What does it mean to design through conversation?(v.1)

I've written several posts on theoretical and philosophical matters that are either directly or indirectly related to design. Externalizing my thoughts in a form of writing and model has been an interesting experience. It is also quite wonderful to have some sort of records that may last forever even after my physical body ceases to exist.

Interesting enough, all of my previous records have been created in a part of a continuum. Each one of them led me to another discovery. It rarely occurred in a sequential order; most of the time, it happened in a quite unpredictable order. I believe that what this rather abstract experience I am describing here captures an essence of learning. 

I would like to praise my old self for choosing design as my focus of study at college. I was able to spend most of my time in the US exposing myself to design, particularly communication, interaction, and systems design. The beauty of design is that it is another form of learning, which is something that I cannot stop doing. However, there is more to it: it is a particular form of learning happens through conversation. 

Conversation seems like such an intrinsic human activity to which we often do not pay particular attention. However, I would argue that this seemingly simple activity is what makes each one of us unique and complex and a fundamental aspect in design. Curiously, spending some years of my youth time in a country comprised of diversified cultures and communities is truly an amazing experience that is bridging my mental gap between the two points: design and conversation. 

Well, let me try to explain. 

1. People have a conversation with each other. 

People have a conversation with each other. This happens all the time.

I think this is a typical view of a conversation between individuals: 

Person A talks to Person B.
Then, Person B talks back to Person A. 

It is very simple. So what else to expect?

2. That conversation leads them to develop a thought/interpretation.

One thing I can think of happening is
a development of a thought/interpretation of that conversation. 

If you were Person A, you would try to understand what Person B means. This attempt is essential for Person A to develop his thought/interpretation. 

The term "thought" and "interpretation" can be substituted by "mental model" especially when we think of it as interaction design. The notion of mental model is further discussed by Donald Norman, the author of The Design of Everyday Things. 

3. The thought/interpretation needs to be translated into a rhetorical form.

The thought/interpretation that Person A has developed will not be communicated with Person B unless it is translated into a rhetorical form, which can be verbal, non-verbal, visual, or written. 

It is unfair for me to assume the meaning of a rhetorical form is understood by people who are reading this clearly. What I wanted to emphasize here is that I believe that there is a difference between what I am thinking in my head (thought/interpretation) and what I speak to communicate (a rhetorical form).

The process of putting my thoughts (abstract) into words involves embodiment of the thoughts. When I try to talk about my ideas to another person, I often find myself having a hard time to make myself clear. 

Teaching something you think you already know to someone else is a typical experience that nicely exemplifies this process. You really need to put your thoughts into a form that can be understood by others. Thus, a rhetorical form is an important aspect of conversation. 

4. The rhetorical form is supported by a way of articulating (a.k.a languages).

The rhetorical form is supported by a way of articulating. 

This statement allows me to clarify the formula of a rhetorical form:

A rhetorical form
= A thought/interpretation + A way of articulating

I intentionally avoided directly referring this as a language because conversation includes more than just a speaking aspect. Non-verbal, visual, written forms need to be considered. However, it is easier to view this as a language such as English from a conversation perspective.

Each individual has a different way of articulating that they have grown up with. A Japanese person like me is likely to be fluent in Japanese; thus, he is primarily articulating his thought/interpretation in Japanese as a rhetorical form. 

Communication design has a strong relationship with this aspect of conversation. To simply put, it is a visual and written language that some people are more familiar with than normal verbal languages. 

5. The way of articulating consists of letter + glyph and grammar + syntax. 

Although it is probably sufficient to understand that we use a way of articulating (languages) to organize our thought/interpretation, its further detail can be explained. 

A way of articulating consists of many letters + glyphs and grammar + syntax that combine them. It is easier to think these components from a linguistic perspective. Nonetheless, it would be beneficial to understand that our non-verbal behavior (another way of articulating) also consists of components that are equivalent to letters and grammar that provide social clues for others to interpret our intentions. 

Communication design particularly concerns with a semantic formation and transformation through a proper use of syntactical elements. What a designer intends to mean needs to be understood by others as it is. 

6. Each person tends to have one's own way of thinking (a.k.a beliefs).

A person's thought process is heavily influenced by his own way of thinking (a.k.a. beliefs). This particular way of thinking can be religious, social, cultural, and academic. 

This notion is quite important in my opinion. It seems to me that many people think that they can develop their own thought/interpretation of a conversation independently from their previous experiences. This appears rather unreasonable because how people interpret a given conversation is largely dependent on their own ways of thinking. 

7. A way of thinking can be rooted in various religions, societies, cultures, and disciplines.

Similar to the way of articulating (languages), people's ways of thinking can be more detailed. They tend to have their roots in different religions, societies, cultures, and disciplines that are individualistic or collectivistic. 

These roots are called communities of practice.

Since these different communities of practice are comprised of multiple individuals who embrace norms and practices within each community based on their own unique ways of thinking, they also influences the communities that they belong to. 

If I were to explain this notion in terms of design, a specific field in design can be viewed as a community of practice in which many individuals embrace its accumulated knowledge. For example, interaction design is one of many design disciplines. 

Further explanations of this notion can be found in some of the great texts such as Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Masaya Chiba's The Philosophy of Learning.

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger wrote Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation to describe the idea of communities of practices. 

I also attempted to model Masaya Chiba's theory in this blog previously.

8. Learning a new language is merely a way to adopt a medium for communication. 

People in Japan tend to believe that learning a new language (in this case, it is English) is a sufficient qualification for them to be a global person. To me, it does not seem right. A language is just a medium that allows people to communicate with each other. As long as people share the same medium, they are able to communicate with each other. They can hear what words and phrases other people are using, but they cannot interpret what they intend to mean without a shared context. This is just a communication, not a conversation, and it is not a sufficient qualification for a person to be a global person. 

From this point of view, it is perfectly possible that a person is quite fluent in a given language (e.g. English), but is not capable of having a conversation. However, this is definitely the first step toward having a conversation. 

I believe that designers spend a huge amount of time learning about problems and people that they are designing for through some sort of conversations. However, in order to successfully have those conversations, they need to learn specific languages that are spoken by different users in different contexts. 

9. Conversation requires participants to share their ways of thinking and articulating.

Unlike communication, people need to understand other people's ways of thinking when they engage in a conversation. 

When you talk to someone who is from the same small community as yours, there are many assumptions that are already pre-shared between the two. This rarely happens in a world outside of that small community. This is why it is crucial for us to try to understand other people's backgrounds when we have a conversation with someone from other religions, societies, cultures, and disciplines. At the same time, it is also necessary for us to be knowledgeable about our own background and clearly describe it to others. 

This sort of illustrates the point that designers have to properly understand who they are designing for and how your products/services are going to be used by them through conversations. This is essential because design is a form of rhetoric. What designers create is designed based on users' ways of thinking and articulating. In addition, it is necessary for designers to have a conversation with users to understand them. Hence, design is conducted through conversation.

10. Hence, we continuously refine our way of thinking and articulating through conversation.

When we share our ways of thinking (beliefs) and articulating (languages), we can have a conversation. By having a number of meaningful conversations, what we rhetorically articulate starts interacting with each other and refines our ways of thinking and articulating. 

Conversation invites people to embrace diversity. Recognizing differences among people is a key process in conversation. Each result is unique because of our human nature, and nothing stays the same. This statement may problematically pose a question on the idea of authenticity. However, the absolute definition of authenticity cannot be objectively identified because each person has a unique perspective on it. 

Conversation requires people to take time. Because it is a dialogue, not a monologue, people need to actively participate in it. A myriad of tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook, and advertisements online would remain monological unless readers take time to understand their contexts, but we simply do not have enough time to take that action. That is why I think social media and restless advertisements seem quite distant, irrelevant, and irritating even if they are trying to target particular individuals. 

Conversation helps people to design. To design for people, we need to learn about ourselves. To learn about ourselves, we need to have a conversation. To have the conversation, we need to design for conversations. This leads us to design an organic process that enables conversations between designers and users and products and services developed based on conversations. This statement is not to say to design a chat bot, but is to say to design based on conversation:

To understand and visualize communities of practice
= Product/Service Domains Analysis

To understand and visualize a way of thinking (beliefs)
= Ecosystem + Concept Map

To understand and visualize a thought/interpretation 
= Mental Model

To understand and design a rhetorical form
= User Conceptual Model
= User Interface 

To design a way of articulating 
= Design System

To design grammar + syntax 
= Visual Design Patterns (Consistency)

To design letter + glyph
= Components

These items are the tools that designers can use to facilitate an iterative and co-creating design process. 

The public perception on design is seemingly changing from a veneer that conceals a surface of an object to an essential value creation process in businesses. It is high time for us to establish a conversational design process.

References: 

Buckland, Michael.
Information and Society. 
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/information-and-society

Dubberly, Hugh.
Conversations and models: Secrets to designing great products.
http://presentations.dubberly.com/conversations_and_models.pdf

Henderson, Austin. & Johnson, Jeff
Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design
https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Models-Synthesis-Human-Centered-Informatics/dp/1608457494

Masaya, Chiba.
The Philosophy of Learning: For Those Who Want to Learn. 
(I translated the title)
https://amzn.to/2qNkSyy

Norman, Donald.
The Design of Everyday Things.
https://amzn.to/2qNhBzs

Shigehiko, Toyama
The Theory of Organizing Thoughts.
(I translated the title)
https://amzn.to/2HiDmxh

Vignelli, Massimo.
The Vignelli Canon.
http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf

Wenger, Etienne. & Jean, Lave.
Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation
https://www.amazon.com/Situated-Learning-Participation-Computational-Perspectives/dp/0521423740