{"id":15,"date":"2016-01-20T19:49:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T18:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/designthinking\/?p=15"},"modified":"2016-04-02T00:28:05","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T22:28:05","slug":"summary-understanding-radical-breaks-by-j-edelman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/designthinking\/2016\/01\/20\/summary-understanding-radical-breaks-by-j-edelman\/","title":{"rendered":"Summary: “Understanding Radical Breaks” by J. Edelman"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while ago I came across the work of Jonathan Edelman, whose main research is on\u00a0design team behavior. He specifically looks at how different media influences behavior and team performance but comes up with some other concepts, which I feel can be rewarding for you.<\/p>\n

Jonathan\u00a0used to be with the Stanford Center for Design Research<\/a> and is now the\u00a0Head of Programme for Global Innovation Design at the Royal College of Art, London<\/a>. He\u00a0is a brilliant observer and I feel like I can learn a lot from his work.<\/p>\n

The main document about his research is probably his dissertation, which you can download for free from the Stanford Digital Repository<\/a>\u00a0[1]. You don’t have to do this, because I will tell you about his most important findings right now and\u00a0also draw some implications from them. But if you want to dig deeper, you will\u00a0have the chance to do that.<\/p>\n

Jonathan\u00a0basically video-taped\u00a0design teams of three students in small group meetings working on a redesign for a “Material Analyzer”. Afterwards he would transcribe and closely analyze the videos to make sense of what people are doing when they do design. He was initially interested in how different types of media such as blueprints, rough and detailed prototypes would impact the outcome of these sessions but soon took a broader interest in behavioral design patterns. Before we start, I should mention that Jonathan’s work is qualitative, which in this case means that he dived into his material (the video-recordings) without a specific preconception of what the outcome should be. This approach can be very rich in findings but lacks a (quantitative)\u00a0generalizability.<\/p>\n

So what did he find out? The findings can be split up into three main aspects:<\/p>\n

First, Jonathan came up with a framework\u00a0which would allow him to differentiate between different depths of engaging with the problem (of redesigning the material analyzer)\u00a0he posed to the students. Jonathan calls these “dimensions of engagement”. The framework implicates\u00a0that designers engage with problems on two different levels, one being the “object” itself (which can of course be any type of entity such as a product, service or strategy) and the other one the “world” around it. You can\u00a0find the “dimensions of engagement” and examples specific to the material analyzer<\/em>\u00a0in the table below.<\/p>\n

\"Dimensions<\/a><\/p>\n

For example, a design team might redesign\u00a0the surface<\/em> of an object<\/strong> by discussing the necessity or arrangement of buttons<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, those teams whose\u00a0statements, lists, sketches, and\u00a0gestures (which Jonathan counted and categorized) indicated towards deeper levels of redesign, derived further from the original design than others. Nevertheless, teams who chose to work in shallower fields, were able to optimize the product.<\/p>\n

Second, Jonathan looked at how different kinds of media might influence team interactions (entitled “media response and interaction”). He eventually differentiates between two behavior classes, namely anchoring<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0scaffolding<\/em>. (These terms derived from improvisational theater.) While\u00a0anchoring<\/em> happens when designers block somebody else’s suggestions using the media they work with,\u00a0scaffolding<\/em> happens when suggestions are built upon, using the media they work with.<\/p>\n

I am including pictures of the media (prototypes) that the\u00a0teams received\u00a0below. While the cardboard puck<\/strong> and the experience-like model<\/strong> are both poorly defined<\/em>, the foam model<\/strong> is well defined<\/em>. What differentiates the former two is their abstraction levels: The experience-like model is more concrete<\/em> than the cardboard. (If you are curious about the underlying media models framework<\/em>, you can read about it in chapter 1.4.5 of Jonathan’s\u00a0dissertation<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"Cardboard<\/a>

Cardboard puck<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Experience-like<\/a>

Experience-like model<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Foam<\/a>

Foam model<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interestingly, the teams that received experience-like models<\/strong> rather\u00a0used it for\u00a0scaffolding<\/em>, while teams with a foam model<\/strong> used it for\u00a0anchoring<\/em>. Teams who received a cardboard puck<\/strong> did not use it for either.<\/p>\n

Third, Jonathan looked at how designers move through “perceptual landscapes”, i.e. which ideas they consider and\/or follow. For that, he coins\u00a0the terms\u00a0wayfinding<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0navigation<\/em>, subordinated under\u00a0“path determination”. While\u00a0wayfinding\u00a0<\/em>means finding\u00a0one’s\u00a0path by following “direct perceptual cues”,\u00a0navigators <\/em>follow a predefined path, usually\u00a0the shortest one possible. This implicates that wayfinders<\/em>\u00a0take longer to get to the goal, but also see more of the landscape they pass.<\/p>\n

Now for me, the most important result of Jonathan’s study is the connection and interpretation of these three aspects:\u00a0dimensions of engagement<\/em>, media response and interaction<\/em>, and path determination<\/em>. This is partly done within the “innovation behavior framework” shown below.<\/p>\n

\"Innovation<\/a><\/p>\n

What it basically says is, that teams who<\/p>\n