UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Department of informatics The life and death of design ideas. An analysis of the Oslo ColorTable Workshop Master thesis 60 credits Ole Kristian Rolstad 17 / 02 - 2014 1 2 Preface I would like to thank Tone Bratteteig for her continued support and invaluable advice throughout my work with this thesis, for her patience and encouragement in times of struggle. A special thank you to Ina Wagner for sharing her knowledge and advice. A big thank you to the Vienna ColorTable team; Lisa Ehrenstrasser, Gammon, Valérie Maquil, Michal Idziorek and Mira Wagner. I enjoyed working with you all, thank you! A special thank you goes to Elise Hilland for her hard work and cooperation during the planning and execution of the Oslo workshop, a true friend in stressful times. I would like to thank Aga Skorupka for her work, helping to transcribe the video material from day one of the workshop. Thank you to the members of the DESIGN group for their support. Thank you Frank Brenna and Elin Strysse for all your support and for being my best friends, thank you Frank for lending me your camera equipment to photograph the panoramas used in this workshop. Last but not least a huge thank you to my mom and brother for their relentless support, without you this would not be possible, I am forever grateful! 3 4 Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 3 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 9 My role ............................................................................................................................. 10 What is design? ................................................................................................................ 11 What is designing? ........................................................................................................... 12 Participatory Design ......................................................................................................... 13 Design Ideas ..................................................................................................................... 14 Structure of argumentation ................................................................................................... 15 2. The Oslo ColorTable Workshop ...................................................................................... 16 2.1 Description of the Blindern area. ............................................................................... 16 2.2 Description of the Blindern station ............................................................................ 16 2.3 Description of the workshop participants ....................................................................... 20 2.4 The workshop day .......................................................................................................... 21 2.5 The ColorTable - Description of functionality .......................................................... 21 2.6 Moderator influence .................................................................................................. 24 2.7 Framing conditions .................................................................................................... 25 2.8 Technical ................................................................................................................... 28 3. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Methods of data ......................................................................................................... 29 Multi modal analysis ........................................................................................................ 29 Transcripts and text analysis ............................................................................................ 30 3.2 Methods of analysis ................................................................................................... 31 Grounded theory? A reflective conversation with the data .............................................. 31 Visualization as an analytical method .............................................................................. 34 Narrative analysis - The faith of Design ideas ......................................................................... 35 5 4. Design Ideas ..................................................................................................................... 36 4.1 From a “non-place” to a welcoming meeting point. ................................................. 37 4.2 Merging initiatives ..................................................................................................... 39 4.3 Repurposing the existing building ............................................................................ 44 4.4 Moving the information center .................................................................................. 46 4.5 Characteristics of design ideas .................................................................................. 49 5. “Non-Participatory ideas” – individual initiative ............................................................. 56 5.1 The first initiative ...................................................................................................... 57 5.2 The 3D model map .................................................................................................... 58 5.3 Breaking the frame, circumventing the boundaries of content limitation ................. 59 5.4 Individual creation of representations – the sketcher ..................................................... 68 6. Mechanisms of blocking and creation. ............................................................................. 74 6.1 Self-imposed restrictions: Realism limiting abstraction – the building. ................... 74 6.1.2 The building, part 2. .................................................................................................... 75 6.2 Exploring the Research Park – limited interest in the area. ....................................... 78 6.3 Blocking by a stakeholder – the third party argument ............................................... 79 6.3.1 "I don't think the authorities like it” ................................................................... 80 6.3.2 "Sporveien don’t want it, outside the elevators, they malfunctions is… too high" 80 6.3.3 "today, this is a private garden belonging to the artist [Name], she don't want" 81 6.3.4 The expert’s assessment. ........................................................................................ 82 6.3.5 Architect/BridgeDesigner vs. UniversalAccess ..................................................... 82 6.3.6 Authority – putting the foot down - Architect vs. SoundResearcher and UniversalAccess ................................................................................................................... 88 6.4 Alliances .................................................................................................................... 90 7. Design ideas that die ........................................................................................................ 94 7.1 Moving the ticket machines ....................................................................................... 94 7.2 The design idea dies; it’s incorporated in BridgeDesigner existing design .............. 98 6 8. Redesign – changing ideas ............................................................................................. 101 8.1 Original design ........................................................................................................ 101 8.2 Redesigning the bridge ............................................................................................ 102 9. Visual analysis ................................................................................................................ 116 9.1 Illustrating the design process ................................................................................. 116 9.2 Creating a visual language for analyzing the lifecycles of ideas ............................. 121 10. Discussion ................................................................................................................... 129 My conceptualizations ........................................................................................................ 130 Design ideas ................................................................................................................... 130 Non-Participatory Ideas .................................................................................................. 131 Blocking and creation ..................................................................................................... 131 Alliances ......................................................................................................................... 132 Design ideas that die ...................................................................................................... 133 Redesign ......................................................................................................................... 133 Reflecting on the conceptualizations .............................................................................. 134 Schön & Wiggins ..............................................................................................................