Creative design in safety critical systems Patrizia Marti University of Siena – Dep. of Communication Science Via dei Termini 6, 53100 Siena, Italy and Deep Blue s.r.l., Rome, Italy +39 0577 270335
[email protected] ABSTRACT
Creative design in safety critical systems is a quite unexplored area of research. Historically, the design of tools, technologies and procedures in such domains has been advocated to engineers and human factors experts who interpreted the development of new concepts mainly as a problem solving activity. For example, one of the most popular methods for technological innovation, TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) (Altshuller,1994) is a technology oriented collection of “principles of invention” applied to a three steps process: problem definition, problem analysis and solution generation. The development of innovative outcomes in this kind of approaches is regarded as an activity of searching for alternative solutions within the constraints of the problem analysis. The present paper proposes a different approach to creative design in safety critical systems. It is based on the idea that original and innovative outcomes are not accidental but can be generated as the product of a collaborative social process of co-construction of knowledge and meaning negotiation. The paper illustrates this position by discussing theories of creativity and presenting a case study. Keywords
Creative design, Air Traffic Management, Cooperative design process, Innovation, Creative Cognition, Cultural Historical Psychology. INTRODUCTION
The paper addresses the problem of how to manage the envisioning process for creative design in complex, safety critical domains like Air Traffic Management (ATM). The issue is challenging since when creative design is related to complex and safety-critical systems, the problem arises of how to free thinking from the constraints and requirements of the domain. Very often, innovation in these domains is mostly interpret as a problem solving activity focused on the development of software technologies. In this paper we present an approach to innovation that is not confined to search for solutions within the constraints defined by the problem analysis. Rather we are interested in designing for the “potentials” of the domain activity, where visionary scenarios of activities are elaborated with the aim of offering sustainable solutions for improving the quality of life in the work context. These scenarios take into
Claudio Moderini Domus Academy Via Savona 97, 20144,Milano, Italy +39 02 42414030
[email protected] account a wide unit of analysis and span from an alternative use of the physical space, to the distribution of media in the context of work, the exploitation of sensorial paradigms for interacting with technologies, the definition of media for sharing memories and support the life of the community. Even the design of functionality of the tools is not constrained to the interaction with a computer screen but span over many areas, gestural (live aspects of the activity), visual (manipulation of visual representations of tasks and processes), aural (use of sounds and atmospheres), manipulative (physical feedback) and material (physical objects). In the paper we present the work we are carrying out within the CREA! project (Creative Research Environment for ATM) funded by Eurocontrol under the CARE Innovative Action Programme. The project aims at developing innovative concepts for ATM, suitable for the current air traffic management scenario, where control is centralised and managed by control units on ground, but also for more futuristic scenarios, like the free flight, where traffic management is decentralised and control is moved on board to the aircraft. The project proposes an inter-disciplinary approach to design in ATM that encourages intersections between art, design and technology borrowing from each discipline practices, methods and experience for the definition of innovative concepts. The approach is challenging since the exploitation of design practices and methods from disciplines different from engineering and human factors is largely unexplored in ATM. All innovation in such domain is constrained by a problem solving view, neglecting other factors like aesthetic, affective, cultural and emotional aspects of human cognition. The CREA! approach is inspired by the idea of harnessing the knowledge on how creativity works in different domains and letting experts from different disciplines collaborate and express through the language and external representations proper of their area of competence. More in detail, the approach concentrates on unleashing natural and expert creativity whilst taking advantage of knowledge-based support from domain experts to organize, restructure and exploit available knowledge and experience. CREA! leverages creativity in action in artistic domains and offers a process model
to integrate a variety of suggestions into integrated solutions. In the following, we firstly provide an introduction to different approaches to creativity than we discuss both the theoretical approach and our methodological proposal for creative design in complex systems. APPROACHES TO CREATIVITY
Creativity is a topic of interest of educators, psychologists, artists, historians of science and more recently designers of new technologies. It is a so articulated area of research that has generated a multiplicity of approaches, theories, methodologies and techniques. For example, the literature reports many case studies of the work of “creative people” based on introspective reports, interviews and biographical studies (Gardner, 1993), (John-Steiner, 2000). Other authors worked in a more pragmatic way trying to identify general cognitive heuristics related to creativity. An example is the concept of lateral thinking introduced by De Bono (1975), who provided descriptive and pragmatic techniques for thinking creatively. Earlier works date back to the late 50s like the one of Osborn (1953) who developed several popular methods for coming up with creative ideas including the technique of brainstorming based on the free association of ideas in a group setting where the participants withhold criticism and openly encourage unconventional thinking. Other studies approached creativity with a very specific angle rather than trying to formulate a general theory of creative processes. For example, psychoanalytic approaches partly considered creative expression in terms of the sublimation of unconscious conflicts (Freud, 1916), (Koestler, 1964); partly rejected the notion that creativity must be grounded in neurosis or conflict, and proposed that creative ideas can be generated as part of preconscious activity (Kubie, 1958). Psychometric approaches concentrated on identifying cognitive styles that promote creative thinking. In this respect Guilford (1950) regarded creativity as consisting of a combination of primary abilities like sensitivity to problems, fluency in generating ideas, flexibility and novelty of ideas and the ability to synthesise and re-organise information. The value of this approach relies on the emphasis that creativity involves multiple cognitive skills and it is not a unidimensional process. Since a thorough analysis of the different approaches to creativity goes beyond the purpose of this paper, in the following we focus on two approaches to the study of creativity that represent two main axes and views of the problem. The two approaches are Creative Cognition (Finke et al., 1992) and the Cultural Historical Psychology (Vygotskji, 1978). The two approaches define two radically different views of creativity that is regarded as an internal cognitive process for Creative Cognition, and as a social collaborative process of knowledge co-construction for Cultural Historical Psychology. The reason to discuss about these two
theoretical frameworks is functional to the purposes of our research. Indeed we are neither aimed to define a set of techniques for creative thinking nor to develop a domain specific approach. Rather, within a well defined theoretical framework, we aim to develop a comprehensive methodology that can be applied throughout a complete design process, from the definition of a vision to concept design and evaluation. Creative cognition is a theoretical framework that attempts to identify the specific cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative acts and products and to develop novel techniques for studying creativity within the context of controlled scientific experiments. A central tenets of Creative Cognition is that it ties in with research in traditional areas of human cognition and cognitive psychology that consider creativity not as single unitary process but as a product of many types of mental processes, each of which helps to set the stage for creative insight and discovery. In particular, Creative Cognition distinguishes between processes used in the generation of cognitive structures and those used to explore the creative implications of those structures. Therefore, the approach is based on the idea that creativity is articulated in two internal processes, generation and exploration, theorised by the Geneplore model. Geneplore is a cognitive model that describes the basic cognitive processes related to creativity: a generative phase in which one constructs mental representations called pre-inventive structures; and an exploratory phase, that generates, regenerates and modifies the initial structures until they turn out into a satisfactory creative product. Each phase of the Geneplore model consists of a number of cognitive processes, for example the generative phase includes memory retrieval, association, mental synthesis, mental transformation, analogical transfer and categorical reduction, whilst the exploratory phase regards as relevant attribute finding, conceptual interpretation, functional inference, contextual shifting, hypothesis testing and searching for limitations. Based on the Geneplore model, Creative Cognition strives to develop global information processing models that relate cognitive processes, emergent cognition and the resultant cognitive products. A completely different view of creative processes is offered by the Cultural Historical Psychology (Vygotsky, 1978). The central theme of this approach is that creative activities are social and thinking is not confined to the individual brain/mind, rather the construction of knowledge is embedded in the cultural and historical milieu in which it arises. The approach focuses on the dynamic interdependencies of social and individual processes, especially in language and thought, that leads to co-construction of knowledge, tools and artefacts. For Vygotsky (1978), one of the initiators of the approach, an individual learns, creates and achieves mastery in and through his or her relationships with other individuals. He elaborated the concept of “zone of proximal development”, stating that
in interaction with more experienced others, individuals can go beyond their existing level of development. Even if his work focused on children and on psychological functions that, in the course of development, are scaffolded by the assistance of those with more knowledge and experience, other researchers who elaborated the Vygotsky’s theory (John-Steiner, 2000) suggested that the facilitating role of the social, participating other, shouldn’t neither be limited to the cognitive sphere nor to the development of children. In a long life evolving zone of proximal development, collaborative adult partners can build on shared visions, complementarity of knowledge, difference of working habits and motivations. Ideas, tools and processes that emerge from joint activity are appropriated, or internalised, by the individual and become the basis of the individual’s subsequent development. Cultural Historical Psychology has a long tradition and a wide area of studies. However, the approach significantly contributed to the research on creativity. For example, in her book Creative Collaboration, Vera John-Steneir (2000) elaborated the vygotskian theme stating that working together productively toward shared goals is a human activity unique and valuable in its contributions to individual and social well-being. In the book she studied examples of partnerships drawn primarily from the joint activities of creative individuals (e.g. Einstein and Bohr, Marie and Pierre Curie, Picasso and Braque, Stravinsky and Balanchine etc.). These are people who pursued discovery and the co-construction of new knowledge within specific domains such art, physics, psychology, or music. But even if their achievements where often believed to be individually created such as Einstein’s theory of relativity, an accurate analysis of their way of working in collaboration with others can show the importance of joint effort and social support for creative activity. We believe that Creative Cognition and Cultural Historical Psychology can represent the opposite boundaries of the extremely variegated field of research on creativity. Our research is directly inspired by Cultural Historical Psychology and its attention in the study of practice to understand creative activities. Differently from classical cognitive approaches like Creative Cognition that have concentrated on information, its mental representation and propagation; we are concerned with the study of creative activities which involve the mastery of external devices and tools through social collaboration and co-construction of knowledge. Whilst the cognitive approach focuses on the development of conceptual schemes to describe a multilevel information processing that can explain the basic functioning of creativity, we are interested in the analysis of the social dynamics that develop in processes of collaborative meaning building. Our interpretation of creativity indeed is mainly a social process of co-construction of knowledge through the negotiation of meaning and the collaborative creation of design visions.
Inspired by the Cultural Historical Psychology, in the CREA! project we defined an inter-disciplinary approach to design in ATM that encourages intersections between art, design and technology sharing with each discipline practices, methods and experience for the definition of innovative concepts. In the following, we illustrate the approach and the preliminary results that we achieved in the project. THE DESIGN PROCESS
The CREA! project was initiated with the creation of a collaborative environment where artists, designers and technologists could work as equal partners in the exploration and development of innovative concepts and media for ATM. We set up a group of artists and designers representative of a range of visual and multimedia arts with a focus upon the following disciplines: music, architecture, visual design and interaction design. Human factors and domain experts completed the range of competences of the project. Each participant brought to the group his/her own expertise both in terms of ideas and theoretical background. The first issue of the project concerned the definition of a design vision. We pointed out three hypotheses of transition from the current ATM scenario to more visionary and futuristic scenarios: - the control scenario: the current situation where controllers act mainly as air traffic managers. - the advisory scenario: the future free flight situation where the responsibility of traffic management is mainly moved on board and the controllers play an advisory and support role to the pilots. - the service scenario: a completely futuristic scenario where the traffic management is decentralised and totally moved on board. In this scenario the controllers play the role of connecting air services to ground services becoming “service and information brokers”. As integral part of our vision, we decided that our solutions should have addressed the following objectives: to support personalization and individual styles of work. to guarantee a certain level of transparency of the processes and on the related activities to facilitate the adaptation of the environment to different situations. to use multiple channels and reduce the information overload on the visual interfaces. The CREA! project adopted a full co-evolutionary process where concept design, technology design and activity design were carried out in parallel so that each strand of the process could inform the others. The process was articulated in two main phases: divergence and convergence. Divergence included inspiration to get insights from the application domain (user and domain understanding); and elaboration to develop concepts from the
perspective of single disciplines (music, architecture, interaction design, visual design, human factors). Convergence included a phase of sharing to present and confront concepts elaborated separately (concept testing); and production to evolve single concepts in integrated “concept scenarios” (scenario testing and briefing). The process was co-evolutionary since it allowed sub-processes (user understanding, briefing, concept testing…) to evolve in parallel and converge to share, refine and develop integrated concept scenarios.
the trittico, the main interface for the operational work,
In the project we implemented such a process through workshops, organised as a collaborative environment where artists, designers and domain experts worked as equal partners in brainstorming sessions. Four main workshops were performed:
the osmosis skin, flexible and adaptable partitions to organise working and resting areas.
The first workshop was carried out within the inspiration phase where people got insights from the application domain through the metaphor of the tool box. The tool box was a physical container of videos, images, objects each one related to the problem domain in different respect (tools like flight progress strips and operational procedures but also videos or images recalling sensorial aspects useful for the discussion). The output of the workshop was the definition of the vision of the project. The second workshop was carried out within the elaboration and sharing phases where people developed concepts from a disciplinary perspective and presented them to the others. This part of the co-evolutionary process allowed to evolve different strands of the project and ended up with the production of more than 60 high level concepts. The third workshop was carried out within the sharing and production phase where people produced concepts developed by single experts and elaborated them into integrated scenarios. A fourth workshop was explicitly oriented to collect feedback from the field, so it was organised as a focus group with air traffic controllers who evaluated the proposed solutions providing an extremely valuable support to consolidate them. The results we obtained adopting this process model were encouraging both in terms of the envisaged solutions that were generally appreciated by air traffic controllers and in terms of the amount and quality of the material we produced in a quite limited amount of time and resources. The solutions have a general value to be scalable, and this allows us a future exploitation in different scenarios; and to be open and flexible to support further elaboration in different directions. In the following, concept scenarios are described in detail.
the hard book, a personal tool that permits both to focus on specific processes and to share information and activities with others, the cameo, a personal ID tool that allows both to set up the system according to the individual preferences and to manage the communication processes,
These elements/tools were integrated in a common definition of space of interaction where they communicate each other, whose main characteristics are: openness and horizontality, facilitating the visual interaction among the different people flexibility and adaptability, in order to permit interoperability and task driven configuration of the environment “theatre setting”, the disposition of the different elements on the scene and the role of people contributes to the fluidity of the processes. The flags
A flag (Figure 1) is the basic element providing a two levels representation space: process and individual task awareness. Indeed it can work in conjunction with the tritticos, multifaceted radar displays, to provide both controllers or external observers (e.g. the supervisor) with a view of the process (what is going on in the airspace managed by the control centre). It can even work in conjunction with the hard book and the cameo, personal tools that allow to manage individual tasks, to display the activity that each controller is carrying out and to share visual information between different workplaces. The flags can be used for enhancing the single workspace but also for creating some independent common spaces for the representation of the processes (both procedural and metaphorical representations). Flags can be used as visual filters and physical separations within the open environment.
THE DESIGN SOLUTIONS
The project produced a set of scenarios composed of five main elements/tools: the flag, a public display that can be used to extend the action/communication area of the single user and support awareness by visualizing the processes
Figure 1 : Flags
The flags transparency can vary, depending on the material and the projector used. Different levels of transparency communicate aspects of the ongoing activities in different ways. Indeed the flags can show, with a one-to-one relationship, either the status of the activity of each single controller or the whole activity taking place in the control room, creating a graphical interpretation of the status of the ongoing situation. Trittico
The trittico (Figure 2) is a multifaceted display tool integrated in a table/desktop that constitutes the main interface for the operational work. It is composed of orientable flat screens and a position tracking device. It is an interaction space based on the combination of different displays that can be configured in order to visualize, like in a medieval triptych, spatial relations and hierarchies between contents related to the air traffic control, including the visualization of aircraft in a specific air-sector, the tracking of the communication process, the flight plan etc. The physical relation between the different monitors and their manipulation defines by analogy the logical relation between the audio/visual information. The trittico-table can be disposed in different configurations allowing the creation of single/multi-user working spaces and can be used also in the vertical position like a sort of white board. Tables can be put one near the other to define a variable workspace, or they can be single-standing objects, one table for each controller. Through the sound spatialisation it’s possible to establish an intuitive relationship between the flight route and the pilot’s voice in communication with the controller. On the Trittico’s frame small speakers are installed which create a surround system with the controller at the centre. The trittico can be used by controllers to organise their “space of work”: the main central area can display a “clean” radar screen whilst the lateral areas can display portions of the main area with different visualisation of data; e.g. a 3D representation of the holding area, temporal ordering of flights passing from the same fix, safety nets etc.
consoles corresponding to different features of the tool. The first layer is a touch sensitive screen for pen-based interaction, a second layer contains the commands for communicating (contacting, storing etc.), a third layer is used to organize information, a fourth layer for tracking and monitoring etc. The hard book is used mainly in combination with the trittico but it can also be used in stand alone mode for personal data management. The hard books can be physically passed from person to person, from sector to sector, according to the working process. They can be temporarily stored in a bookshelf in order to physically represent the global information structure. When taken from the bookshelf at the beginning of the turn, they contains all procedures of the day like Notam, letters of agreement etc. The hard book contains a simple software for audio editing allowing the user to collect, store, access data. The hard book can be either a personal device (as the controller quits the work, the hard book is put, closed, on the shelf) or a shared device: anytime a controller finishes the turn he passes the hard book to the colleague continuing the turn to share the memory of the last actions. The hard book can be developed in different sizes, maintaining some relevant characteristics: easy to handle (open, close, browse pages); lightweight, large enough to have a readable screen; small enough to be easy to handle and use while moving. The interface is both physical and virtual: each page can have a screen, real buttons, printed areas and a manipulation model that mixes moving pages (to add or change the information layers) with more classical input devices, such as buttons or sliders.
Figure 3: Hard book
Cameo
It is a wireless personal communication and ID tool that acts at three levels (Figure 4): it is a unique ID that permits to identify the user and to keep track of the different activities the user is involved in.
Figure 2: Trittico
Hard book
The hardbook (Figure 3) is a book-like device whose pages are composed of a combination of physical
it is a contextual tool that can personalize the system at two levels, environmental, via wireless data exchange, and instrumental, by adapting the functionality of the other tools (trittico and hard book) if plugged in. it is peer to peer communication device.
The cameo allows to set up the environment and its soft qualities (sound, light etc.) according to personal preferences, it defines the area of influence of a single user in the common representation space both defined by the flags and the tritticos, it mediates the different activity models. The cameo can be worn during work time only, or in any moment of the day. It could even be a symbol for the community of the controllers. The vocal profile of the user is sampled and downloaded into the Cameo. The Cameo becomes the audio key to access the system and at the same time it can be used to access the whole control room. The Cameo can be an activator for the hard book or it can directly communicate with the other devices, Trittico and Flags.
Figure 4 : Cameo
Osmosis skin
The osmosis skin (Figure 5) is a concept of flexible and adaptable partitions to organise working and resting areas. The partition defines the borders of the control room maintaining permeability with resting areas. It supports several solutions: Natural light modulator through the orientation of panels which compose the partition. Space marker which enables to define and filter working areas through hollow spaces.
Figure 5: Osmosis skin
CONCEPT EVALUATION
The tools we envisioned represent preliminary ideas of innovative concepts for ATM. They depict mainly the role they can play in the life of the users, without specifying the real experience/interaction. In order to detail more the characteristics of these tools, their “role” and context of use, we started to develop mock-ups and low-fidelity prototypes to involve air traffic controllers in brainstorming sessions and discuss about the quality and the impact of the proposed solutions. In particular the mock-ups allowed us to define the functional role of the tools; to map the air traffic control activity on the tools; to contextualise solutions in short and medium term situations; to evaluate them with the controllers. In particular we built physical mock-ups of the Trittico, the hard book and a set of activators conceptually related to cameos. For example, the Trittico mock-up (Figure 6) was a cardboard construction about 85 * 65 cms sized, divided into a central main area (45 * 45cms) and six peripheral areas (20 * 20 cms each). The peripheral areas could be laterally or vertically moved to open or close the Trittico, so that it could be used as a large, flat surface or a close working position.
Fabric walls letting the daylight flow inside the building, and defining an adaptable and ever changing space supporting different points of view. Separations of the control rooms in smaller working areas are made possible with visual elements and sounds. This is possible through the use of “sound pillars”. Doing so, the sound is clearly directed on a certain area and heard exclusively by the person working on that specific area. Partitions allow different levels and points of view to support different kind of activities: the supervisor can benefit from a more general view crossing super-elevated areas and looking at the flags. Transit areas become spaces where people can rest, or work on collateral tasks.
Figure 6: the cardboard trittico
Peripheral areas of the trittico represented flat screens able to visualise different kinds of information. The central area represented the radar screen: the information presentation could be personalised but the contents were fixed. The peripheral areas were temporary workings spaces where the controller could set both contents and presentation. Printed paper sheets were attached on the trittico in order to simulate possible screen displays.
The mock-ups were evaluated with air traffic controllers on the basis of realistic scenarios like the one reported below: The Multiple screen scenario Mark Stark is controlling his sector in a sunny winter day. It’s 9:00 a.m. and the traffic is increasing. Mark often monitors a small portion on the right side of the sector, in which the lower levels (0-190) are part of the approaching area to the small tourist airport of Quietburg, related to an adjacent sector. Usually from Quietburg only Chessnas aircraft take off for tourist tours over the mountain, flying under 17.000 feet and never entering Mark’s sector. However in this period some commercial flights have been temporarily moved to Quietburg for maintenance of the main airport. This means that there are quite a lot incoming flights around 15.000 feet over the QTB VOR and the radar screen is overloaded of overlapping labels. Mark selects the area around the small airport and moves a copy of it from the main radar screen to one of the peripheral screen of the trittico. Then, he sets new preferences of the main radar, hiding levels from 0 to 160 over the QTB area in order to not visualise tourist flights but still to monitor incoming commercial flights in advance. On the peripheral screen he has a richer presentation of the area around QTB, where he can see at a wider zoom level all the traffic coming from that airport, and visualise flight plans. The double view of the traffic allows to monitoring the traffic selecting the information and visualisation scale that is more appropriate for managing the specific situation.
During the brainstorming, controllers were asked to play the role described by the scenario and to pretend to manage the situation using the mock-ups. The designers made the situation more dynamic by substituting the paper sheets on the trittico to simulate the evolution of the situation and the visualisation of information of the cardboard displays. At the end of the scenario, controllers were involved in a debriefing sessions to discuss problems and envision solutions. THE VALUE OF THE ENVISIONED SOLUTIONS
The solutions we elaborated are an initial attempt to conceive innovative concepts that are not strictly related to solve problems but more in general to envision livable, workable, attractive environments and tools that people can easily use to perform their activities. We elaborated visions on future ATM systems adopting a holistic view of the activity without focusing on single tools apart from their context of use. The proposed solutions are oriented to exploit real and perceived affordances of the work environment, to provide visual continuity and realism in information representation, to support the use of different sensorial modality, nowadays largely neglected. The scenarios we developed depict the experience of the user interacting with tools within a defined space. This experience is not limited to the cognitive aspects of interaction but includes aesthetic, intimate, social and emotional terms as well. This is the reason why the proposed solutions are not strictly “functional” but include aspects of the “quality” of work taking into account beauty, satisfaction, comfort and engagement. The added value
of our solutions is specifically defined around key features of the scenarios: Openness In the project, we decided to focus on solutions that can be appropriate in the short and medium term but in principle they could be elaborated also to support more visionary and futurist situations like the “service scenario”, where the traffic management would be moved on board and the air traffic controllers would become “service and information brokers”. Transition The scenarios were inspired by the idea of supporting “transitions”. During the three workshops performed in the project, we elaborated solutions to support different kinds of transitions: - transition among “control”, “advisory” and “service” scenarios - transition between resting and working situations - transition between macroscopic views of the activity (support to the supervisor) and microscopic dimension (individual and personal settings of the working position) Mise en scène – Theatre setting The physical space has been used as a representational space for the activity. Flags reproduce a choreography of the ongoing activity and the awareness of the situation. Multi-sensorial interaction The proposed tools support a multi-sensorial manipulation: the trittico can be physically manipulated to personalise the information presentation, sound effects can be used to identify flights on the trittico; the hard book allows to physically pass information to colleagues or to other tools (e.g. a procedure of the day like the definition of a prohibited area in a sector, can be integrated with the current traffic situation); the body is an extension of the working position: the cameo is a personal wearable tool to manipulate information. Community Air traffic controllers perform a delicate work. They are responsible for the life of thousand of travelers every day. They need to share solutions and concerns and help each other. In the current operational scenarios, air traffic controllers are considered individuals rather than a community. Currently there are no tools or spaces designed to support the sense of community. The cameo, the resting space, the flags representing the others’ current status of work are a first attempt to make visible and support the sense of community of air traffic controllers. CONCLUSION
In the paper we presented our research in creative design in complex safety critical systems. The research generated from the idea that creativity is not accidental, but can be exploited and managed even in the design of
new tools and solutions for highly standardised and complex systems like ATM. The approach we proposed interprets creative design as an activity of coconstruction of knowledge and meaning negotiation among experts from different disciplines. The approach is currently applied within a European project sponsored by Eurocontrol, to design innovative concepts for ATM both in the short and long term. The preliminary outcomes we obtained from the application of the approach confirmed the soundness of the idea and the need to develop a methodology to let experts from different disciplines to work together and define common design visions. The research is still ongoing and will be completed in 2004 with the implementation of the concepts described in the paper in form of working prototypes and the definition of a methodology for creative design in safety critical systems. We consider the methodology development as a major contribution to demonstrate that the results we obtained are “repeatable” in the sense that they can be clearly linked to the application of the CREA! approach and do not depend only on personal and circumstantial factors; and that the application of this approach can be beneficial in accumulating best practices for improving design in safety critical systems.
De Bono, E. (1975) New think: the use of lateral thinking in the generation of new ideas. New York, Basic Books.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The work presented in the paper has been carried out by a multidisciplinary design team. A special thanks goes to Stefano Cardini, visual designer, and Alessandro Scandurra, architect, who actively contributed to the work. In particular, the figures contained in the paper are original sketches they prepared to represent and communicate design concepts to air traffic controllers and domain experts. We would like to thank also Eurocontrol for sponsoring the CREA! project and for supporting and advising the design team. REFERENCES
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