CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.5 Mapping Tools Facilitating Framing and Reframing
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the insight discovery process which involves observations and interviews in order to gain empathy of stakeholders; the framing and reframing process to refresh the perspective to view the design situation which may lead to the discovery of potential innovative opportunities. Correspondingly, this is the concept of what Kolko (2010) proposed the notion of design synthesis. Kolko (2010) suggests that a design insight can be seen as the combination of problem-specific observations (I saw this) and professional experiences (I know this). We can find Kolko’s definition in Figure 2.3. In view of this, a design insight will contain subjective judgment of the designer and also objective data from the design situation itself.
Figure 2.3 Generation of Insight (Kolko, 2010)
After gaining the understanding of how people discover new knowledge, in next paragraph we will see some mapping tools that can facilitate human learning and knowledge discovery.
2.5 Mapping Tools Facilitating Framing and Reframing 2.5.1 Mapping tools
As we mentioned above, the insight discovery process is a form of meaningful learning in order to create new knowledge, which requires the ability to form and process mental imagery. When doing the design synthesis, in order to discover insights, designers iteratively try to bridge what they observed (the design context) to what the already knew (their past
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
experience). In order to design satisfying services, designers should understand the problem context broadly and interpret it with their existing knowledge or past experience so that they can frame the situation properly. Finding what cause the situation, who are the stakeholders and what they desire are very critical. When framing the situation, designers can draft a concept map, which is a great tool for capturing explicit and tacit knowledge and facilitating creative works and makes human learning in any context much easier (Novak, 1998).
Generally, nodes on a concept map are nouns or adjectives linked to each other by verbs.
It is essentially a representation of mental model of a concept that allows designers to see the
‘forest and trees’ (Kolko, 2010). For context finding and system modeling, concept map is also very helpful. For example, Figure 2.4 is a concept map of trees and our living environment (Birbili, 2006). It tries to shape the system of all the concepts related to the situation. By this map, designers can get the whole picture as well as many details. Designers can find the context and also understand how a change in one aspect of system may influence the whole system.
Figure 2.4 Example of Concept Map (Birbili, 2006)
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Besides concept map, there is another tool called mind map (Buzan, 1995). Mind map is a tool that presents the context of how people think helping people to think logically in a visual way. Mind maps not only can make designers arrange their thoughts logically but also can let their thinking spread fast. We can see an example of mind mapping in Figure 2.5.
Figure 2.5 Example of Mind Map
In the past, these two types of mapping tools are defined in a narrow sense. Even though both of them can provide a visual representation of some related concepts, there are still some differences between them. Traditionally, concept map is used to present schemas of understanding within the human mind whereas mind map is usually used to present one’s train of thought. Since its strict definitions, concept maps have been used in Science and Engineering researches in the fields like Engineering, Medical, and Psychology (Axelrod, 1976). In the meantime, mind maps were widely used in Design and Business field to support creative works. However, the purpose of using mapping tools should be facilitating human to think and make senses of data and some scholars think that they have not to have a clear definition only if they can do the facilitations well (Ahlberg & Ahoranta, 2004). Hence, a notion of free-form concept map has been widely used for different fields especially suitable for social science research (Axelrod, 1976; Wheeldon & Faubert, 2009). The comparison of
‧
human-centered design by IDEO (2010), a successful service should hit the overlap of these lenses: desirable, feasible, and viable. Hence, to design a successful service, designers must care about not only the design itself but also the social impact of the design, the business model to profit, and so on. As a result, this notion of free-form concept maps is suitable for them to systematically frame the design situations. From now, in the thesis, we will use the term ‘concept map’ to represent the notion of the free-form concept map.
Table 2.3 The comparison of different types of mapping tools
Traditional
Definition A top-down diagram
showing the or other connections between portions of learned material hierarchically
‧
decision-making. However, the results of concept mapping are very subjective. Under the same circumstance, different designers may construct totally different concept maps based on their own experiences and point of views. Hence, with the purpose of developing a desirable service, the understanding of customers is very important when doing design synthesis. Only when the designers are totally at the same side as customers’, the modeled system will be insightful. In this research, we want to design a system that can recommend objective, problem-specific frame parts for designers to make their thought more empathy.2.5.2 Framing and Reframing
Furthermore, as a tool, concept maps can help designers to find potential innovative opportunities through framing and reframing. Frame is a product of mental knowledge and meaning structures (Reckwitz, 2002). As mentioned before, frames are very subjective.
Designers make subjective value judgment to build up their perspective of the design
Extensibility Limited Open Open
‧
reframe the design challenge to jump out of the box and get some innovative thoughts. The initial frame is the foundation of new frames. Reframing is to construct a new frame by changing the perspective to view things (Paton and Dorst, 2011). When the system model and the context are very clear, designers may know how the new perspective would influence the situation. New frames to see the certain service or action in a new context will facilitate designers to discover hidden links and chances (Kolko, 2010). Jon Kolko (2011) suggested that, in order to discover new chances, designers can view things in new environments, from new user perspectives and as new embodiments. For example, when designing a tooth cleaning service, designers can think about toothbrush used in different environments like in kitchen or on airplane. Also, different users have different purpose of tooth cleaning. For instance, the elderly may need to clean their dentures where as children may need more focus on preventing tooth decay. Besides, we can also think about new embodiments of toothbrush like mouthwash and dental floss. By reframing again and again, designers may find some crucial implications and insights.
2.5.3 IT-facilitated mapping tools
Due to the widely usage of concept maps and mind maps, there are plenty of computer software and online applications aim to facilitate the mapping process. Here we list some of the popular ones in the table below.
Table 2.4 Applications of mapping tools Tool
‧
Microsoft Office and iWork.
There are a lot of applications with different distinguishing features, for example, some are for personal, some are for business, some allowing real-time collaboration, and some having lots of templates. However, we haven’t seen any tool that can give recommendation concepts for inspiration when doing concept mapping or mind mapping. In this research, we aim to use IT to give inspirations to users who are doing framing with concept maps. For the purpose of providing recommendations, we utilize the commonsense knowledge base in ConceptNet which was developed by MIT media lab (Liu and Singh, 2004; Speer and Havasi, 2012).
‧
國立 政 治 大 學