PIG meeting 30-1-03
Reflections on the first brewery workshop, 16.01.03
PIG, University of Queensland, Ipswich
This is a transcript of the pig meeting from 30/01/2003. In attendance were, JaredDonovan, JesperPedersen, BrettCampbell, TimCedermanHaysom, BenMatthews and BenMcGarry.
The purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the BrewConf event which took place a fortnight earlier. The discussion was organized around five questions;
This is the transcript as recorded by JaredDonovan and JesperPedersen. The conversation was not taken down verbatim and there are omissions and errors.
What role does an activity like this have in a design/inquiry process?
Tim: From the stories and things you got to see what non-brewery people think of breweries. It shows what a novice’s views would be. Later when we begin analysing more we will already have ideas for design. That will be useful.
Jared: The question also asks what form the design process should take. Do we understand, then design, is it technology push, an iterative process or something else.
Ben Ma: I see it as a re-focussing activity. The stuff you get out of it might be useless, or it might be useful, but either way it helps to shape where you want to go. We are challenged by other people. When this happens our research changes and becomes more defined, ( example of explaining thesis topic to people ).
Jesper: When applied anthropologists go somewhere, ( e.g. rural Africa ), that is very similar to what we’re doing. They use the languages of the people they engage with to act in a situation and change it. You have to step into the situation
Brett: We weren’t basing it on a previous study so the goal wasn’t about understanding. I think we need to understand first, then design.
Tim: The design approach depends on the context. If I have invented a great new technology like blue-tooth then when I try to design the technology is much more important.
Jared: Will a design-focussed event bias us too early?
Jesper: My worry is that you bring a lot of assumptions when you bring a technology. For example computers are used to generate reports rather than support the physical craft of work.
Ben Mc: It was useful in that we got a dry run at designing for the context.
Jared: We should distinguish design and technology. Design is more than technology. When we were writing the stories we were designing too.
Ben Mc: Design is a verb, Technology is a noun.
Jesper: Are we really designing the future when we are writing the stories? Can we design the future? No, because it depends on how the people appropriate the things we design.
Jesper's Notes:
It can’t be bad, not too early. Show what a novice would expect. You prepare yourself for design. You broke the ice. You got a sense of the spaces. A re-focussing activity that gives directions no matter what outcome. Everytime you explain something, it changes. Tell a lot from peoples stories-visions/assumptions, you have to understand before you design. I wonder how our thoughts matches real brewery work. Not necessarily only the technology, but also how people interact.
How do we ensure that people have ownership of themes?
How to move from explaining themes to letting people experience them?
Ben Ma: The second and third questions are interdependent.
Ben Mc: It was good to include the stuff in the invitation pack so we could think about it before-hand. But for me, I didn’t really think about the theme when I wrote my story. I sort of tacked the theme on at the end.
Ben Ma: My understanding was coloured by the story, whereas Margot went more from the general description than the example. The stories we came up with were very different. In the dentist day most of us had helped develop the themes. We also understood the specific examples. We needed to take something home for BrewConf because we didn’t have this knowledge.
Jesper: There are some fields that you don’t have a clue about, ( e.g. Breweries ). In the dentist you can relate to your experiences as a patient but not as a dentist or assistant. Patterns are usually describing an area that most people know well, like cafes, so people can draw on their experiences more.
Ben Mc: I wonder how close our idea of what it’s like to work in a brewery is to the reality.
Jesper: I think that it’s important that you’ve articulated [your imaginings of the brewery] though.
Jared: One of the most important things when you work somewhere isn’t the physical environment or the work tasks but how you relate to the other workers.
Ben Mc: It’s good to get others to interpret what we’ve observed.
Jesper: In the stage introduction it was nice to see Ben acting in a role. There was a tension there between the way you were acting in the role and what we’d seen in the field.
Jared: Maybe it would be nice to take a video card game approach and generate the themes as part of the event.
Jesper: The movie making exercise was interesting for experiencing a situation. You could get a theme of “Feeding the system” from our video. It was good to experience that first hand.
Ben Ma: Explaining & People understanding things differently. Maybe different understandings are good, but maybe it’s hard to get what you want out of it too? Maybe it’s hard to get everyone moving in the same direction when they have different understandings.
Jesper's Notes:
Theme was a tag at the end. My story was coloured by the example. My story was clearly different from Margot’s, but we had the same theme. Margot used the concrete examples. VideoCardGame a good example on how to address ownership. Put your names on it. Could split up experiencing themes/generate ownership from focussing on the different view people have?
Experience/Explore reality, expose/question assumptions or imagine the future?
Jared: This question kind of relates to the first one. All these things are there but what’s appropriate for where we are in the process. What’s the balance?
Ben Ma: I don’t think reality should get in the way.
Ben Mc: the second one, like I said before it’s good to expose your assumptions somewhere safe.
Jesper: Could we have run the day without giving the stories? Are they needed to bring out assumptions? Can we focus more about assumptions without the field material?
Ben Mc: ‘Imagine the future’, wasn’t that just a device to get us engaged?
Jesper: We realised that the fantasy story writing exercise needed to be done in the day because it relies on the interactions between the writers as the story is passed around the circle.
Ben Mc: It’s hard to see assumptions until they’re challenged.
Ben Ma: That’s Gadamer – Fusing of horizons. The contrast of contexts is where you’re forced to make sense of something and confront your prejudices.
Jesper: How do you do that?
Ben Ma: That’s what you do by bringing designers into a use context.
Jesper: That doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to escape it. For example if a computer person goes to a situation they will come up with a computer as the solution. If an engineer goes then they will come up with a machine. How do you know what you’re trying to get away from if you can’t see it?
Ben Ma: Example of an anthropologist who studied a culture where they didn’t have a word for ‘disabled’. Suddenly we’re confronted by our own society’s attitudes to people with disabilities, that there’s something wrong with them. Bertrand Russell: Truth and discovery is that which is surprising.
Jesper: Could you help yourself in expressing this? Could you facilitate the process? Make your understanding more visible?
Jesper's Notes
You need the concreteness. Nice to expose assumptions before you enter the field.
Considering the different ways that themes could be represented how does each method of representation aid or hinder learning and design?
Ben Mc: The best way to aid learning and design is to get us to experience the theme. The text itself is a representation, but the process of appropriation is what really makes it work. Semiotics: The representation, ( signifier ) doesn’t contain any meaning, it’s what happens the reader interprets it.
Ben Ma: Is that Derrida: "What the reader brings to the text"?
Jesper: It reminds me of this book about comics. In comics the characters are general so you read things into them. The more specific they are the less able you are to do this. What about multiple representations? How do we handle ownership here?
Ben Ma: I’m struggling with how I represent a social history in my thesis. You can’t represent this in a static way. I’m considering using a comic strip format to represent it.
Jesper's Notes
To experience things. Active activities. Simiotics: The representation in itself doesn’t say anything. What the reader brings to the text. Understanding comics. Tufte about representations. The fusion of horizons ( Gadamer ).
How do you get aware of what you are getting away from? You can’t. You have to place yourself in situations. How difficult cultures view handicapped people. The don’t even have a word for it.
JP & JD / 30-1-03
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