
name, fame, money and relationship.

Step X:
Further building on the Gestalt psychology, solution spaces were pinpointed_
using space, structures, time and emotion as the axioms for ideation of
concepts. All the four factors were found by validations from the qualitative
research and quantitative surveys conducted based on the pre – validated
approaches that were used in previous research papers.

Step XI:
On the evaluation of the four axioms, a new formative approach against the pre
– existing Maslow law was designed that could be related to the general law
but can be used to develop a flow between need and desire in the context of
the given design brief and in lieu of development of design concept for market
segmentization.


Figure 6
STAGE III: Ideation

Figure 7
The ideation process was initiated from the analysis of the four axioms that
were found earlier during the stage II or the process

The entire ideation comprised of seventeen steps where the same Abductive
irrational approach was used. Each step acted as the stepping stone for the next
step. The seventeen steps are as mentioned above.

STAGE VI: Concept Development

Step I:
Given the jurisdiction and the expertise of the company, constrain string
factors were studied. The core area of expertise was laid out into four
subjective namely, 1) Primary tech. that adhered to the core competence of
the product, 2) secondary tech. that acted as fail-safe factors, 3) tertiary tech.
which provided customization and an impression subjected to the special
needs of the user and 4) quaternary tech. that could act as the niche factor to
facilitated as niche differentiating factor. The tech. The division was made to
consolidate the product price and to segmentize the market.

Step II:
Going by the emotional connection that was used as an essence that needed
to be conveyed to the user, the technological parameters were
subcategorized into 1) anticipatory emotion or the core expression that it
would generate, 2)expectation level of the user, 3) demand that it could
create by carving a new segment in market and 4) assumption, the necessary
emotion that it needed to create to maintain a sustainable impression with
the user.

STAGE VII: Validation

Step I:
Given the time and budget constraint, already conducted technical research

were used to see the validity of the product. The concept was to see if the
developed solution has some existing validation on the technology front. This
is rather twisted approach against prototyping but given that a research
validates the product mean that the technicality of the functions are viable
and can be put forth for prototyping

Step II:
The design solution was compared to the different social science and
psychology experiments conducted in the desired solution space to see the
emotional engagement that the product could help generate via its
functionality. This process is similar to the technical viability check, although
the final output could only be seen after prototyping. The concept here is not
to check the critical success or failure factor of the product but to see how
does the functional part affects particular emotions in the solution space

Step III:
Using basic video demonstration survey with the user to finalise the qualitative
validation prior to prototyping to see the market response to_ the product
6 Conclusion

The significance of the above-explained methodology lies in the factor that no two
steps were predefined and were solely based on the research findings and evaluation
of the findings. As Darwin suggested that evolution is something that can be
nurtured but cannot be controlled and any such try could not only de- stabilise the
process but might even hinder the process and the outcome may not be optimal.

Abductive Irrational approach although uses the general design strategy flow but the
flow is not unidirectional and there are repetition or omission of steps. The linking is
crossed as compared to what the generalised flow would suggest. The approach

enabled the team to come up with four perfect design solutions, and all the solutions
having absolutely nothing in common simply suggests that it's not the design that
drives the process but the process that drives the design. The four solutions that
were developed were a new exhaust hood system, a mechanical retractable table, a
Dyson_ inspired finless window and a fume buster exhaust system all in the
confinement of same solution space and using the same steps for conceptualization

7 Drawbacks

Given that the research methodology is new and the project inhibited any
prototyping so the final solution and validation of process can only be done once the
company agrees to proceed_ with the prototyping.

SD5001_1516_15117003G

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