Analysis and Synthesis in the Designer’s Process

Ackoff’s DIKW pyramid

After all of the problem-finding and framing, the data collection and parsing, the iterations and the incubation an insight may finally surface. But how exactly did we get there? Using Ackoff’s pyramid (1988) as a mental model to describe the movement of ideation from data collection to an insight although remarkable as a structure in it's own right is in insufficient. Dissecting the process appears to destroy any hope of finding any definitive structure or element that defines the actual synthesis when shifting from one stage into the next. A real insight into a problem comes into view not because we are following a particular critical thinking methodology, but because we are just “doing something”. With visual thinking the “doing” is in the way we physically change the “space” the data-chunks occupy. The sheer physicality of visual design appears to be a significant factor for the elicitation of tacit knowledge during working sessions.  

The strangemaker’s process meets Ackoff’s DIKW pyramid

All critical thinking methods are important because they make us address data in a very structured way. They can not actually lead the team to the insight, the methods only re-frame the data through a sensemaking process. The cognitive manipulation of data and the visual design “aesthetic” may inspire new ideas in this way too. It's not just the work done on the "wall", but it's also the energy conveyed by solvers, their physical stance, their passion and the embodiment of an emotion. “Gesturing does not merely reflect thought: Gesture changes thought by introducing action into one’s mental representations. Gesture forces people to think with their hands” (Beilock & Goldin-Meadow 2010). When working with Ackoff’s DIKW pyramid  and analyzing my research data it occurred to me that there may be a “parallel” sequence that visual designers engage in while they work. The “other side” to sensemaking is governed by the tendencies of designers to also include their own-way-of-knowing in this process. They are applying their knowledge of how visual design artifacts begin to develop form, in this way they too are searching for the right answer or a kind of truth.

If concepts can be expressed as perceptual images that are the result of artistic or strangemaking activity, then a surface covered in pigment or ink, engages our cognitive faculties as percepts (Arnheim, 1972). The concepts or propositions embodied in sketching (or prototyping) at this stage are meant to remain open to interpretation. Both the artist and scientist are not certain where their open inquiry may lead them. Picasso said that “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” The plastic arts may be only a medium for self-expression, not scientific inquiry. The artist is not solving a problem that is objective to her. She will always surrender to her medium. The medium will tease out of her a proposition, a form, a color sequence, a melody, or an experience. She cannot predict the outcome but only nudge the direction the final form may take. 

This is curiously similar to the way we may function as human beings in a complex organization. We can participate in a demographic process and make our wishes known, we may even be able to persuade others to accept our point of view. We also need to “see deeply” into the data we gather in a research process to find meaning in it. We codify, chunk and parse data until we find a pattern that makes sense to us. How the artist perceives her world and creates her art is the same way a scientist conducts an experiment and verifies an hypothesis. A scientist and artist both understand that they live in a world of phenomena that unfold as “network of genera” and not as a sequence of disparate events. The artist expresses her understanding of the natural world through the art she creates. (Arnheim, 1972). The scientist may seek to measure results and quantify evidence, but she is also after qualitative facts. 

(from my final Masters of Design research report, with edits and revisions, OCAD University, 2014: “Translating Domain Expertise through Visual Sensemaking.” )