Designing Collaborative Environments for Strategic ... - CiteSeerX

Designing Collaborative Environments for Strategic Knowledge in Design Thomas Kvan Department of Architecture University of Hong Kong [email protected]

and

Linda Candy LUTCHI Research Centre Department of Computer Science Loughborough University, UK [email protected]

In Proceedings Strategic Knowledge and Concept Formation Conference October 20-22, 1999

Designing Collaborative Environments for Strategic Knowledge in Design Thomas Kvan Department of Architecture University of Hong Kong [email protected]

and

Linda Candy LUTCHI Research Centre Department of Computer Science Loughborough University [email protected]

ABSTRACT This paper considers aspects of strategic knowledge in design and some implications for designing in collaborative environments. Two key questions underline the concerns. First, how can strategic knowledge for collaborative design be taught and second, what kind of computer-based collaborative designing might best support the learning of strategic knowledge? We argue that the support of learning of strategic knowledge in collaborative design by computer-mediated means must be based upon empirical evidence about the nature of learning and design practice in the real world. Examples of research by the authors that seeks to provide that evidence are described and an approach to computer system design and evaluation proposed. KEYWORDS Collaborative Design, Strategic Knowledge, Empirical Studies, Computer Support

1.

DESIGNING IN COLLABORATION

In this paper, we bring together two lines of research to consider the nature of strategic knowledge in design and some implications for designing in collaborative environments. Two key questions underline the concerns of the paper. First, how can strategic knowledge for collaborative design be taught (it obviously can be learned since some of us do acquire it) and second, what kind of computer-based collaborative designing might best support the learning of strategic knowledge? We argue that the support of learning of strategic knowledge in collaborative design by computer-mediated means must be based upon empirical evidence about the nature of learning and design practice in the real world. The focus on the role of strategic knowledge in collaborative design is based upon current developments in global organisations and the resulting needs and expectations of a new generation of designers and engineers. There is also a growing interest in how to advance creativity and the knowledge level of work in design in order to gain competitive advantage (see e.g. the strategies for fostering creativity that emerged from the founder’s experiences of establishing Nissan Design International (NDI) [1].

Designing in collaborative environments is considered rather than individual design because co-located and remotely located team design is becoming the norm in organisations across the world, particularly where projects are highly complex. Designers of today are routinely expected to work across electronic networks and international boundaries and yet the computer systems that are supposed to facilitate this are not optimal. Our understanding about how to effectively use or improve these tools is limited in part by a lack of research into the relationships between strategic knowledge in design and the role of support tools. There is a need to bring to bear existing knowledge about how designers learn to design on the development and use of computer systems. In particular, the role of strategic knowledge in creative thinking has implications for designing computer tools to support collaborative design [2,3].

2.

STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE IN DESIGN

The essential nature of strategic knowledge in design has been characterised in different ways. Hori [4] has described strategic knowledge as the knowledge that is applied outside the perception-action loop. This metaknowledge is applied by the designer when his activities within the perception-action loop break down and progress is inhibited. Strategic knowledge has a role beyond this particular loop, being brought into play for example when we first approach a problem and structure the goals and sub-goals of a task. Vera et al. [5], for example, have postulated a model of collaboration which extends the role of meta-knowledge to encompass the act of structuring the problem (meta-planning in their model). Strategic knowledge, therefore, is central to the collaborative process. Hori attempts to identify some facets of this strategic knowledge but notes that "too much of strategic knowledge remains unknown". Whilst this remark is largely true, there are, nevertheless, some useful indicators as to its nature that can be explored further empirically. It is an essential characteristic of strategic knowledge that much of it is undefined and unidentified until it is needed and applied. Strategic knowledge is not a set of prescriptions but often takes the form of proposals for action within the specific demands of a situation, which may be used to breakout of a period of fallow thinking or an unproductive solution space. Where fixation of ideas occurs, the use of strategic knowledge involves applying well-known domain and context knowledge in surprising and imaginative ways [6]. In many respects, our understanding of strategic knowledge can be enhanced by considering it in the context of creativity and knowledge work in general. 2.1

Can Strategic Knowledge for Design be Taught?

If it is a reasonable assumption that design is an expertise that can be developed, then it can be argued that strategic knowledge in design can at least be encouraged. However, it is fair to say that more research about learning is available than that of strategic knowledge. The teaching of expertise has been extensively considered. As Eraut [7] has pointed out, there has been a revolution in thinking about professional expertise in which the attitude has shifted. "Thirty years ago, professional expertise used to be identified with propositional knowledge and a high theoretical content… (w)hereas most [current] theories of expertise… appear to have assumed that expertise is based mainly on experience with further development of theoretical knowledge having almost ceased soon after qualification." (Eraut, [7] p. 156-7) As noted, we have moved from an attitude to learning in which we focus on developing theoretical content to one that emphasises action and process. Eraut identifies the penalty of this attitude and reminds us that the penalty here is that professional fields, including design, cannot be adequately supported by this approach. Designers must develop their knowledge base as they work, otherwise their design becomes dangerously founded on outmoded assumptions as technology, regulations and society continues to develop. Duffy has observed that membership of a design profession (in his instance, architecture) is nothing other than the right to knowledge ([8] p. 142) and that this knowledge must be maintained and extended.

Additionally problematic when considering the teaching of design is the apparently ineffable nature of strategic knowledge. If designers are not going to be successful until they have acquired adequate strategic meta-knowledge to guide their work, how do they proceed through the learning process. Is this metaknowledge able to be transmitted or its it too a tacit knowledge which needs to be acquired through reflective? education [9].? Is this acquisition better done through deliberative processes ( [7] p.149)? 2.2

Strategic Knowledge and Creative Thinking

The strategies which are suggested for creative thinking, for example, those identified by Finke, Ward & Smith [10], exhibit a high degree of similarity to strategies of general problem solving such as those identified by Hayes [11]. These, according to Hayes, can be taught and, better yet, generalised by the students into higher-level problem solving strategies. The acquisition of this strategic knowledge is therefore feasible but, as Hayes also notes "it is unlikely that the use of strategies can circumvent the need to spend large amounts of time acquiring a knowledge base for such skills" ([11] p. 399). Finke et al.[10] refer to "creative expertise" (p.186), a knowledge base of cognitive skills related to the generation of potential solutions. 2.3

Types of Knowledge Work

The acquisition of strategic knowledge should be considered therefore in the context of the acquisition of a base of domain knowledge as well as the strategic knowledge itself. Indeed, as Finke et al. note, one important component of strategic knowledge is the ability to use significant elements of domain knowledge outside their normal context. They call these strategies divergent thinking, remote association and finding alternative uses ([10] pp. 183-184). Schön has argued that rules derived from types act as holding environments of design knowledge. These rules allow the design to make solutions from the available constraints, opportunities and requirements ([12] p. 182). Designers, says Schön, work with "types". A type, in the sense we intend it, is neither a general category, like 'church', nor does it consist only in a particular instance, like 'Richardson's Trinity Church'. In our sense, types should be seen as particulars that function in a general way, or as general categories that have a 'fullness' of particulars. Examples might be 'New England Green', 'Oxbridge lawns'… ([12] p. 183) Rules then are derived from types and guide the process of design. A designer learns the rules and applies them as new situations arise. In educating designers, Schön suggests, we should be identifying "what kinds of types function in skilled designing, how they function, and how they are built up." ([12] p. 189). We can interpret Schön at this point as suggesting that design education consists of helping a student to identify, categorise and apply rules derived from types. These component elements of knowledge of designing sound very much like the accumulation of strategic knowledge and also sounds like the accumulation of 'chunks' [13]). As Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer [14] and Ericsson & Charness [15] have identified, experts in different fields, including music composition and painting, accumulate their expertise in designing through repeated application, practice and experimentation. We could interpret their findings to say that these efforts assist the designers in recognising 'types' and deriving new or unique 'rules' which we later associate with that designer's 'style'.

3. FROM EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TOWARDS COMPUTER SUPPORT FUNCTIONS In considering the implications of the above for the role of computers in collaborative design, the guiding principles should be based upon empirical evidence about design practice and learning. This applies to evaluation of existing computer systems as well as informing the design of new ones. As an example, the role of premature closure and fixation in inhibiting the development of ideas is well documented: e.g. [16]. There

is a need to support the design team’s strategies for breaking out of fixated ideas and turning constraints into opportunities for new solutions. This involves enhancing the opportunities for deliberation and supporting the holding of tentative ideas for longer periods before a resolution is made. Computer systems are designed with different objectives, usually market driven feature overload. It appears to be a cardinal rule to add as many channels of communication as can be sustained by the hardware and network platform. Thus, to text are added audio, video and gesture facilities on the assumption that redundancy provides choice and, therefore, support to the user. Too little effort has been made to evaluate the benefits or otherwise of such features to the generation and exploration of new ideas. One of the authors has conducted experiments to identify the nature of collaborative communication over computer networks. The results, as reported in [5] and [17], have shown in that different forms of communication impact upon the exploration of the problem space in a collaborative design situation in respect of higher and lower level considerations. In these investigations, advanced architectural design students (at the end of their fourth year out of five in the professional training program) were set collaborative design tasks in pairs to be completed in one hour while working in two adjoining rooms and communicating through NetMeeting tools. An early set of experiments had the students’ communications supported by either through audio/video or chat line, in both instances using NetMeeting’s whiteboard for drawing as well. These experiments found that the higher bandwidth available for communication in audio/video links was filled with lower level design discussions. When the bandwidth was reduced by restricting communication to a chat line, the number of high-level communications remained the same as in the earlier condition but the lower level communications reduced dramatically. The participants were compensating (without explicit discussion or agreement to do this) by concentrating what was essential to the task. Following up on these experiments, we wished to find out how the teams were using drawings as a communicative tool in collaborative design. A second set of experiments were established [17], again requiring collaborative design activity in pairs. One group worked using NetMeeting’s whiteboard and chat line while the other group worked using only the chat line, unable to draw their ideas but having to rely on written words to convey meaning. The most unexpected result of these experiments was that the participants who were limited to communicating with text -only explored three times as many ideas as those using graphic tools. Examination of the protocols suggested that the participants using the graphic tools fixated on solutions and gave themselves to exploring the early solutions and often engaging in lower level, even trivial, design decisions while ignoring the opportunity to exp lore more widely. Consequentially, the students using graphic communication explored the problem space less thoroughly than those using text. The results of these experiments are striking. In particular, whilst the restriction of text only communication constrained the discussion to higher level concepts, the audio/video channels afforded more possibilities for immediate lower level representation of the ideas as sketches and diagrams. The authors argue that text only collaborations appear to promote richer concept formations and demonstrate that using diagrams during initial generation and exploration leads to a reduced set of ideas. It is suggested that moving quickly into diagrammatic representation is an encouragement to fixate on the first ideas whereas delaying that, by focusing upon concept development using text only, produces more ideas. It should be acknowledged that this kind of study is limited by the experimental framework. In interpreting the results, it is necessary to ask more general questions about contextual factors that would apply in any real design situation, whether computer-mediated or not. However, the studies raise valuable questions about assumptions made as to what is best in computer support for design. In particular, the issue regarding diagrammatic representations is relevant to a case study carried out by the second author. In a study of strategic knowledge in engineering design management, a new design process model was developed and tested in a complex vehicle engineering design project. The reformulation of the design process was itself an example of an expert engineer devising a new form of strategic knowledge. His aim was to apply project processes that enabled the team to develop methods for setting targets at the outset of the concept design process. The targets were based upon subjective and objective measures acquired from

empirical test exercises that could be used to evaluate a number of possible design solutions. These targets provided a set of criteria against which the ideas that were generated could be tested. A crucial part of the change process was to force a delay to the point when the team moves into geometric layout design. By delaying the move to layout design, the focus of the design team’s attention remained firmly upon higher level considerations and the need to address multiple criteria. Only when the optimal solution was found did the diagrammatic representation begin [6]. In essence, these studies illustrate the importance of identifying the appropriate techniques for supporting the concept generation (or solution finding) process, as distinct from the solution generation. However, in devising learning methods, it should be borne in mind that inexperienced designers often prefer to be taught practical solutions rather than high level concepts. Nevertheless, a concern for situational awareness and the ability to devise context -based strategies is often what is most required in practical situations [18]. In the learning support environments, domain knowledge is needed to provide practical experience in solution finding in the early stages. It is only at an advanced stage that strategies for higher-level concept formation are more readily embraced.

4.

DELIVERING COMPUTER ENVIRONMENTS FOR COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

An outstanding issue for research in the design of computer environments is how to provide support for a range of design activities and categories. This includes support for collaborative team design as well as maintaining appropriate features for individual working. In addition, the level of expertise of the designer and the types of knowledge being applied and needed are important issues. The distinction between the requirements of a support environment for a learner and an expert has yet to be fully understood. It goes without saying that more empirical research into the characteristics of these differing and overlapping forms of design is needed; however, there is also a need to provide methods for interpreting and applying the results to the design of complex computer environments. In research that was carried out by the second author, the results of a series of empirical studies were used to derive a set of criteria for computer system support to creative knowledge work in design. This approach to cognitive modelling of creative knowledge work and to interactive systems design support is described more fully in Candy [19]. In brief, creative knowledge work in design involves a process whereby the designer draws upon a heterogeneous set of knowledge sources and then transforms that knowledge into new forms. Knowledge about domain entities, whether they take the form of visual shapes, objects, parts, complex products or textual or analytical/numerical data, plays a critical role in the development of the design in hand. It is argued that domain knowledge in itself in insufficient to inform the creative process and needs to be accompanied by context and strategic knowledge. A number of case studies informed the concept of creative knowledge work in design. These studies were carried out with experts who had demonstrated an ability to generate new knowledge or innovative products. From which criteria for designing support systems were derived. The criteria for evaluating a computer system may be applied to three levels of system design: Interaction Configuration, Interaction Style and Interaction Quality. The Interaction Configuration includes any system modules, applications and (peripheral) devices that are accessed through the user interface: these include drawing systems, statistical packages and databases, knowledge-based modules, communication and collaboration applications such as video conferencing, voice mail, e-mail and internet browsers. Interaction Styles include any form of available technique and combinations thereof including direct manipulation, menu driven, command line, form filling and natural language. Interaction Quality may be assessed by defining and applying performance criteria to the Interaction Configuration and choice of Interaction Style. In relation to the support of knowledge work in collaborative design, criteria for Interaction Configuration were identified as:

• • •

generate and refine solutions in personal work space have access to shared spaces for collaborative work develop solutions in private space and transfer to shared space as required

The criteria for private and shared work space were applied to interaction configuration functions in a demonstrator computer support system described in Edmonds [20] and Parks and Edmonds [21]. Similar arrangements of shared and private space have also been developed in the design domain to support collaborative architectural design (see, for example, Woo et al.[22]). A computer-based meeting scenario was designed and the demonstrator implemented using Web-based tools. The system consists of three modules: the conference management zone (including head and shoulders, video and sound), a shared whiteboard area and a private work space. The private space consists of a web browser which can display any HTML page and might, for example, be used to look at a parts catalogue. In this particular case the important pages are ones that communicate with the knowledge base. For simple interactions, where tables etc. are normally used, form interfaces to the knowledge are used. In this example, support for collaboration between colleagues who are working at different locations enables users to participate in a shared environment and work independently at the same time. This enables users to have an awareness of the shared artefact and to explore a particular issue in a private space. Whilst anecdotal evidence suggests that the system has sufficient capability to support certain areas of design knowledge work, further work is planned to investigate its implications for distributed collaborative working methods and the quality of interaction for designers. In other research by the authors, the use of Internet tools as a medium for collaborative activities across different time zones has been investigated [23, 24]The experiments were conducted using a prototype system including voice, text and graphics based communication tools that were brought together with a common interface according to the requirements of a particular user group. In Wojtowicz et al. [23] the task was shared design; in Shah et al.[24], the task involved a collaborative exercise in preparing a research paper. Both results have showed that, whilst collaborative working over the Internet using existing tools is possible, there remain a number outstanding problems with the fundamental capability of the technology that need to be addressed before realistic scenarios can be put in place. In particular, the bandwidth and traffic performance issues, time delays and inconsistencies between the equipment at different sites are major hurdles when operating in combination to the smooth operation required to support complex tasks between collaborating people in real-world environments. However, as suggested by Vera et al., the solution to the bandwidth aspect is not necessarily to increase bandwidth but to find ways to exploit the situation to beneficial ends.

5.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper has identified the centrality of strategic knowledge to collaboration in design activities. The roles that it plays, however, remain to be identified, as do the means by which it can be taught effectively. Stemming from the experimental evidence reported in earlier work and referred to here, one of the authors (Kvan) is restructuring a design studio class to create opportunities for the deliberative learning proposed by Eraut [7] and to explore the effectiveness of text as a medium of text strategy learning. Students will use bulletin boards to chat and post exchanges with team partners, tutors, peers and external critics. By recording all communications, students will be able to review and engage in the deliberative reviews that Eraut suggests. The documentation provided by the protocols may then illuminate the role of the acquisition of strategic knowledge in design. This empirical evidence may then identify suitable experimental work to further focus on the acquisition of strategic knowledge in collaborative design. The second author (Candy) is developing the criteria-based approach to designing and evaluating the communication system described in the paper in order to study the impact on distributed collaborative working methods and the quality of interaction for engineering designers.

6.

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