A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design
A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design
Christoph Meinel
Larry Leifer Editors
Design Thinking
Research
Achieving Real Innovation
Understanding Innovation
Series Editors
Christoph Meinel, Potsdam, Germany
Larry Leifer, Stanford, USA
“Everyone loves an innovation, an idea that sells.” Few definitions of innovation are
more succinct. It cuts to the core. Yet in doing so, it lays bare the reality that selling
depends on factors outside the innovation envelope. The “let’s get creative” imper-
ative does not control its own destiny. Expressed another way, in how many ways
can we define innovation? A corollary lies in asking, in how many ways can the
innovative enterprise be organized? For a third iteration, in how many ways can the
innovation process be structured? Now we have a question worth addressing.
“Understanding Innovation” is a book series designed to expose the reader to the
breadth and depth of design thinking modalities in pursuit of innovations that sell. It
is not our intent to give the reader a definitive protocol or paradigm. In fact, the very
expectation of “one right answer” would be misguided. Instead we offer a journey of
discovery, one that is radical, relevant, and rigorous.
Christoph Meinel • Larry Leifer
Editors
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2022
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protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
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Foreword
v
vi Foreword
disciplines. Concrete outputs are captured in this volume. One excellent example is a
cooperation with neuroscientists. Design Thinking researchers have leveraged newly
developed research methodologies, approaches, and knowledge to foster new ideas
and research in neurodesign, emerging in both Stanford and Potsdam. In 2019, the
Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam was the first to offer a neurodesign curriculum
for its IT students. In the last three years, the Hasso Plattner Institute has held several
neuroscience symposiums for researchers and established formal and informal
agreements for collaborative work with internationally recognized researchers
from several countries and continents. This work illuminates the biological basis
of creativity, collaboration, innovation, and human-centered design.
In each of the projects highlighted in this volume, co-creation helps teams harness
Design Thinking for value capture and provides value to the (research) community.
Tools and mindsets are calibrated and recalibrated as researchers make strides to
integrate new datasets into established models and to develop new models as
necessary. These developments demonstrate once again the fruitful research
conducted by multi-disciplinary teams in the area of design thinking research. One
way of bringing the findings to innovators everywhere is through the book series
“Design Thinking Research” published by Springer. This series presents a compre-
hensive collection of research studies carried out by scholars at both the Hasso
Plattner Institute in Potsdam and Stanford University. In addition to providing the
findings of the most recent projects, the 13th volume of the series pushes the
boundaries and searches for insights on achieving “real innovation.”
The Design Thinking Research Program includes a growing community of
researchers in a transatlantic context and has influenced many others around the
world. The program enables a rich exchange between current doctoral candidates,
alumni, researchers, and practitioners from diverse disciplines. Through collabora-
tion and partnerships of many kinds, the Design Thinking Research Program brings
new perspectives, insights, and lasting value not only to the program and its related
researchers, but also to Design Thinking itself and the growing community of
Design Thinkers. We urge you to make a contribution to the already rich exchange
between innovators and researchers. New actors and established stakeholders are
invited to reach out and encourage cooperation and experimentation in their personal
ecosystems. In so doing, the practice and understanding of Design Thinking con-
tinues to broaden and deepen, as it carries on its course of defining solutions for the
challenges facing our world.
vii
viii Introduction: “The Impact of REAL Prototyping and Thinking”
Over the past year, researchers from HPI and Stanford University have immersed
themselves in a wide range of research projects on Design Thinking. Volume 13 in
the series Design Thinking Research highlights the findings of affiliated
researchers for program year 13. The breadth of topics is impressive. We have
been able to arrange the contributions into three parts, each addressing a different
aspect of Design Thinking research.
The demand for virtual solutions has increased dramatically over the last two years.
In the virtual realm, interaction takes many new directions. Researchers in the
HPDTRP tackle the provocative questions of value creation in virtual innovation
spaces. They do this by way of nuanced information, which they have obtained, on
how individuals interact, and then develop cooperative scenarios, and negotiate
ambiguity. Teams develop appropriate measurement tools for leveraging success
in outcomes, examine existing barriers for technology users, and stake out program-
matic changes for facilitating virtual Design Thinking.
In the first text, Stephanie Balters, Theresa J. Weinstein, Grace Hawthorne, and
Allan Reiss proceed with the goal of designing better (i.e., new and more efficient)
team performance. The team sets out to show to what extent participation in an
interpersonal trust activity prior to teamwork in an in-person or virtual setting
increases the interpersonal trust and creativity level of the collaborative outcome.
In order to test this hypothesis, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)
hyperscanning is used. The desired outcome is for DT educators and practitioners
to design novel and effective DT activities that correlate positively to team trust and
collaboration.
The research team consisting of So Yeon Park, Mark E. Whiting, and Michael
Shanks raise the question of why ambiguity is so common in online interactions. By
design, ambiguity is possible, with online actions curated and designed by platforms.
Platforms in turn are the mediators. Park, Whiting, and Shanks address the desired
goal of removing ambiguity in online actions through targeted implementations
x Introduction: “The Impact of REAL Prototyping and Thinking”
while also improving clarity. The team provides complete design implications for
this purpose that target technical functioning and context. This chapter explores how
social media is designed, and how the scientific community and public react when
using it.
The following chapter prepared by Carolin Marx examines links between Design
Thinking and digital transformation. Carolin Marx presents a study that defines
context-dependent and cause-effect relationships to investigate the role dynamic
capabilities can play within this network of effects. By studying these relationships,
practitioners can test hypotheses for specific contributions of Design Thinking on
digital transformation. The chapter offers results from two empirical studies.
Selina Mayer, Martin Schwemmle, Claudia Nicolai, and Ulrich Weinberg intro-
duce theoretical reflections for the process of providing optimized virtual education
experiences. This chapter provides theoretical foundations for evolving conceptions.
In reviewing various theories, the reader is inspired to use ideas to improve Design
Thinking education in the virtual realm.
Danyang Fan, Kate Glatzko, and Sean Follmer underscore the importance of
reflecting the diagram structure with the navigation scheme of online whiteboards to
provide a spatial overview for users to reference. These tools are often exclusionary
to people who are blind and visually impaired. This work provides a number of
recommendations and endeavors to improve the accessibility of online whiteboards.
The authors elaborate upon an accessibility gap when interacting with linked-node
diagrams within online white boards and relate the results of user studies with
university students to better understand the accessibility of current tools. Researchers
and students then collaboratively evaluated several existing audio and haptic
approaches. They describe design guidelines and future directions that might
improve user access and understanding of linked-node diagrams.
Contributions in the second part of this book tackle the question of how innovation
behavior can be fostered and augmented. The researchers identify perceived prob-
lems or target the creation of novel approaches to augment existing practice. The DT
project teams are engaged in formulating the right questions and sharing key insights
for DT practitioners and society.
The practice of programming changes rapidly. Marcel Taeumel, Jens Lincke,
Patrick Rein, and Robert Hirschfeld begin with the assumption that newcomers to
the programming field face significant challenges at the beginning in understanding
mindsets and tools. The team applies the idea of patterns to stake out traditional and
modern practices of exploratory programming. The workspace tool is evaluated. The
team extracted data into a novel pattern language that focuses on the typical
question/response cycle that programmers follow. Their findings will benefit project
team efficiency.
Introduction: “The Impact of REAL Prototyping and Thinking” xi
In the next chapter, the lead author’s dissertation project with an industry partner
is front and center. Lena Mayer, Katharina Hölzle, Karen von Schmieden, Reem
Refaie, Hanadi Traifeh, and Christoph Meinel contribute to the publication. Narra-
tives from innovation practitioners are translated into a quantitative study. The
empirical study examines the links between employee job insecurity and innovation
behavior. The team further discusses the organizational factors that can foster
employee innovation behavior.
Parastoo Abtahi, Sidney Q. Hough, Jackie Yang, Sean Follmer, and James
A. Landay grapple with how next-generation computing systems challenge tradi-
tional ideas of good design and user-centered processes. The authors explore state
exposure timing strategies that enable users to develop up-to-date mental models of
systems that are in a constant process of learning and evolving. When user expec-
tations are not met, according to the research teams, systems should allow for the
co-evolution of mental models and dynamic systems.
Jonathan Antonio Edelman, Babajide Alamu Owoyele, Joaquin Santuber, and
Stefan Konigorski argue that there is a need for more education and training on value
creation in developing better healthcare systems. The authors discuss two
approaches (MEDGI and PretoVids) that they have developed within the past
three years. They have achieved significant inroads in increased customer engage-
ment, reduced risk, and improved profit by encouraging medical practitioners and
industry actors to leverage Design for Value Creation (D4VC) in healthcare. After
reviewing design literature in the field of healthcare, the authors show how design
can mediate and facilitate the creation of value for many stakeholders.
This volume’s third part is concerned with building comparative frameworks in the
process of problematizing DT as a concept. The chapters in this section help the
reader to visualize existing models, stake out relationships between DT education
and societal change, and gain a better understanding of DT and its evolution over the
past 50 years.
Julia von Thienen, Constantin Hartmann, and Christoph Meinel define the vari-
able “human needs” as part of DT—but how does this relate to the variable (radical)
innovation? The authors examine need theories of three authors: John Arnold,
Abraham Maslow, and Robert McKim. Many questions are raised, such as: What
is the future of DT? Is DT only implemented to provide incremental innovation—in
other words, improvement within existing solutions? The researchers conclude with
a discussion on the diversity of human needs concepts in DT. The outlook shows that
new development provides a comprehensive framework of human needs to analyze
product risks and create systemic benefits.
Jan Auernhammer, Matteo Zallio, Lawrence Domingo, and Larry Leifer stake out
the evolution of multiple human-centered design approaches over the preceding
50 years. It is noted that these approaches were developed and adopted in response to
xii Introduction: “The Impact of REAL Prototyping and Thinking”
Outlook
Creativity and innovation are the building blocks of Design Thinking. Understand-
ing how researchers can bridge the gap between theory and practice is essential to the
work currently being done in the field of Design Thinking. With this objective in
mind, research teams assess how creativity is manifested in many different
Introduction: “The Impact of REAL Prototyping and Thinking” xiii
situations. We define three areas of investigation in this year’s volume. In the first
area, attempts are made to bring about value creation in virtual innovation spaces. In
a second line of research, project teams show how to foster innovation behavior and
implement co-evolution. A third group of researchers builds comparative frame-
works and problematizes Design Thinking as a concept. The ongoing research,
collaboration, and discovery in the field of Design Thinking generated by our
affiliated researchers is laid out in this volume to inspire readers and to capture a
snapshot of work in progress that has a broad impact on academia and industry.
Included in this year’s volume, immediately following the introduction, the
editors and several authors have come together to discuss and stake out a philosophy
for the field. This chapter outlines a humanistic and creative philosophy of design
that has evolved over several decades at Stanford University. This philosophy of
design is often referred to as human-centered design and Design Thinking. It is
design that incorporates humanistic and creative qualities, including creative think-
ing modes, attitudes and human values, creative attributes, visual and collaborative
abilities, activities and practices, useful techniques, and a supportive environment
while also addressing blocks to creativity. Developing and cultivating these qualities
aims to encourage creative design in individuals and teams that not only satisfies
people’s profound needs, but also resolves and harmonizes societal and ecological
tensions. The aim is to develop innovators. A critical number of creative individuals
who collaboratively support each other in the challenges inherent in designing
innovation and entrepreneurial activities have the ability to spark an era of
innovation.
For over a decade, the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program has
transmitted valuable insights on how and why Design Thinking works. In this
volume, concrete examples serve as guides to others active in the field. On the
way to new frameworks, tools, and systems, our scholars from their various aca-
demic backgrounds work in interdisciplinary teams and share their successes and
failures with us in this volume.
We invite you to visit www.hpi.de/dtrp. This website provides an overview of the
research projects included in the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program,
from 2008 to the present. Here you can also find the names and affiliations of
participating team members.
Another good resource is the website: https://thisisdesignthinking.net. This site
offers a comprehensive look at current research projects in the field of Design
Thinking. Contributors to the site offer unparalleled access to the strengths and
weaknesses of particular strategies. The challenges facing our world today are also
problematized and examined through the lens of Design Thinking. Educators and
design practitioners can obtain timely information on challenges in the field of
Design Thinking and join in the conversation. Please send experiences, stories,
and inquiries to [email protected].
Achieving real innovation is possible. You have the building blocks in your
hands. Live Design Thinking—ask the question “why?”, but don’t stop there. Keep
on asking questions. We wish you success in your endeavors and encourage you to
contact us directly. It would be our pleasure to hear from you.
Acknowledgments
We thank all the authors for sharing their research results in this publication. Our
special thanks go to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for her constant support in reviewing the
contributions and to Jill Grinager for the publication’s project management.
xv
Contents
xvii
xviii Contents
xix
xx Contributors
Lena Mayer HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital
Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Selina Mayer HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital
Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Christoph Meinel Hasso Plattner Institute and Digital Engineering Faculty,
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Daigo Misaki Faculty of Engineering, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Claudia Nicolai HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for
Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Babajide Alamu Owoyele Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Pots-
dam, Germany
So Yeon Park Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Indira Phukan Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA,
USA
Reem Refaie HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital
Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Patrick Rein Hasso Platter Institute, Potsdam, Germany
Allan L. Reiss Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Center for
Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Stanford University School of Medicine,
Stanford, CA, USA
Bernard Roth ME Design Group and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA, USA
Joaquin Santuber Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Potsdam,
Germany
Martin Schwemmle HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for
Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Michael Shanks Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Sheri D. Sheppard Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford School of
Engineering, Stanford, CA, USA
Marcel Taeumel Hasso Platter Institute, Potsdam, Germany
George Toye Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford School of Engi-
neering, Stanford, CA, USA
Hanadi Traifeh HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for
Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
Karen von Schmieden HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for
Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
xxii Contributors
Abstract This chapter outlines a humanistic and creative Philosophy of Design that
evolved over several decades at Stanford University. This Philosophy of Design is
often referred to as Human-centered Design and Design Thinking. It incorporates
humanistic and creative qualities, including creative thinking modes, attitudes and
human values, creative attributes, visual and collaborative abilities, blocks to crea-
tivity, activities and practices, useful techniques, and a supportive environment.
Developing and cultivating these qualities aims to encourage creative design in
individuals and teams that satisfies people’s profound needs and resolves and
harmonizes societal and ecological tensions. The intention is to develop innovators.
A critical number of creative individuals who collaboratively support and help each
other in the challenges inherent in designing innovation and entrepreneurial activi-
ties can spark an era of innovation.
1 Introduction
Over the last seven decades, Design has evolved at Stanford University from creative
product design to design thinking, tackling many diverse challenges. In the begin-
ning, the integration of arts and engineering education established the Joined Product
Design Program. Over time, many different disciplines, such as biology, computer
science, electronics, management, marketing, and medicine, combined into a
comprehensive design practice. The focus shifted from designing artifacts for people
to interactions and experiences design, biodesign, software design, life design,
design for extreme affordability, entrepreneurship, and organizational design, to
name a few (Auernhammer & Leifer, 2019; Buchenau & Fulton Suri, 2000; Burnett
& Evans, 2016; Miller et al., 2001; Moggridge, 2007; Srinivasan et al., 1997;
Winograd, 1996).
Underneath the different pan-disciplinary design practices is a shared Philosophy
of Design often referred to as Human-centered Design and Design Thinking. This
philosophy is deeply embedded in the humanistic psychology of creativity (Adams,
1974; Arnold, 1959; Guilford, 1959; Hartman, 1959; Maslow, 1959; McKim, 1959,
1972; Roth, 1973). It emphasizes designing for the whole person and people in need
(Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1959). It also centers on enabling creativity in designers.
John Arnold, Bob McKim, and many members within the wider design community
developed educational programs and practices to encourage the creative potential in
people through perceptual, imaginative, expressive, and collaborative exercises and
project-based learning (Adams, 1974; Arnold, 1959, 1962a; Kelley & Kelley, 2013;
Leifer, 1998; McKim, 1972, 1980a, 1980b; Roth, 1973, 2015; Stein-Greenberg,
2021). This Philosophy of Design incorporates several humanistic and creative
qualities. These qualities are (1) perceptual, imaginative, and expressive thinking
modes, (2) attitudes and human values, (3) attributes, (4) abilities, (5) blocks, (6) activ-
ities and practices, (7) techniques, and (8) environment (Auernhammer & Roth,
2021). These qualities are a holistic view of human creativity in design practices.
This chapter outlines the humanistic and creative qualities in design that have
been cultivated over decades. This Philosophy of Design expanded globally into
academic programs, such as the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research program
and companies, such as IDEO, Apple, Concept2, Edge Innovation, and Wet Design,
contributing to society with various innovations. Many companies, such as P&G,
SAP, IBM, Intuit, and Samsung, and numerous Universities, through global collab-
oration, such as ME310, developed a design approach inspired by this humanistic
and creative Philosophy of Design.
The qualities inherent in the Philosophy of Design are based on humanistic psychol-
ogy on creativity (Auernhammer & Roth, 2021). Creativity incorporates a dynamic
interplay of (1) thinking modes, including perceptual, imaginative, and expressive
modes (Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1980a). Designing for people requires (2) attitudes
and human values to recenter to understand people’s needs and experiences, going
beyond stereotypes (Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1959, 1980a; Wertheimer, 1945).
Developing creative behavior is associated with nurturing creative (3) attributes,
such as problem and need-sensitivity, openness to experience, and tolerance for
ambiguity (Arnold, 1959; Guilford, 1950; Rogers, 1954). Making a tangible design
that others can react to requires (4) abilities, such as visualizing, making, and
communicating (Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1980a). Developing tangible design
A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design 3
solutions requires diverse abilities, such as collaborating with many diverse people.
In such collaborations, (5) blocks to creativity prevent people from creating novel
and valuable design solutions (Adams, 2019; Arnold, 1959; Maslow, 1962;
Papanek, 1973). Actively overcoming these creativity blocks in everyday interac-
tions in teams and organizations encourages creative behavior and a culture condu-
cive to creativity. Various (6) activities and practices, such as need-finding,
visualization, mock-up building, and evaluation, enable collaboration among diverse
stakeholders, resolve structural tensions, and satisfy people’s needs (McKim, 1980a,
1982). Various (7) techniques are useful in these activities to stimulate, e.g., diver-
gent thinking and group creativity (Arnold, 1959, 1962b). A conducive (8) environ-
ment for creativity is imperative for the various activities and practices to be
productive. Such an environment provides psychological safety and freedom to
play unreservedly with materials and learn from unsuccessful attempts without
fear of making a mistake (Arnold, 1959; Arnold et al., 1960; McKim, 1980a).
Positive attitudes towards other living organisms are essential in recentering, over-
coming one-sided, superficial views (McKim, 1980a; Wertheimer, 1945). Such
attitudes are essential in perceiving how others experience the situation and
designers’ own role in the situation. Human values and attitudes, such as questioning
and keen observation, are imperative in perceiving the situations as a whole to grasp
people’s needs and tensions (Arnold, 1959). McKim (1959) emphasizes the impor-
tance of human values in design as follows:
[. . .] knowledge of and concern for human values and needs is of prime importance to the
designer. Design is, after all, a response to human needs; needs which are all too often lost
sight of in this age of intense technology.
Human values and attitudes are essential in recentering from self to other people,
enabling perceiving the situation as a new whole, overcoming ego-perspective and
stereotypes, grasping people’s needs, and enabling designing new human experi-
ences (Arnheim, 2009; McKim, 1980a; Wertheimer, 1945). In contrast, negative
assumptions and self-centric attitudes often prevent designers from seeing the whole
situation from diverse points of view. Designers’ values and needs influence the
design at each step (Rittel, 1987).
This Philosophy of Design focuses on creatively designing for people to create
value by resolving structural tensions and satisfying human needs. Technology has
no value by itself. Designs create value and meaning in everyday life situations when
they empower people, satisfy profound needs, harmonize tensions, and reinterpret
existing designs (Krippendorff, 2006; McKim, 1959; Wertheimer, 1945). Without
human values and attitudes (i.e., mindsets), designers do not recognize people’s
needs and tensions, and their designs have little value in the real world, satisfying
merely designers’ interests (McKim, 1959; Papanek, 1973).
2.3 Attributes
For resolving tensions and satisfying needs through design, fluency in thinking
modes and flexibility in creation and use of techniques are essential attributes. The
emerging need and problem from the situation demands different “thinking lan-
guages,” such as symbolic, visual, kinesthetic, or emotional languages (Adams,
2019; Faste, 1994). It requires attributes of flexibility to dynamically respond
appropriately to situations and inherent needs. Similarly, fluency in perception,
recentering, imagination, expression, and communication is imperative in grasping
situations and inherent needs to redesign them in more meaningful and valuable
ways. Attitudes to consider one group over another and functional fixedness inhibit
recentering and grasping the whole situation, preventing an understanding of the
actual needs, tensions, and opportunities (Duncker, 1945; McKim, 1980a;
Wertheimer, 1945).
Engaging in a situation that is unclear and ambiguous, and thereby preventing a
clear path to action, is often unbearable for people (Wertheimer, 1945). Therefore,
the attribute of tolerance for ambiguity enables designers to explore situations
without hasty conclusions and premature closure (Rogers, 1954). Such tolerance
for ambiguity increases in importance when not merely finding a suitable solution,
but instead what is a truly valuable solution for many people. Such value creation
incorporates the attribute of originality. Originality is the attribute inherent in
creative individuals to produce novelty (Guilford, 1950). An existing solution may
resolve the tension. However, developing the attribute of originality, which is the
curiosity and desire to contribute with a novel design, may provide a more profound
experience for people by designing for the whole person and pluralistic society
(McKim, 1959; Rittel, 1987). Original designs can be created through collaborative
dialogues of reinterpreting existing solutions through new product semantics
(Krippendorff, 2006). Originality is highly dependent on Zeitgeist, as one design
solution resolves tension and, over time, creates another, making design a never-
ending temporal-dependent effort (Rittel & Webber, 1973).
Any undisputable creative contribution to society requires attributes of drive,
motivation, and confidence (Amabile, 1996; Arnold, 1959). Motivation often
emerges in the thinker from the felt need and structural tension, determining the
direction towards harmonizing it (Wertheimer, 1945). Designing and developing
tangible solutions demands attributes of drive to increase motivation over longer
periods, which is required to overcome the many obstacles and pitfalls involved in
innovation (Arnold, 1959). Such creative contribution demands building, testing,
breaking, and rebuilding the design repeatedly until a working design solution is
determined for many potential structural tensions, such as environmentally friendly
manufacturability and satisfying diverse people’s needs. Overcoming these pitfalls
requires confidence in creative ability. Part of this ability is to find the necessary
resources and people with essential skills. Collaboratively developing countless
projects, in which people help each other, develops creative confidence, i.e. self-
efficacy in design (Arnold, 1962a; Kelley & Kelley, 2013). Problem and need-
sensitivity, openness to experience, tolerance for ambiguity, fluency, flexibility,
originality, drive, motivation, and confidence are imperative creative attributes in
6 J. Auernhammer et al.
design. These attributes in design team members are ultimately the essential attri-
butes for entrepreneurship and innovation.
2.4 Abilities
Any truly creative design task requires many diverse abilities. Creative abilities are
distinct from expertise. Expertise is knowing what and how from past experience,
while creative ability is figuring out who has the tension, why this tension emerges,
when it occurs, how it occurs, and what (i.e., solution-methods) the structural tension
in society is and how it can be resolved. Diverse abilities are required to develop,
build, and enact a tangible design that resolves the tension. In such creative collab-
oration, team members require the ability to express and communicate often incom-
plete situations, needs, problems, ideas, and concepts. Visual thinking abilities
support perceiving, imagining, expressing, and communicating these various aspects
(McKim, 1980a). Such visual abilities incorporate sketching, mock-up building, and
enacting situations (e.g., role-playing) to directly experience the designed situation
from various centers (Arnheim, 2009; McKim, 1980a; Simsarian, 2003). Develop-
ing a shared language between diverse groups is essential for creative collaboration,
including communicating, debating, experiencing, and evaluating designs. In col-
laboration with non-designers, a frequent challenge is that designers notice people’s
naiveté about design and lack of articulable knowledge, resulting in designers
creating what they want, rather than for people’s needs and experiences (Gilmore
et al., 1999). Abilities and attitudes are required to develop a shared visual language
to enable creative collaboration and to help non-designers take part in the collabo-
rative activity of conveying and translating need-situations into concepts and tangi-
ble designs. Developing abilities of collaboration, visual thinking, communication is
imperative in creative accomplishments and innovation (Arnheim, 2004; McKim,
1980a).
2.5 Blocks
Inherent in any collaborative and creative practice are blocks (Adams, 2019; Arnold,
1959; Duncker, 1945; Maslow, 1962; Papanek, 1973). Perceptual blocks, such as
functional fixedness, prevent designers from perceiving critical aspects of and new
means for the situational tension (Adams, 2019; Arnold, 1962a; Duncker, 1945;
Wertheimer, 1945). The perceptual block of functional fixedness is the reason why
one cannot simply ask people what they need (Duncker, 1945). It is impossible to
know what to look for in the case of innovation (Arnold, 1962a). In such cases,
strategies, such as recentering, reframing, experimenting, and learning from mis-
takes make it possible to see the problem in a new way and lead to new directions
that resolve structural tension creatively (Duncker, 1945; McKim, 1980a; Roth,
A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design 7
2.7 Techniques
Techniques and tools can be useful in diverse design activities and practices (Arnold,
1962b). Techniques such as Brainstorming and Synectics aim to enable teams to
develop psychological safety and freedom and to produce a collaborative environ-
ment conducive to creativity (Arnold, 1959; Gordon, 1961; Osborn, 1957; Prince,
1970). Morphological analysis and attribute listing help create many combinations
and increase divergent thinking (Crawford, 1954; Zwicky, 1948). Over the decades,
A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design 9
many useful techniques have been developed for various purposes and uses (e.g.,
Buchenau & Fulton Suri, 2000; Fulton Suri & Marsh, 2000; Ideo., 2015; Jones,
1992; Kumar, 2012; Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995; Wasson, 2000).
However, developments in the movements of design methods and design think-
ing/cognition resulted in method-centricity rather than problem and people-
centricity. This mechanistic doctrine of human thinking emerged in debates in the
early developments of experimental psychology (Koffka, 1927; Selz, 1922; Wallas,
1926). It developed further into the information processing theory advocated by
Simon and colleagues (Newell et al., 1958; Newell & Simon, 1956, 1972). In design,
the design process incorporates mechanistic models and related methods (Archer,
1965; Hubka & Eder, 1996; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Pahl et al., 1996). It dehu-
manizes creative thinking and practice. In response to the design method movement,
one of the leading personalities, Chris Jones (1977), expressed that he dislikes the
machine language, behaviorism, and continual attempt to fix the whole of life into a
logical framework. Similarly, Alexander (Alexander, 1964 revised edition; Alexan-
der, 1971) stated that he publicly rejects the whole idea of design methods as a
subject of study and suggested to “forget the whole thing.” The mechanistic and
information processing theory has also been criticized and questioned for various
reasons in psychology over the century (Benary, 1923; Csikszentmihalyi, 1988;
Greeno & Moore, 1993; Koffka, 1927; Neisser, 1963; Varela & Thompson, 1990).
Techniques are not deterministic tools to make people think and act to accomplish
the next process step. They are useful tools that help to produce a conducive situation
to creativity and accomplish required tasks inherent in the challenge. For example,
prototyping techniques help explore and evaluate various design aspects, while
brainstorming helps to encourage psychological safety and freedom through “defer
judgment” (Arnold, 1959; Houde & Hill, 1997; Osborn, 1957). Creative accom-
plishments that contribute to society with a novel, valuable, and tangible design
require developing the ability to create and respond with new solution-methods to
situations and not merely utilize existing ones. Exercising and practicing various
techniques can help strengthen abilities conducive to creativity. However, it is not
the techniques that result in creative acts. It is the ability to creatively create and
utilize various techniques that are useful depending on the situation. For example, in
environments of constant and unproductive critique, consciously deferring judgment
can help to encourage psychological safety and freedom. It is often the social
environment that either encourages or hinders creativity.
2.8 Environment
Auernhammer & Hall, 2014). Physical environments, such as a Design Loft, allow
for developing a collaborative culture in which designers help each other while
working on different challenges and can play freely with materials without fear of
making a mistake or being penalized (Arnold, 1959; Arnold et al., 1960; McKim,
1980a). A supportive culture in the Product Realization Lab enables designers to
build and explore different design directions rapidly. The combination of designers’
willingness and freedom to use their resources, machines, and tools creates an
environment conducive to creativity, allowing rapid prototyping and exploring
various tangible solutions. Such a culture of help and support, encouraged by
anchored physical spaces and enacted by motivated and driven designers, enables
creative activities and practices. Similarly, a wider network of people with diverse
abilities and skills who support design teams with advice, time, and other resources
is conducive to creativity and innovation. In design education, a network of alumni
who engage in courses by sponsoring projects, providing real-world problems and
practices, and mentoring teams is an essential part of a supportive environment for
innovation.
Entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems require a critical mass of people who
support and help motivated individuals drive their projects forward. For example,
making connections and the support provided by people like Nolan Bushnell, Don
Valentine, and Mike Markkula was essential in helping Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak, who were in their twenties at the time, to start Apple Computer. Such an
environment of helping and supporting others is part of the humanistic and creative
Philosophy of Design, enabling a culture of design, entrepreneurship, and
innovation.
Since the 1950s, this humanistic and creative Philosophy of Design integrated
humanistic psychology (e.g., satisfying people’s needs), engineering (e.g., solving
technical problems), arts (e.g., creating esthetic product meaning), and business
(e.g., establishing a scalable and sustainable operation). Design is often reduced to
merely visual product languages reinterpreting existing designs or technical aspects
of optimizing structures and functions with little regard to addressing the fundamen-
tal tensions and profound needs existing in the world. Such designs result from self-
centered attitudes, in which designers’ needs and interests determine thinking and
activities (Arnheim, 2009; Maslow, 1954).
The humanistic and creative Philosophy of Design focuses on designing for the
whole person, including physical, intellectual, emotional needs and tensions in
society and wider ecology (Arnold, 1959; Fuller, 1969; McKim, 1959). Developing
these attitudes and human values in designers by engaging in need-finding activities
is essential in order for them to be able to grasp the situation from diverse centers,
beyond stereotype visions (McKim, 1959, 1980a). Such design activities are a
comprehensive design philosophy of cultivating pan-disciplinary collaboration to
A Humanistic and Creative Philosophy of Design 11
respond flexibly to the emergent situation and inherent tensions and needs. The
inherent tension of the situation should determine the solution and not the designers’
disciplinary practice. This pan-disciplinary collaboration requires developing the
abilities to collaborate creatively, such as finding and developing shared languages
for visualizing and developing incomplete mental imagery into tangible designs.
Visual abilities are developed through various exercises of visual perception, imag-
ination, and expression (Arnheim, 2004; McKim, 1980a). These abilities facilitate
creative dialogues and collaboration, which is imperative for resolving profound
social tensions inherent in a pluralistic society. An important task in cultivating the
humanistic and creative Philosophy of Design is helping design teams to overcome
emerging blocks to creativity. Perceptual blocks, such as personas based on stereo-
type vision, require keen observation, and deep engagement with people, as well as
recentering to understand their experience and need-tension (Adams, 2019; McKim,
1980a). Exercises that generate self-awareness of stereotype vision help designers
overcome such socially conditioned blocks to creativity. Cultural blocks, such as
taboos, prevent teams from exploring and debating the actual tension inherent in the
problem-situation (Adams, 2019). Practices from theater and improv, such as role-
playing, enable designers to enact and experience tensions within a psychologically
safe and free space (Faste, 1993; Simsarian, 2003). Emotional blocks, such as the
fear of making mistakes, are strong blocks to creativity (Adams, 2019; Arnold,
1959). Developing a supportive environment in which designers can freely engage
in unconventional projects is conducive to overcoming emotional blocks to creativ-
ity. Exercising and practicing activities and related techniques that support finding
and grasping needs, recentering and envisioning whole situations, making and
enacting new situations, and experiencing and evaluating these situations can stim-
ulate creative solutions in design (Adams, 2019; Arnold, 1962a, 1962b; McKim,
1980a). Developing an environment, including a Design Loft and Product Realiza-
tion Lab, in which a culture of experimental learning, collaboration, and help
flourish, supports designers in freely playing with materials to creatively explore
new directions for innovation (McKim, 1980a).
The humanistic and creative Philosophy of Design aims to enable and develop
people’s humanistic and creative qualities. A critical mass of people that creatively,
collaboratively, and dynamically approach needs in society and tensions in wider
ecology by designing solutions towards harmonizing them has the potential to spark
an era of innovation and sustainability.
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Part I
Value Creation in Virtual Innovation
Spaces
Interpersonal Trust Activity to Increase
Team Creativity Outcome: An fNIRS
Hyperscanning Approach
1 Introduction
There are a myriad of empirical studies demonstrating that team emotional intelli-
gence (i.e., “the ability of a group to develop a set of norms that manage emotional
processes so as to cultivate trust, group identity, and group efficacy” (Druskat &
Wolff, 2001a)) enhances team performance and creativity (Akgün et al., 2015;
Barczak et al., 2010; Brattström et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2012; De Jong et al.,
2016; Lee & Wong, 2019; Parke et al., 2015; Rezvani et al., 2019; Rezvani &
Khosravi, 2019). Empirical results reveal that a team’s emotional intelligence pro-
motes interpersonal trust, which, in turn fosters a collaborative culture that enhances
team creativity (Akgün et al., 2015; Barczak et al., 2010; De Jong et al., 2016;
Rezvani & Khosravi, 2019). Interpersonal trust can be defined as an individual’s
willingness to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions
or behavior of another (Rousseau et al., 1998). Organizational research further
differentiates between affective trust (i.e., the confidence one places in a team
member based on one’s feelings of caring and concern illustrated by a co-worker)
and cognitive trust (i.e., one’s willingness to rely on a team member’s expertise and
reliability) (McAllister, 1995). We follow the latter definition in connection with the
aim of this chapter.
Design thinking practice and education have adopted the concepts of emotional
intelligence and interpersonal trust to improve team performance and creativity
(Druskat & Wolff, 2001b; Uebernickel & Thong, 2021). Many activities used in
design thinking explicitly or implicitly help improve interpersonal (team) trust. The
activities include various team rituals such as team “check-ins” and “check-outs”
before and after each workday, during which team members share their momentary
personal sensitivities, opinions, and feelings with the team (Ney & Meinel, 2019). If
a team or interpersonal conflict needs to be resolved, design thinking encourages the
use of structured formats for communicating and receiving feedback (Ney & Meinel,
2019). Other commonly used activities are the so-called warm-up games which are
inspired by improvisation theater (Rothouse, 2020; Talbot, 2021). While there are
many different warm-up game varieties serving different purposes in the design
thinking process, they all help create a positive and open atmosphere. Since the
games usually involve stepping out of one’s comfort zone and often result in some
form of playful body movement or verbal interaction, they contribute to establishing
a work culture in which one is permitted to make mistakes and show vulnerabilities
in front of colleagues without fearing rejection (West et al., 2017). The activities
usually serve as primers for certain collaborative work modes and are typically
applied when initiating a new design thinking work phase. Alternatively, these
activities function as breaks whenever the overall team mood and collaborative
atmosphere need special attention. In essence, the example activities aid in team
collaboration by encouraging empathetic behavior toward the other team members,
offering tools to avoid or resolve team conflict though open and respectful commu-
nication, and contribute to a psychologically safe culture.
Interpersonal Trust Activity to Increase Team Creativity Outcome: An. . . 21
Research shows that after completing a design thinking training, participants have
not only gained “creative confidence” (Jobst et al., 2012; Kelley & Kelley, 2013;
Rauth et al., 2010; Royalty et al., 2012, 2014), but they have also become better and
more confident collaborators through practicing their empathy and social interaction
skills in a design thinking team setting (Noweski et al., 2012; Plank & Meinel, 2021;
Traifeh et al., 2020; von Thienen et al., 2017). Furthermore, many trained design
thinkers are equipped with practical activities and “hacks” to enhance collaboration
within any team (Kerguenne, 2021; Koch, 2021; Ney & Meinel, 2019). Although
design thinking methodology offers many practical activities, little is understood
about the underlying social mechanisms that make these activities work. Social
neuroscience now offers the tools to systematically examine how such activities
affect our brains and can provide evidence for their effectiveness in increasing
empathy, trust, and creativity in teams (Balters et al., 2021a, 2021b; Balters et al.,
2020; Balters et al., 2021a, 2021b; Li et al., 2021; Mayseless et al., 2019). Here, we
propose an emergent technology in brain-imaging—hyperscanning (i.e., measuring
two brains simultaneously to derive measures of inter-brain synchrony) with func-
tional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)—as an ideal brain-imaging technique to
gain understanding in the underlying social brain mechanisms of interpersonal trust
activities.
In this chapter, we present an interpersonal activity that is designed to enhance
interpersonal trust in in-person and virtual (zoom) design thinking teams. The
activity is derived from Nonviolent Communication Practices, a communication
method to increase interpersonal trust between individuals (Rosenberg & Chopra,
2015). Due to its focus on human needs, the activity we utilize in our research is
strongly in line with design thinking’s human-centered approach. We hypothesize
that the interpersonal trust activity prior to a creativity exercise will increase inter-
personal trust among participants in the same group and enhance the originality and
effectiveness of their collaborative outcome (i.e., creative product/innovation). In
this chapter, we describe our neuroscientific approach for applying the methods of
fNIRS hyperscanning to assess whether and how an interpersonal trust activity prior
to an ideation session increases collaborative outcome (i.e., creative product/inno-
vation) in both in-person and virtual (video conferencing) team interactions. A better
understanding of the neural signatures underlying an interpersonal trust activity will
allow design thinking practitioners and educators to design novel and effective
design thinking activities and interactions that can positively impact team trust and
collaboration.
22 S. Balters et al.
modes affect the group creative performance; and whether the sex composition of the
dyad impact these interactions (and related performance) (Baker et al., 2017; Lu
et al., 2020).
3 Methodology
In this work, we describe the methods and procedures that we are planning to use to
determine and understand the impact of an interpersonal trust activity on the
collaborative outcome (i.e., creative product/innovation) and inter-brain synchrony
in both virtual and in-person interactions. Actual data analysis and related results are
not part of this book chapter.
3.1 Participants
A total of 96 adults will participate in the study (48 females, 48 males, age range:
18–45 years). All participants will be right-handed, healthy with normal or corrected
to normal hearing and vision. Participants will be randomly assigned to a previously
unacquainted dyad partner. The study will follow a 2 2 between-subject design
(Fig. 2). The dyads will be randomly assigned to either of the four groups (i.e.,
Group 1: in-person with interpersonal trust activity; Group 2: in-person without
interpersonal trust activity; Group 3: virtual with interpersonal trust activity; and
Group 4: virtual without interpersonal trust activity) to meet equal sex distributions
and inter-dyad age differences across all groups. Sex distribution will be four
female–female, four male–male, and four female–male dyads for each group. Con-
sent will be obtained for all participants. Recruitment will be done through local
advertisement via flyers, email lists, and social media. Participants will be compen-
sated with an Amazon gift card ($25 USD per hour). The experimental procedure
will last about 2 h.
Fig. 2 Study design will follow a 2 2 between-subject design with 12 dyads per group
Interpersonal Trust Activity to Increase Team Creativity Outcome: An. . . 25
3.2 Procedure
Dyad partners of the in-person groups will be seated in front of each other on
opposite sides of a square table. To obey COVID-related regulations, participants
will wear clear medical-grade face masks (FDA approved) and keep a distance of
9 feet to one another (Fig. 3a). Participants of the virtual groups will interact with
their dyad partner over zoom via two identical laptops (Lenovo Yoga 730-15IKB,
15.600 ) placed in two separate and auditorily disconnected rooms (Fig. 3b). Zoom
settings will be set to full screen without self-view windows. Despite interacting in
two different rooms, participants will wear clear medical-grade face masks to avoid
bias between the conditions. Functional NIRS caps will be attached while partici-
pants are in the same room or while zoom connection is already established.
Participants will be instructed to not talk to one another during the setup. Before
starting the experiment, participants will be given 3 min to introduce themselves to
one another. After the experiment, each participant will complete additional assess-
ments in separate rooms to assess personality traits, creative ability, and prior
proficiency with virtual (zoom) interactions.
The study is designed to assess whether and how an interpersonal trust activity prior
to an ideation session increases collaborative outcome (i.e., creative product/inno-
vation) in design thinking teams. Given the recent digitalization of team interactions,
the aim is to incorporate both in-person and virtual (zoom) team interactions into our
methodology (i.e., between-subject design). Our goal is to create experimental
paradigms that require participants to collaborate in settings that are of significance
to design thinking practices. In addition to our interpersonal trust activity, we chose
to integrate a naturalistic creative innovation task as well a consensus decision-
making task as a control condition (Fig. 4). During each of the three tasks, dyads will
collaborate on the task challenge for a continuous time of 8 min with little instruction
and no intervention. Participants will fill out a questionnaire after each task (see
Fig. 3 Experimental setup for the in-person group (a) and the virtual group (b)
26 S. Balters et al.
Fig. 4 Experimental procedure for the between-subject study in both in-person and virtual
condition
acceptance intimacy
affection love
appreciation mutuality
belonging nurturing
cooperation respect/self-respect
communication safety
closeness security
community stability
companionship support
compassion to know and to be known
consideration to see and be seen
consistency to understand and be understood
empathy trust
inclusion warmth
Introduction: For the next eight minutes collaborate with your partner. Together, identify four
needs from the list above that are most meaningful to both of you. To emphasize the
importance of each need, describe a situation from your own life when that need was not met
and how it made you feel. As a partner, listen actively, acknowledge the feelings of the one
who shared, and describe why the need is also meaningful to you.
below). Dyads will be randomly assigned to task order 1 (i.e., interpersonal trust
activity prior to creative innovation task) or task order 2 (i.e., no interpersonal trust
activity prior to the creative innovation task) in both in-person and virtual conditions,
resulting in four different groups.
During the interpersonal trust task, participants will be asked to engage in a
modified version of a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) exercise that is used to
increase interpersonal trust between individuals (Rosenberg & Chopra, 2015).
Participants will be provided with a NVC list of “Needs We All Have”
(we selected the needs within the “connectedness” section, please see Fig. 5).
Participants will be asked to collaborate and identify four needs from the list that
are most meaningful to them. To emphasize the importance of each need, they will
be asked to describe a situation from their life when that need was not met and how it
made them feel. The partner will be instructed to actively listen, to acknowledge the
feelings of the one who shared and to describe why the need is also meaningful to
Interpersonal Trust Activity to Increase Team Creativity Outcome: An. . . 27
them. Dyads will be told that they will describe their list of needs to an experimenter
after completion of the task.
During the creative innovation task, participants will be asked to collaborate and
design a solution that can increase water conservation in the highest possible number
of households. The solution can take any form (i.e., product, process, campaign,
etc.). Dyads will be told that they will have to describe their solution to an exper-
imenter after completion of the task. To avoid time effects, we decided to include a
control task prior to the creative innovation task in the control condition. The task
will have the same length as the interpersonal trust activity. During the consensus
decision-making control task, participants will be asked to collaborate and identify
the four most important traffic rules that enhance safety on US highways. To
emphasize the importance of each rule, participants will be asked to describe how
the rule enhances safety on US highways and why the rule is more important than
other rules. Dyads will be told that they will have to describe their rules to an
experimenter after completion of the task.
After completion of the creative innovation tasks, participants will individually write
down the solution idea generated by their team. Ideas will be checked for congru-
ency between dyad partners. Two trained raters will independently assess the quality
of product ideas on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (low) to 7 (high). Raters will view
all videos before scoring. Product ideas will be scored for originality (how original
and infrequent) and effectiveness (efficiency of the solution, whether it improved/
incentivized water conservation) following previous work (Mayseless et al., 2019).
Inter-rater reliability index (as measured by Intra Class Correlation Coefficient
(ICC)) will be assessed for both measures, and average score of originality and
efficacy will be used as team creativity outcome.
To control for potential bias between the four interaction groups, participants’
personality traits, creative ability, and prior zoom experience will be assessed after
the experiment (in two separate rooms).
Personality Traits To capture personality traits, participants will be asked to com-
plete the NEO-FFI-3 survey (McCrae & Costa Jr., 2007) and Adult Attachment
Scale survey (Collins & Read, 1990).
Creative Ability The Alternate Uses Task (AUT) will be applied to assess individ-
ual levels of divergent thinking and creativity (Guilford, 1967). Participants will be
presented with pictures of four common objects. The name of each object as well as
each object’s most common everyday use will be indicated in parenthesis next to the
pictures. Participants will be asked to list as many alternative uses as possible for
each object within a total duration of 8 min. Participants are instructed to be as
creative as possible. The items will be a pillow, key, toothbrush, and ceramic plate.
Before performing the task, participants will be presented with an example of
alternate uses for a paper cup to familiarize them with the task. Only responses
that do not replicate the common uses given will be counted and included. Scoring
will include fluency (number of responses) and originality (rarity of the response).
Final scores will be calculated based on the average score of all items. Scoring of
originality will follow the procedures described in Torrance (1974). Original
responses will be defined as statistically infrequent responses within the population
of the study.
Zoom Experience Participants will be asked about their prior experience and
proficiency with zoom video conferencing.
Interpersonal Trust Activity to Increase Team Creativity Outcome: An. . . 29
The raw fNIRS data will be analyzed using the NIRS Brain AnalyzIR Toolbox
(Santosa et al., 2018). Raw data will be converted to optical density data and further
corrected for motion artifacts by applying a wavelet motion correction procedure
(Molavi & Dumont, 2012). Short separation prefiltering will be applied (Santosa
et al., 2020, ‘ShortDistanceFilter’ function) to reduce systemic physiological noises
(i.e., respiration and cardiac oscillations). Data will then be transformed into con-
centration changes of oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) and deoxygenated hemoglobin
(HbR) according to the Modified Beer–Lambert Law (Wyatt et al., 1986). Noisy
channels will be manually identified and removed from further analysis using a
correlation-based method (Cui et al., 2010). Since NIRS data are relative values,
HbO and HbR data will be converted to z-scores and regions of interest (ROI) will be
A B
BA-4 left
BA-7 left
BA-9 left
BA-10 left
BA-17 left
BA-19 left
BA-21 left
BA-22 left
BA-47 left
BA-4 right
BA-7 right
BA-9 right
BA-10 right
BA-17 right
BA-19 right
BA-21 right
BA-22 right
BA-47 right
Fig. 6 (a) We use 100 measurement channels (blue lines) and 16 short channels (pink lines). (b)
Source localization analysis identified 18 ROI across the cortex
30 S. Balters et al.
created based on source localizations. All channels that share a common fNIRS
source will be averaged together resulting in 18 ROIs centered on source locations
(Fig. 6b for ROI localizations).
distance function (Manhattan distance) and will repeat 1000 times to decrease
chances of escaping local minima, with randomly initialized centroid positions.
Cluster centroids obtained from the group-averaged IBS matrices will then be used
as the initial centroids for the individual dyad-level clustering analysis, resulting in
final dIBS states for each dyad and each cooperation task. To identify the true task-
related regional connections in each clustered dIBS state, we will construct a series
of permuted IBS matrices as a ‘baseline’ for each dIBS state (i.e., an unrelated-
paired-participants’ IBS matrix as compared to the real-paired-participants’ dIBS
matrices). This will be calculated by using the time series of two unrelated players
from the whole participant group (i.e., two players from different dyads and coop-
eration tasks). Out of a large number of possible pairings, permuted IBS matrices
will be formed by randomly selecting a set of 400 unrelated pairs (permuted pairs).
We will then perform a series of two-sample t-tests on single regional connection
level between individual dIBS matrices and the permuted IBS matrices to identify
significant task-related regional connection in the dIBS matrices.” (Li et al., 2021).
To test our hypothesis, we will first execute a stimulus check and test whether
interpersonal trust levels are higher after the interpersonal trust activity in contrast
to the control task in both the in-person and virtual interaction condition (i.e.,
repeated measures ANOVA across all four groups). We expect that interpersonal
trust is higher after the interpersonal trust activity in both interaction conditions in
contrast to the control task. Next, we will test our experimental hypothesis H1. We
will use the team creativity outcome scores and run repeated measures ANOVA
across all four groups. We expect higher creative outcomes for the two groups who
have immersed themselves in the interpersonal trust activity in contrast to those
groups who have engaged in the control task prior to the creative innovation task.
We also do not expect differences in creative outcome between the two interaction
32 S. Balters et al.
conditions (i.e., in-person versus virtual) for those who engaged in either interper-
sonal trust activity or control task. As a third analysis, we will assess the differences
of properties of dIBS states, which will be characterized by three metrics (Li et al.,
2021): (1) Fractional windows of each state (i.e., percentage of total windows a dyad
spent in each dIBS state); (2) Number of transitions between states (i.e., total number
of switches between any two states during the task); and (3) Global efficiency of
each state (i.e., elementary graph-based metric that represents the integration of the
entire network, reflecting how active and efficient a network can share information
between regions). Repeated analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to assess
whether there are significant differences between these dIBS states in terms of their
properties when comparing (i) interpersonal trust activity and control task as well as
(ii) creative innovation task with and without prior interpersonal trust activity. A
better understanding of the neural signatures underlying the interpersonal trust
activity will allow design thinking practitioners and educators to design novel and
effective design thinking activities and interactions in the future.
Following the success of the present investigation, we plan to extend the methods
and measures presented in this chapter. In future work, we are specifically interested
in examining the impact of design experience (e.g., design thinking experts versus
novices) on the effectiveness of this interpersonal trust activity. Furthermore, we aim
to extend two-person hyperscanning to hyperscanning of three persons simulta-
neously. It is our hope that this work will provide new and valuable information
on human social interaction within working teams in the design thinking and related
areas.
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Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our
Online Actions Cause Confusion
Abstract Online social actions are often ambiguous, leading us to wonder: Why did
this person unfollow me? Why did my friend like this negative content? Such
ambiguity is common and perceived as a natural part of our ubiquitous online
interactions. However, as online actions are curated and designed by platforms,
this ambiguity is, at least in part, something platforms can control—for example,
some platforms provide explicit dislike functionality, while others do not provide
features to clearly signal such sentiment. Our understanding of this ambiguity
around online actions is limited. We are unaware of the wide spectrum of situations
in which people are confused by others’ online actions and how widespread such
confusion might be. We conducted a survey study to identify when such ambiguity
occurs—when people wonder why online actions are taken. We found that ambigu-
ity of online actions occurs in non-nuanced situations. Specifically, some people
wondered why online actions were taken when simply certain actions, content, or
stakeholders were involved. For example, malicious content caused ambiguity,
regardless of whether others posted or interacted with such content. Our findings
suggest that more platform features may help to improve the clarity of people’s
actions as well as the extent of the impact of these actions, which may help to avoid
such uncertainty.
1 Introduction
Our use of social platforms hinges on the assumption that other people understand
the actions we take. We may like something because of our legitimate excitement
about the content, or for virtue signaling and moral grandstanding [Tosi & Warmke,
2016]. We may share a link to a community sincerely or ironically, or for any one of
numerous other reasons. Despite the ubiquity of the actions (e.g., posting, liking,
sharing) that we take and receive on social media platforms, being heavily mediated
by the platforms (i.e., designing how they look, feel, and function) often hinder clear
interpretation of these online actions. As a result, most people, most of the time, have
uncertainty about the posts and digital traces they are seeing on platforms [Hayes
et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2016; Park et al., 2021; Sumner et al., 2018]. This causes
ambiguity in online actions that often leaves people feeling surprised or bewildered
and can lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Yet to address this
phenomenon, we need to first understand the sources of ambiguity, not only tech-
nically (i.e., what design choices regarding the interaction cause this), but also
contextually; what situations lead to uncertainty?
The advent of the Facebook papers [Accountable Tech, 2021] and related reve-
lations—namely, that social platform companies likely understand a lot more about
the nuanced impacts of their products than they let on—has struck a chord with the
public. These revelations have generated an uproar surrounding the topic of how
platforms should act for our mental health and our society. However, as deeper
analysis of these efforts revealed, the truth is much more complicated and the data
much more nuanced than first impressions may indicate. In a world designed for
one-click simplicity, it may appear that social platforms have simplified their
products to provide a fundamental reduction of certain social interactions. What is
simpler than 280 characters—a rule enforced for tweets?1 But in practice, this quest
for simplicity may remove cues that, if present, make clear to others what we are
actually thinking when we use the Internet. An underlying challenge with this
problem context is that misunderstanding is largely a latent negative outcome that
can have devastating consequences much later, including imprisonment.2 Users
performing online actions may rarely realize they have been misunderstood, plat-
forms may not have clear ways to estimate when such misunderstandings occur, and
viewers often have no immediate way to ask why something has happened (other
than to comment on the post). This last challenge is exemplified when a famous
person takes an online action that becomes a point of debate in the media, such as
former President Trump’s tweet regarding termination of sanctions against North
Korea on a day when no sanctions had been issued,3 or the oddities fans found in
Britney Spears’ social media posts (now found as having been controlled under her
conservatorship).4
1
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/counting-characters,%20Accessed%20November%201,%
202021.
2
https://evangelicalfocus.com/world/2559/christian-in-pakistan-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-
for-blasphemy, https://www.smh.com.au/national/sydneyman-unlawfully-imprisoned-in-egyptian-
prison-since-january-20200920-p55xff.html, Accessed November 16, 2020.
3
https://www.vox.com/world/2019/3/26/18282408/trump-north-korea-tweet-bloomberg-sanctions,
Accessed November 1, 2021.
4
https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-
nightmaregt, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/07/ 10555863/who-runs-britney-spears-
instagram-real-fake, Accessed November 20, 2021.
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 39
2 Related Works
2.1 Online Actions on Social Media
Social media is an integral part of our lives. Statistics have shown that Facebook
users spend on average 58 minutes daily on the platform, and in October 2020, for
example, made “an average of 5 comments, 12 post likes, 1 share, and 1 Page like.”5
Our engagement on social media comes in the form of diverse online actions that
vary in the amount of cognitive effort they require—the lowest effort required, after
consuming, is contributing. This is often operationalized as mere button clicks, such
as liking and retweeting [Kim & Yang, 2017; Muntinga et al., 2011]. Among these
contributions, however, there are varying levels of cognitive effort. While clicking
the Like button has been found to be the “default reaction” that accounts for 78.9%
of such low-effort contributions [Tian et al., 2017], other Facebook Reactions6 have
5
https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/social-media-statistics#fb-usage-stats, Accessed August 25, 2021.
6
Reactions are “an extension of the Like button, to give you more ways to share your reaction to a
post in a quick and easy way,” and these are made up of six emojis including original “like” (thumbs
up) button as well as “love” (heart) and four facial expressions of “happy,” “wow,” “angry,” and
“sad.” https://about.fb.com/news/2016/02/reactions-now-available-globally, Accessed September
4, 2021.
40 S. Y. Park et al.
Despite being aware of these various intents behind taking online actions on social
media, users are still confused by them. Ambiguity is prevalent and is felt by users
on both sides of online actions alike—actors and recipients/observers [Lowe-
Calverley & Grieve, 2018; Park et al., 2021; Sumner et al., 2020]. Due to these
online actions—also termed paralinguistic digital affordances [Hayes et al., 2016]—
7
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/easy-virtue, Accessed January 6, 2022.
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 41
There is also ambiguity in the content shared on social media, especially when it
comes to the veracity of shared news. It is unclear to some users whether a piece of
news is true or false, and making sense of this ambiguity depends heavily on
contextual factors such as who shared the content, how it was shared, and who is
receiving it [Nekmat, 2020; Sterrett et al., 2019; Vraga & Tully, 2021]. Research has
found that people are more likely to trust social media content if it is shared by
people who they trust as a public figure, who is within their network, or who is
perceived as being like-minded [Metzger et al., 2010; Sterrett et al., 2019]. Social
42 S. Y. Park et al.
diversity “among people who share a story about a scientific discovery” was also
found to “enhance the perceived credibility” of shared content [Hayat et al.,
2019]. How the information is endorsed by others was also found to be important
in evaluating credibility. People are disposed to attribute credibility to information
and sources if others do so “without much scrutiny of the site content or source
itself” [Metzger et al., 2010] as per the “consensus heuristic” [Chaiken, 1987]. Such
findings can be alarming in light of research such as that which found people more
inclined to accept information than to reject it [Lewandowsky et al., 2012] and that
only those having as well as valuing greater news literacy “are more skeptical of
information quality on social media” [Vraga & Tully, 2021]. All these studies show
that while people resort to various cues to ascertain the stance they should take, more
often than not they lean toward the interpretation of what is available, yet these
strategies may not lead to the correct clarification of ambiguity.
3 Methods
To evaluate when people desire more understanding around others’ online actions,
we conducted a survey of Twitter users in which they answered questions about
their past experiences on Twitter and described situations that motivated them to
wonder what others meant online. In this section we outline the design of the survey
instrument, our data coding approach, and the participant recruitment process.
The survey evaluated when users felt a sense of ambiguity around online actions. We
asked participants to answer the following question as a free-text response: “In what
kinds of situations do you wonder why someone has taken an online action (e.g.,
like, dislike, share, retweet)?” This was part of a larger survey experiment that
investigated how comfortable people felt about these online actions.8
We first assigned participant numbers with the numbering protocol of “P” followed
by a four-digit number. We then coded participants’ free-text responses about when
they wonder about the reasons for an online action with inductive thematic analysis
[Braun & Clarke, 2006]. For this, one researcher reviewed 100 responses and from
8
Detailed further in forthcoming work.
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 43
these generated initial codes. The initial codes that emerged were discussed among
the researchers and finalized into themes that are independent but can be concur-
rently implicated (e.g., one response can implicate multiple themes). The full set of
responses was coded by one researcher except for 123 text responses that the
researcher deemed as requiring discussion; two researchers reached consensus for
these responses that 43 of them were unclear (i.e., to be excluded from our thematic
analysis as they could not be coded) and then decided which codes would apply for
the remaining 80 responses.9 Of these themes, we report on the three themes that
were specifically dependent upon action, content, and stakeholders in this chapter.
Participant responses with spelling corrections are included with participant numbers
as per the protocol used by the researchers.10
We recruited Amazon Mechanical Turk participants located in the USA who had
completed at least 1000 tasks on the platform with a 96% acceptance rate—a
common recruiting protocol [Whiting et al., 2019, 2020]. The first page of the
survey checked if participants met our eligibility criteria, including their usage of
Twitter and having had the experience of their content being liked within the past
30 days and having been knowingly unfollowed in the past. These filtering questions
were asked amid other similar questions to avoid desirability effect confounds.
Participants who did not meet the requirements were rewarded $0.40 and did not
follow through with the rest of the survey.
Those who met our eligibility criteria moved on to complete the rest of the survey.
The final question included in the survey asked whether respondents had answered
any of our questions in the survey randomly. We filtered out responses from
participants who answered “yes” to this question—these participants’ compensation
was not penalized. In addition, we reviewed four free-text responses (not reported
here) to eliminate data from participants who provided responses that were irrelevant
from our analysis. Those who provided relevant responses to all four free-text
responses received $4.20 according to the median time taken to complete the survey
at a rate of $15 per hour [Whiting et al. Whiting et al., 2019]; those who did not
received either $2.20 or $1.00 depending on the relevance of their responses. Upon
filtering of participant data, we resulted in a total of N ¼ 1042 responses that could
be thematically coded for this chapter. Our participants were aged 19–78 (μ ¼ 36.9,
9
Unclear responses included “If I see something that I need to speak up about, then I will take
action” (P0042), “To make something better” (P0314), and “when Black Lives Matter tweeted
many of them has taken an online action” (P0773).
10
Spelling corrections have been made for readability and they include “NSTOP” to “STOP”
(P0947), “embarrasing” to “embarrassing” (P0321), “twitted” to “tweeted” (P0126), and “ot” to
“it” (P0087).
44 S. Y. Park et al.
σ ¼ 10.8), 42% female, 71% with Bachelor’s degree or above, and 83% with Twitter
experience of a few years.
4 Results
Situations involving only specific online actions caused many to wonder why they
were taken; these actions included negative and positive ones, as well as actions that
could be seen as being neutral or both negative and positive. Of these, negative
actions (e.g., dislike, unfollow, block) were brought up most frequently as being the
valence of action that caused people to wonder the most about others’ reasons why.
• “I WONDER WHEN THEY DISLIKE OR STOP FOLLOWING” (P0947)
• “mTurk blocks from requestor, Facebook/Twitter unfollows” (P0489)
• “Unfollow or unfriend” (P0315)
• “Usually in negative situations, like when someone dislikes a post” (P0337)
• “Why they revoke a friend request” (P0594)
People also wondered in situations when a certain action was discontinued or
undone: “Someone who has been following for a long time suddenly stops” (P0246),
“I wonder why someone dislikes a post after liking it” (P0118), “When there is a
sudden unfollow” (P0989). Some showed the kinds of interpretations they had for
others taking such negative actions: “I wonder if someone dislikes a video just to be
mean” (P0207).
Discussing, commenting, and retweeting emerged as actions that could be per-
ceived either way in terms of their valence, i.e., positive or negative. For such
actions, participants wondered most often when these were carried out with negative
intent or sentiment.
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 45
The disproportionate effort in writing comments could also be the reason for
wondering why: “When they spend time writing a really long and drawn out opinion
based comment” (P0824). Deciding to engage in such “drawn out” discussions could also
cause people to wonder: “When they comment when on a situation that they know will start a
back and forth” (P1006).
Positive actions (e.g., like, follow) could also be confusing and cause people to want
to know (and even attribute) the reasons for them, as they felt these actions could be
motivated by a multitude of reasons.
• “If something they liked or retweet[ed] was something they actually support,
endorse, or just want to share” (P0189)
• “liking and re-sharing a post” (P0006)
• “when he or she has retweeted on a particular post” (P0200)
• “If they like something when they actually don’t like it” (P0962)
• “If I feel like they are trying to garner attention for likes/follows” (P0628)
The lack or absence of such a positive action also produced confusion: “when
they don’t like something” (P0326), “I also wonder why people do NOT like things,
sometimes” (P0381).
Sometimes, the type or nature of action (i.e., an action and its counterac-
tion) caused people to wonder why:
• “When I see someone unfollowed or when I see new followers” (P0993)
• “They didn’t like something, or they liked something” (P0144)
• “I sometimes wonder why someone ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ something when they do
so” (P0277)
46 S. Y. Park et al.
Finally, for some, all of the above reasons caused them to wonder more broadly
about people’s interactions in general, as in the case of P0883: “I wonder what cogs
in the brain fire to generate that response. It is less-so when I agree with the like/
dislike/retweet and more-so when I don’t agree with it. Why/how did humans end up
becoming so divided?”
Divisive (e.g., controversial, political) and offensive (e.g., racist, hateful) content—
and any interaction with such content—caused people to speculate about others and
their motives for engaging in any way with the content.
• “When they are engaging with a controversial post” (P0240)
• “When it’s about a controversial topic which shows they are a hypocrite and a
sheep” (P0032)
• “If it is controversial or taboo” (P0354)
• “if it’s really angry or controversial” (P0186)
• “If it was extremely hateful or hurtful. I wonder what is going on in there lives to
make them so malevolent” (P0243)
• “Typically in scenarios where it’s political related” (P0037)
• “Usually related to politics and sports” (P0134)
• “if they say something cruel or racist” (P0319)
• “If the content is inappropriate, controversial, or offensive” (P0551)
A few participants expanded the list with more humanitarian content: “When it
comes to political issues, or humanity issues” (P0020), “political views, healthcare,
immigration, homelessness” (P0014). Another type of content added to divisive and
offensive content related to content with low general interest: “I wonder why
someone has taken an online action when: (1) the message is controversial.
(2) not many people express interest on the subject. (3) the tweet contains inappro-
priate materials such as porn, vulgar language, etc.” (P0375). People also won-
dered why others interacted with such content that lacks interest from the general
public (e.g., “when the content is not important” (P0574)) or “irrelevant” as
expressed by P0454: “When people put personal business out there or information
about others that is irrelevant and just put out there to stir up online drama. or when
“Karens” take to social media to try to make a point about something petty, like
McDonald’s left their fries out of their meal or something.” Informational content,
whether it is truthful or questionable, were also content that made people wonder
why online actions were taken.
• “When it is information that is obviously wrong” (P0378)
• “When what is said doesn’t make sense, seems intentionally confrontation
[al] and/or aggressive, involves questionable content and/or information, any-
thing that seems out of the ordinary for no reason” (P0063)
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 47
Few also mentioned wondering why an online action was taken when related to
content that did not make sense to them: “When the tweet is just complete nonsense.
Like a few words or anything that just says ‘among us.’ I don’t get memes these
days” (P0173) and “when the tweet is some incomprehensible nonsense” (P0293).
Additional types of content that emerged included the following:
• “when it is something embarrassing” (P0321)
• “When someone takes an online action for content related to race, language and
other things” (P0632)
• “When the content is appropriate or not appropriate” (P0164)
5 Discussion
We found that in addition to how the actions themselves were taken, who took the
action and regarding what could also be reasons for wondering why online actions
are taken. That each of these independent factors alone could simply cause people to
wonder why and possibly to be confused by an online action taken shows that
speculation does not always occur in nuanced situations.
48 S. Y. Park et al.
Specific actions could alone make people wonder why they were taken, and for
some, this was especially the case for the “negative action” of unfollowing. This
could be due to their unawareness of differences between reasons for online vs
offline relationships ending [Quercia et al., 2012; Sibona & Walczak, 2011]. Sibona
and Walczak found that disliked behavior and changes in the relationship were two
factors that contributed to offline unfriending decisions, while there were four types
of posts that caused online unfriending on Facebook: Unimportant/frequent, polar-
izing, inappropriate, and everyday life posts [Sibona & Walczak, 2011]. These
motivations for unfollowing online were similarly found in the context of Twitter:
Kwak et al. found that “those who left many tweets within a short time, created
tweets about uninteresting topics, or tweeted about the mundane details of their
lives,” with whom they lacked homophily, were unfollowed [Kwak et al., 2011]. Per-
haps those participants who pinpointed to merely the action of unfollowing or
unfriending, and even blocking, as being questionable or inviting speculation
show that such findings from a decade ago are still true today—that they may not
be aware of why people end relationships online, in addition to the lack of awareness
around differences of reasons between online vs offline unfriending. Another plau-
sible explanation may be that people are not be sure which of the many reasons above
triggered the action of unfollowing and would like clarity. Participant responses
showed that ambiguity around unfollowing occurred when the action was perceived
as being taken out of the blue (i.e., when they were least expecting it), which
evidences their lack of awareness of which particular reason led to the outcome.
For others, actions taken with some negativity were also cause for wondering.
One of the most common occurrences of such was retweeting with negative conno-
tation or intent, e.g., with “arguments” and “hatred” or in a “mean” way. This may
be caused by the online disinhibition effect, which is the effect of people “loosen
[ing] up, feel[ing] less restrained, and express[ing] themselves more openly” online
[Suler, 2004]. Of such an effect, there is toxic disinhibition, which is characterized
by “rude language, harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats” [Suler, 2004]. Peo-
ple are prone to taking on or displaying disinhibitive behaviors on social media
platforms that enable “dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsis-
tic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority” [Suler,
2004]. As aversive communication often engenders responding to them in kind
[Chen, 2015], those on the receiving or witnessing end of such online actions may
be taken aback by them. While toxic disinhibition has been present online for a
while, and quite commonplace according to some responses, people may still be
wondering for the most part why this occurs as it does not reflect the majority of the
social media users’ behavior. Moreover, less toxic disinhibition displayed offline
may also cause people to be surprised by or unsure of its occurrence online.
Not only were negative actions mentioned, but also negative content was brought
up as a reason for why people wondered why online actions were taken. Negative
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 49
content mentioned by the participants included content that was seen as being
controversial, political, taboo, angry, hateful, offensive, wrong, etc. Participant
responses seemed to connote a lack of understanding of why anyone would post
or engage with such content. The propagation of such negative content could be the
result of a lack of thoughtfulness and gatekeeping on social media, as Rainie et al.
posits: “Armies of arbiters as democratic shapers of the defining climate of social and
political discourse have fallen out of favor, replaced by creators of clickbait head-
lines read and shared by short-attention-span social sharers” [Rainie et al.,
2017]. This does not only apply to news content, but also to online content in
general as users arguably post content on social media to gain visibility. Moreover,
engaging with content—whether it is liking, commenting, or retweeting—helps the
post gain greater visibility. While this may not have been the intent behind one’s
engagement with negative content (e.g., simply a knee-jerk reaction), some users
may have felt that propagation was the outcome and therefore wondered why others
would help enable an inappropriate outcome for questionable content.
to creators.11 While this measure has only recently been implemented, the response
to it has been dramatically negative.12 Key criticisms include issues such as reducing
information for stakeholders due to the removal of signals and using the feature in
different ways for different videos.13 This serves as a striking example, reinforcing a
core idea of our work: Designed decisions about online interactions have wide-
reaching consequences. In addition, decisions about the visibility of an action often
serve as the battle ground on which those consequences are understood.
Online actions could be especially ambiguous when the recipient or observer of the
action disagreed with the action taken. For example, P0592 stated wondering about
the reason for actions when others make statements they “don’t agree with.” This
was the case with P0883 who stated that they wondered “more-so when I don’t
agree with [the like/dislike/retweet action].” This is a case in which people on social
media are not able to understand the perspective or “read the minds of others,” which
is considered important to “their mental states that determine their actions” [Frith &
Frith, 2006]. Limited cues are communicated through the predominantly nonverbal
interactions designed by social platforms—interactions that lack kinesic, oculesic,
vocalic, haptic, and facial cues among many others [Antonijević, 2013; Park et al.,
2021]. Due to a lack of such cues, others’ emotions, desires, and intentions are
difficult to read from these pervasive online actions [Adolphs, 2002; Langton et al.,
2000]. Without information to help understand others’ perspectives, the way online
actions on social media are currently designed amplifies our cognitive biases such as
the curse of knowledge, by which those who are informed find it extremely difficult
to consider perspectives of the lesser-informed [Newton, 1990]. Ambiguity was also
felt when the actors themselves seemed to be at odds with what their actions
represented, as in the case of why someone would “like something when they
actually don’t like it” (P0962). P0029 similarly wondered why someone decided
to get involved in a conversation “when I know they don’t really have a strong
opinion” and had their own interpretation for the others’ actions: “I think they want
to make themselves out to be more of an advocate than they are.” As such, in giving
their responses to this question, many others also provided their interpretations of
questionable actions. While what P0029 surmises may be one plausible reason,
another could be that due to the perceived dissociative anonymity and/or minimiza-
tion of authority online, others who did not seem to have strong opinions may have
11
https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/update-to-youtube/, Accessed November 12, 2021.
12
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787080/youtube-dislikes-criticism-cofounder-jawed-
karim-first-video-description-zoo, Accessed November 20, 2021.
13
https://youtu.be/CaaJyRvvaq8, Accessed November 12, 2021.
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 51
Responses suggest that people are not aware of why negative actions are taken, as
discussed in § 5.1. Ambiguity may be desirable for those carrying out “unsocial
behaviors” [Lopez & Ovaska, 2013]; however, in so doing, this encourages people
to take more of these actions which may not only cause others to wonder but also to
feel upset. This perpetuates greater ambiguity for those at the receiving end of such
behaviors. This perpetuation of ambiguity leads to missed opportunities for users to
learn from and even respond to such actions; this is especially the case for the users
who are unaware of why such “unsocial behaviors” are being directed at them
and why they have happened. Hence, in the current design of online actions, this
ambiguity only serves the actors, who are arguably fewer than the recipients and
observers combined. Similarly, there may be some good reason for posting and
engaging with what some perceive as negative content on social media, such as
putting the spotlight on the negative aspects of life or misinformation that people
wish to bring to others’ attention. Yet such intentions neither “come through” nor are
made clear. The outcomes of taking online actions are by design more visible (§ 5.2)
and salient (e.g., how many retweets or likes a tweet has received) and have therefore
become a critical part of how people perceive content and actions, when the original
intent may have nothing to do with the outcome. Therefore, more cues ought to be
communicated with the content and actions taken, in addition to the recently
implemented labels for misinformation.14
Design implementations could be short labels that cue in others as to why certain
content has been shared (e.g., “concerned about this,” “this requires attention”, “this
is funny (but not true)”) or why certain actions have been taken (e.g., “too frequent
posts” for unfollowing, “violent” for disliking content). This may be uncomfortable
for some users (e.g., difficult to accept, invasion of privacy to have such information
14
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/updating-our-approach-to-misleading-infor
mation, Accessed November 16, 2020. https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/enterprise/
engagement-api/guides/interpreting-metrics, Accessed October 30, 2021.
52 S. Y. Park et al.
As Bernstein et al. stated, “users have scarce information about who actually sees
their content, making their audience seem invisible and difficult to estimate”
[Bernstein et al., 2013]. This still seems to hold true today, as people are not
aware of the extent to which their actions impact others on social media—it is
difficult to quantify who will be seeing one’s likes or retweets and be influenced
by them at the time these actions are taken. This helps explain why some actions that
do not seem to fit people’s understanding are taken (§ 5.3); specifically, that some
may not understand the adverse consequences their actions or content could have.
Currently, Twitter provides impression and engagement metrics, which are the
number of views and the number of engagement such as retweets, favorites, replies,
etc., on a given tweet.14 Yet these metrics are provided after an action has been
taken, not prior. Given that propagation of information is not completely up to
chance (i.e., by algorithms designed by platforms), and given the wealth of data that
can enable platforms to make somewhat accurate predictions of how a given action
could have repercussions, platforms can better inform users as to how their online
actions may influence others and have consequences. Predictions could be instanti-
ated with varying granularity as the designers see fit. For instance, predictions could
be provided as rough estimates of how many people a piece of content or an action
will be seen by and affect others, as levels of impact, or even as a binary of whether it
will have a big impact or not. Such an implementation could have similar effects as
the findings by Pennycook and Rand—that “a simple nudge or prompt that shifts
attention to accuracy increases the quality of news that people share (typically by
decreasing the sharing of false content)” [Pennycook & Rand, 2021]. This may not
be in the platform’s favor, as it could lead to greater mindfulness of users and
subsequently less interaction. However, in addition to enabling platforms to provide
more responsible design, such an implementation could nudge users to opt more for
nuanced comments in response to such mindfulness, instead of low-effort contribu-
tions of likes and retweets, which would lead to more thoughtful engagements
overall.
While a quantified approach that predicts the impact of a piece of content or
action might be one way to help users better estimate their influence, another is to
show users how their online actions could be questionable or unclear to others. By
implementing clarification features, such as having a button to indicate the uncer-
tainty people feel about having a piece of content posted or action taken, users can
get a better understanding of when their own actions are not obvious to others. With
a clarification feature, a user may come to understand that posting personal content
causes others to wonder why they were posted in the first place, and, in response,
Dancing with Ambiguity Online: When Our Online Actions Cause Confusion 53
provide more commentary when sharing content that is personal. Rather than a
content-specific or action-specific clarification feature, a more generalized approach
can be taken. A feature based on an accumulation of such statistics could also be
shown to users; for example, platforms could inform users that 70% of the time
others questioned when the user took a negative online action and 30% of the time
when they posted or interacted with questionable content.
Such implementations of informing users could come at a cost, however. While
these features could help increase mindfulness and awareness, users may feel more
self-conscious and censor themselves more. This could curb users from taking
actions as freely as they would otherwise and encourage more social grooming
practices. In the latter case, this would mean taking actions that are primarily
motivated by how these users feel they come across to others. Therefore, in
implementing such features, platforms ought to consider the resolution in which
informing occurs so that a good balance can be reached between being informative
while at the same time discouraging self-censorship.
The free-text responses have given us much insight into when people feel ambiguity
around online actions. Yet due to recency bias, participants may have provided only
the examples that are most top of mind or salient for them, leading to
incomprehensive responses from any given individual or leading to biases away
from subtle or nuanced effects. In an effort to address this, we used specific wording
to evoke a thoughtful response that reflected specific experiences; we also provided
an incentive to the participants based on the quality of their responses. In our
qualitative analysis, we excluded responses from participants who did not answer
the question we had posed and therefore could not be coded. This may have been a
lost opportunity as we were not able to capture 4.0% of the responses we had
collected. However, in capturing more than 1000 responses from participants, we
have reached saturation of information and that all the nuances we are interested in
are contained within the data set that we have thematically coded. We have uncov-
ered only a subset of themes and will further conduct thematic analysis to uncover
independent factors different from action, content, and stakeholders that we derived
in our current analysis.
As future work, we also aim to bring insights of the ambiguity felt by users into
contexts in which their outcomes impact the interactants more directly, such as the
bases of collaborative contexts.
54 S. Y. Park et al.
7 Conclusion
Ambiguity is “baked into” the design of online actions (e.g., liking, commenting,
retweeting) on social media platforms today. Whether by intention or not, users
dance, or even skirt, around the ambiguity surrounding these online actions. We
conducted a survey-based study and analyzed 1042 responses to why people wonder
why online actions are taken on Twitter. From inductive thematic analysis, we found
that it is not clear cut when people are confused by online actions: Different actions
matter to different people in different ways. In particular, and more surprisingly,
simply involving certain actions, content, and stakeholders can cause ambiguity for
the recipients and observers. In looking closely at the responses, we find that
negativity online in general—whether it is negative actions or any interaction with
negative content—as well as the visibility of these actions cause people to wonder
why actions are taken. We posit that current designs do not help in clarifying this
ambiguity around online actions and further hinder people from being able to gauge
the impact of their actions and improve upon them; we provide design suggestions
for platforms to provide users strategies in navigating the current ambiguity of
people’s online actions.
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Design Thinking for Digital
Transformation: Reconciling Theory
and Practice
Carolin Marx
Abstract While scholars have made valuable steps towards claiming legitimacy for
deploying Design Thinking in organizations, the underlying practices, effects, and
links between Design Thinking and Digital Transformation still seem an
underexplored area. This conceptual study aims to shed light on how Design
Thinking can contribute to an organization’s Digital Transformation by linking
explicit Design Thinking elements to dimensions of Digital Transformation and
investigating the role Dynamic Capabilities might play within this effect nexus. In
particular, this study proposes three modes of design-enabled Digital Transformation
and integrates theoretical with practical perspectives in a conceptual framework. The
holistic nature of the framework, including the variety of possible combinations,
permits a nuanced investigation of specific, context-dependent cause–effect relation-
ships. This can be used by researchers as a foundation for deriving and testing
hypotheses on specific contributions Design Thinking can make to Digital Trans-
formation and by practitioners to analyze, communicate, and manage how they
utilize Design Thinking for Digital Transformation.
1 Introduction
The proliferation of digital technologies and changing market dynamics increase the
complexity for organizations to navigate towards successful adaptation (Bharadwaj
et al., 2013; Vial, 2019). Since no industry or organization is immune to these effects
(Matt et al., 2016) gaining a competitive advantage through Digital Transformation
has become a strategic imperative and a top managerial priority (Verhoef et al.,
2021; Vial, 2019; Warner & Wäger, 2019). Similarly, the concept of Design
Thinking, described as a novel problem-solving capability is increasingly receiving
attention from both researchers and practitioners—especially regarding uses that
reach beyond its form-giving roots (Kolko, 2015; Micheli et al., 2019).
C. Marx (*)
Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
Given that the majority of Digital Transformation activities fail under increasing
pressure for change (Forth et al., 2020) while Design Thinking is heralded to become
the foundation of competitive advantage (Micheli et al., 2019) doing Design Think-
ing for Digital Transformation holds promising potential. Within this chapter, we
want to contribute to a better understanding of how organizations can make use of
adopting Design Thinking practices to foster their Digital Transformation.
While scholars have made valuable steps towards claiming legitimacy for
deploying Design Thinking in organizations, the underlying practices, effects, and
links between Design Thinking and Digital Transformation still seem to be an area
that is underexplored (Magistretti, Pham, et al., 2021; Micheli et al., 2019). Only a
few attempts have been made by scholars to unpack the role of Design Thinking in
the context of digital technology (Verganti et al., 2020). While those scholars have
made valuable contributions towards claiming legitimacy for deploying Design
Thinking in organizations, the underlying practices, effects, and links between
Design Thinking and Digital Transformation still seem an underexplored area
(Micheli et al., 2019). Addressing this research gap, Magistretti, Ardito, et al.
(2021) attempted to close the link between Design Thinking and Digital Transfor-
mation by explaining how the Dynamic Capabilities of Design Thinking can facil-
itate Digital Transformation in the consulting industry.
We build on the Dynamic Capability perspective (Barreto, 2010; Teece et al.,
1997) in this chapter and extend Magistretti, Pham et al.’s (2021) recent approach by
linking Design Thinking to Hanelt et al.’s (2020) holistic Digital Transformation
perspective of continuous change instead of a usually taken simplified and industry-
specific view. Further, we propose that there exist multiple modes of how Design
Thinking can influence Digital Transformation when applying a holistic lens.
Researchers found that Design Thinking is linked to building Dynamic Capabilities
(Liedtka, 2020; Magistretti, Ardito, et al., 2021) and that Dynamic Capabilities are
useful for Digital Transformation (Warner & Wäger, 2019). The examination of
existing research shows that, on the one hand, there is a lack of evidence for the
often-emphasized strategic influence of Design Thinking beyond assumptions,
anecdotes, and success stories (Liedtka, 2015; Micheli et al., 2019). On the other
hand, it is still unclear how Dynamic Capabilities can be developed and how this
contributes to the Digital Transformation of organizations (Helfat et al., 2009; Vial,
2019).
Hence, our goal is to connect those perspectives and shed light on how Design
Thinking can contribute to an organization’s Digital Transformation by linking
explicit Design Thinking elements to dimensions of Digital Transformation and
investigating the role Dynamic Capabilities might play within this network of
effects. Therefore, we pose the following overarching question of interest:
Design Thinking for Digital Transformation: Reconciling Theory and Practice 59
We will approach this question using a reconciliation of theory and practice. In a first
step, we conceptualize the phenomenon of interest—Design Thinking in organiza-
tions—based on existing research and two empirical studies we conducted on the
integration of Design Thinking in practice. In a second step, theoretical perspectives
on Digital Transformation and Dynamic Capabilities are analyzed and finally inte-
grated as a conceptual framework on the role of Design Thinking in organizational
Digital Transformation. We build on and extend Magistretti, Pham et al.’s (2021)
valuable contribution by linking Design Thinking to Hanelt et al.’s (2020) holistic
Digital Transformation perspective of continuous change and by proposing that
there exist multiple modes of how Design Thinking can influence Digital Transfor-
mation. This study thereby extends existing research on Design Thinking for Digital
Transformation by proposing a unified perspective and overarching framework that
can inform future theoretical and empirical studies and guide practitioners.
2 Research Approach
The general research approach for this conceptual work relies on the reconciliation
of theory and practice. We approach our goal of creating new knowledge on the role
of Design Thinking for Digital Transformation from both sides within this chapter
using a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning.
In a first step, to better understand the phenomenon of interest we will empirically
investigate how Design Thinking is used by organizations in practice. From a large-
scale empirical assessment, we obtain a conceptualization of Design Thinking in
organizations, develop patterns of usage, and propose antecedent conditions for the
resulting network of effects.
In a second step, we approach our goal of creating new knowledge on the role of
Design Thinking for Digital Transformation via a theory-driven deduction including
a holistic perspective of continuous change and the dynamic capability view of
the firm.
Table 1 Elements of organizational Design Thinking (Liedtka, 2020; Magistretti, Ardito, et al.,
2021; Micheli et al., 2019)
Area Design thinking element
User-centeredness and • Deep understanding of user needs
involvement • Inclusion of diverse perspectives
• Providing user-driven criteria for evaluation
• Building emotional engagement
• Inviting ownership and engagement
• Empathizing with users
• Looking at sociocultural trends
Problem-solving • Encouraging reframing of the problem
• Building local capabilities to solve new problems
• Assessing and prioritizing needed capabilities for problem-solv-
ing
• Allowing emergent solutions
Iteration and • Multiple solutions coexisting alternatives
experimentation • Creating an action orientation and execution
• Prototyping and experimentation
• Iteration between discovery ideation and experimentation
Interdisciplinary • Dialogue-based conversations
collaboration • Expanding the repertoire of teams
• Involving key stakeholders beyond the core team
• Fostering alignment across diverse perspectives
• Broadening access to networks and resources and enhancing
willingness to co-create
• Attracting champions
• Decentralizing responsibility
• Brokering knowledge
Tolerance of ambiguity and • Encouraging a possibility inspired mindset
failure • Reducing visibilities of failures
• Increasing psychological safety
• Unleashing and embracing ambiguity
• Learning by doing
• Creative confidence
Blending rationality and • Logical and rational reasoning
intuition • Mitigating decision biases
• Deductive thinking
• Inductive thinking
• Abductive thinking
• Naive mind
As outlined previously, Design Thinking, even when described via the same ele-
ments, can have different manifestations in the mode of organizational integration.
In other words, organizations use Design Thinking for different purposes and with
different levels of capabilities. Therefore, in order to approach a comprehensive
conceptualization, we will provide a description of diffusion, described by applica-
tion and localization, and depth, described by Design Thinking capabilities, as
relevant factors shaping the actual Design Thinking integration. We thereby aim to
identify relevant integration conditions that when applied to the organization of
interest help to conceptualize the usage of Design Thinking. For both conditions, a
conceptual model has been developed and applied via an online survey to organi-
zations practicing Design Thinking.
When looking at the depth of the integration of Design Thinking elements within
organizations one can identify capability levels as the suitable comparative lens.
Grounded in existing research (Nakata & Hwang, 2020; Wrigley et al., 2020) and six
qualitative interviews with Design Thinking experts from academia and practice we
developed a multidimensional model that conceptualizes the depth of organizational
Design Thinking via firm-level capabilities, derived items, and applied the model to
547 organizations via an online survey. See (Marx et al., 2022) for details on the
model development and the empirical application.
Table 2 shows the corresponding data structure including dimensions and
sub-dimensions of firm-level Design Thinking capabilities that we developed.
Firm-level Design Thinking capabilities are formed by Design Thinking related
actions and processes, strategy, organizational resources, and mindset. These
dimensions are each formed by multiple sub-dimensions which are each reflected
in a set of two to four items.
Besides depth, we propose that the second crucial factor when conceptualizing
Design Thinking in an organizational context is the diffusion of Design Thinking
elements, hence where (localization) and for what (application) Design Thinking is
used (see Marx, Haskamp, et al., 2021 for a detailed overview of the model
Design Thinking for Digital Transformation: Reconciling Theory and Practice 63
Figure 1 gives an overview of the synthesized empirical findings on the current use
of Design Thinking in practice and the existing research on the conceptualization of
64 C. Marx
the general phenomenon from the previous sub-chapters including defining ele-
ments, diffusion, and depth.
We suggest, that when investigating the role of Design Thinking for Digital
Transformation it is crucial to concretize the diffusion of Design Thinking in the
organization of interest reflected by application and localization and the depth of
Design Thinking integration indicated by firm-level Design Thinking capabilities. In
combination with the consolidated list of Design Thinking elements, the above-
mentioned contextual factors permit a nuanced description of the actual use of
Design Thinking in practice and build the foundation for our further conceptual
analysis.
Interdisciplinary collaboration Tolerance of ambiguity and failure Blending rationality and intuition
• Dialogue-based conversations • Encouraging a possibility • Logical and rational reasoning
• Expanding repertoire of teams inspired mindset • Mitigating decision biases
• Involving key stakeholders not • Reducing visibilities of failures • Deductive thinking
part of core team • Increasing psychological safety • Inductive thinking
• Fostering alignment across • Unleashing and embracing • Abductive thinking
diverse perspectives ambiguity • Naive mind
• Broadening access to networks • Learning by doing
and resources and enhancing • Creative confidence
willingness to co-create
• Attracting champions
• Decentralize responsibility
• Brokering knowledge
Fig. 1 Integrative conceptualization of Design Thinking in organizations via diffusion, depth, and
elements
to the dynamic capability view of the firm. The aim of this sub-chapter is to connect
different theoretical perspectives that help to shed light on how Design Thinking
might contribute to an organization’s Digital Transformation.
Fig. 2 Mechanisms generating rapid adaptation and supporting changes in the organizational setup
(Hanelt et al., 2020; Huang, Henfridsson, et al., 2017)
et al., 2017). Digital firms have been found to adapt rapidly through those mecha-
nisms (Huang, The University of Warwick, et al., 2017) that are related to observable
changes in the organizational setup on multiple levels (Hanelt et al., 2020). Firstly,
changes towards data-driven processes and empirical insight-based managerial
decision-making can be linked to data-driven operation, for instance, user profiling,
decision-hedging, and monitoring. Secondly, changes in organizational structures
towards permeable agility support the redefinition of organizational identity and the
contextualization of technology as part of swift transformation mechanisms. Third,
the instant feedback-based release mechanism is fueled by changes in organizations’
value creation setup including a shift towards customer-centered business models
and smart, customized products. Figure 2 gives an overview of the connection
between the described mechanisms for rapid adaptation and supporting changes in
the organizational setup.
Building on the observation that organizations strive for rapid adaptation through
data-driven operation, swift transformation and instant release in specific cases, and
a malleable organizational design in general, Hanelt et al. (2020) provide a frame-
work that embodies multiple dimensions and levels of Digital Transformation along
with contextual conditions, mechanisms, and outcomes. We will use an adapted
version of this framework as a holistic representation of organizational Digital
Transformation for analyzing the network of effects related to Design Thinking
and Dynamic Capabilities.
68 C. Marx
The second theoretical lens we apply in order to understand how Design Thinking
might contribute to an organization’s Digital Transformation is the dynamic capa-
bility perspective of the firm.
One can distinguish between two classes of capabilities: ordinary and dynamic
(Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Teece, 2007). Ordinary capabilities foster efficiency
(doing things right) in well-delineated tasks, are usually imitable, and do not vary
much in environments open to global competition. Dynamic Capabilities, on the
other hand, can be described as doing the right things at the right time by creating,
extending, and revising capabilities and resources (Drnevich & Kriauciunas, 2011).
Teece et al. (Teece et al., 1997, p. 516) define Dynamic Capabilities in their
landmark article as “the firm’s ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and
external competencies to address rapidly changing environments.” Specifically, the
value of Dynamic Capabilities lies in the “potential for helping the organization do
this repeatedly, thereby helping to create a durable competitive advantage” (Teece,
2014, p. 335) especially in high-velocity, competitive markets. Barreto (2010,
p. 257) suggests a new conceptualization of Dynamic Capabilities as an aggregated
multidimensional construct: Here, Dynamic Capabilities are described as a “firm’s
potential to systematically solve problems, formed by its propensity to sense oppor-
tunities and threats, to make timely and market-oriented decisions, and to change its
resource base.”
As pointed out by Vial (2019, p. 133), “there is an interesting fit between
Dynamic Capabilities as a conceptual foundation and Digital Transformation as a
phenomenon of interest.” Several researchers have found that Dynamic Capabilities
as a theory-grounded conceptual foundation could be valuable to foster Digital
Transformation and to gain a competitive advantage (Pezeshkan et al., 2016; Warner
& Wäger, 2019).
To explain this link in more detail we refer back to our understanding of Digital
Transformation as a challenging process of continuous change whereby digital
technologies create episodic bursts triggering a general shift towards malleable
organizational design embedded in and driven by digital business ecosystems
(Hanelt et al., 2020). To successfully drive this process and overcome barriers to
continuous adaptation, it is crucial for organizations to
(A) sense disruption at the right time,
(B) assess the opportunities and threats attached to it,
(C) seize them, and
(D) reconfigure their organizational setup towards integrating digital in their strat-
egy, business model, processes, culture, and in the use of technologies.
Hence, Dynamic Capabilities can be seen as equipping firms to respond to digital
disruption in a dynamic manner and in return contribute to their Digital Transfor-
mation. Helfat and Peteraf (2015) explained that attention and perception relate to
sensing activities that enable firms to recognize opportunities and create them.
Design Thinking for Digital Transformation: Reconciling Theory and Practice 69
Not only have Dynamic Capabilities been linked to elements of Digital Transfor-
mation as direct or indirect outcome variables. As Dynamic Capabilities can help to
“identify latent customer needs and the most promising technological opportunities
[and] then orchestrate the resources needed to innovate, or co-innovate” (Teece,
2014, p. 332), also innovation studies have increasingly relied on the Dynamic
Capabilities perspective. Accordingly, there is a growing body of research applying
a Dynamic Capability lens to Design Thinking in organizations showing how
Design Thinking activities can contribute to building Dynamic Capabilities. As
firms struggle with increasingly broad and complex innovation challenges in the
rapidly changing environment, the connection intuitively seems plausible.
Within this academic discourse, special emphasis is given to Design Thinking
elements as potential micro-foundations of Dynamic Capabilities (Felin & Foss,
2005; Winter, 2003). Those micro-foundations reveal why certain firms excel, while
others fail in increasingly complex and dynamic business environments. For this
reason, they are of special interest to researchers and practitioners.
Like Dynamic Capabilities, Design Thinking is rooted in the role and character-
istics of the organizational members, as well as in the ways and structures charac-
terizing their interaction modes. The linkage, however, has been demonstrated on
multiple levels including processes, structures, and organizational design. Dynamic
Capabilities rely on environmental scanning and real-time information, prototyping,
experimentation, cross-functional collaboration, and brainstorming (Eisenhardt &
Martin, 2000)—similar tools and methods that constitute Design Thinking. Regard-
ing the specific dimensions of Dynamic Capabilities, Design Thinking favors a
better understanding of customers, their contexts, and latent needs, which is directly
70 C. Marx
Digital Transformation. Nagaraj et al. (2020) gave an example of this direct mode by
empirically linking Design Thinking to product usefulness and novelty. Similarly,
Przybilla et al. (2020) showed that Design Thinking can lead to higher quality
prototyping, and more innovative business models, thereby directly influencing the
creation of digital solutions as crucial outcome elements of Digital Transformation.
In most cases, however, stronger connections can be assumed between the
integration of Design Thinking and intermediate outcomes which then affect Digital
Transformation elements. Mode 2 is described as an indirect, mid-term-oriented
mode where Design Thinking is linked to Digital Transformation via changes in the
organizational setup and transformation mechanisms. From an individual perspec-
tive, the use of Design Thinking can foster a shift of mental models and pre-digital
mindsets towards overcoming biases in decision-making (Liedtka, 2015). Practicing
Design Thinking also impacts individuals’ mindsets and attitudes towards their
profession and has the potential to foster motivation, ownership, and engage-
ment—thereby indirectly contributing to elements of Digital Transformation within
organizations. For instance, Design Thinking has been linked to higher levels of
empowerment in teams. One can also identify indirect connections on the group and
process level, where the integration of Design Thinking has the potential to shape
corporate culture via fostering experimentation, iteration, failure, and facilitating
knowledge through collaboration. Another example from research for this mode is
given by Appleyard et al. (2020), who linked Design Thinking to a higher level of
trust and collaboration in cross-functional teams. Team trust and collaboration have,
on the other hand, been identified as crucial elements affected by and affecting
Digital Transformation (Hanelt et al., 2020; Vial, 2019). On a structural level, an
example for Design Thinking to indirectly contribute to a firm’s Digital Transfor-
mation is via the facilitation of structural agility, for instance, in the course of Digital
Innovation Units (Nambisan et al., 2017). Structural effects can also be identified
when looking at inertia and resistance to transformation endeavors that are assumed
to be limited by the effects of integrating Design Thinking (Magistretti, Pham, et al.,
2021).
Building on the connection between Design Thinking and Dynamic Capabilities
presented in the previous sub-chapter, Mode 3 describes an indirect, long-term-
oriented effect of integrating Design Thinking that contributes to a firm’s Digital
Transformation via building and sustaining Dynamic Capabilities. A strong link can
be observed between Design Thinking and sensing and seizing opportunities as well
as reconfiguring the innovation approach (Carlgren et al., 2014; Liedtka, 2020;
Magistretti, Pham, et al., 2021).
The primary goal of this conceptual work was to analyze how Design Thinking can
contribute to an organization’s Digital Transformation. Hence, in this sub-chapter,
we present our attempt of integrating the previously analyzed perspectives into a
72 C. Marx
single framework that can guide researchers and practitioners. Beyond looking at
possible modes in which Design Thinking might contribute to an organization’s
Digital Transformation, the integration of a holistic perspective on Digital Transfor-
mation in combination with the powerful link with Dynamic Capabilities and the
practice-oriented conceptualization of Design Thinking elements holds promising
potential.
Figure 3 shows our conceptualization of Design Thinking in organizations via its
elements dependent on the diffusion and depth of its integration, and how it is linked
via Dynamic Capabilities to Digital Transformation dimensions including contextual
conditions, mechanisms, and outcomes. The lower part of the framework is adapted
from Hanelt et al. (2020) and shows those dimensions of Digital Transformation at
the corresponding level that are affected directly or indirectly by Design Thinking
elements.
Design Thinking affects sensing contextual conditions of Digital Transforma-
tions: Elements of Design Thinking such as empathy with the user and the inclusion
of diverse perspectives as part of user-centeredness and involvement can be linked to
sensing contextual conditions inside and outside the organization. Affected dimen-
sions of Digital Transformation include awareness of the top management team
towards topics, trends, opportunities, and challenges associated with Digital Trans-
formation and sensing and interpreting digital consumer demands.
Design Thinking affects acceleration and alignment mechanisms of Digital
Transformation: Within the area of Digital Transformation mechanisms, innovating
and integrating have been presented as relevant types of agentic behavior that have
the potential to develop and align the required new organizational elements via
constant unfreezing (Hanelt et al., 2020, p. 1178)). Our analysis proposes that
Design Thinking elements have the potential to affect both types. First, it can be
directly linked to creating digital innovations and more indirectly to mobilize the
workforce towards welcoming the Digital Transformation of the organization.
Further, we can see a linkage between Design Thinking and mindset shifts which
fosters overcoming biases and potential inertial forces regarding the transformation.
Secondly, one can connect elements of Design Thinking, such as interdisciplinary
collaboration and the tolerance of ambiguity and failure with the mechanisms of
unlocking and learning—hence integration. Agile and collaborative structures as
embraced by Design Thinking further promote physical-digital harmonization and
technological flexibility as part of the general alignment mechanism. With a view to
this framework, we propose that Design Thinking affects the acceleration and
alignment mechanisms of Digital Transformation.
Design Thinking affects the outcomes of Digital Transformation within and
outside the organization: Elements of Design Thinking can also be linked to changes
in the organizational setup, spillovers of those changes to the individual and market
level as well as changes in the economics of the firm. Agile organizational structures,
customer-focused business models, and smart customized products are examples of
Digital Transformation outcomes that are closely related to all elements of Design
Thinking. Depending on the depth and diffusion of the Design Thinking integration
also ecosystem-oriented and embedded organizational design can be partially
Design Thinking for Digital Transformation: Reconciling Theory and Practice
73
6 Conclusion
Organizations are increasingly confronted both internally and externally with novel
challenges, deeply entangled with Digital Transformation. In this chapter, we shed
light on how the integration of Design Thinking can enhance the value of digital
technologies towards a more human-centric Digital Transformation. In particular,
this study proposes three modes of design-enabled Digital Transformation and
integrates theoretical with practical perspectives in the presented conceptual
framework.
The given examples of how to interpret the framework show that while Dynamic
Capabilities can be seen as a generally strong link between Design Thinking and
Digital Transformation, a variety of Design Thinking elements have the potential to
affect every dimension of Digital Transformation in a multitude of ways. The
holistic nature of the framework including the variety of possible combinations
permits a nuanced investigation of specific, context-dependent cause–effect relation-
ships. It can be used by researchers as a foundation for deriving and testing
hypotheses on the specific contributions Design Thinking makes to Digital Trans-
formation dimensions or to analyze empirically observed relationships from real-
world cases. Concerning academic debate, this chapter enriches the understanding of
Digital Transformation by unshadowing the value that Design Thinking might play
in it. Practitioners can utilize this framework for analyzing, communicating, and
steering how their organizations aim to contribute to their Digital Transformation
with the aid of Design Thinking.
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Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design
Thinking: Theoretical Reflections
and Practical Implications
1 Introduction
Over the last years, Design Thinking (DT) has been on the rise at multiple institu-
tions and universities to teach an innovative approach to problem solving to students
and professionals (Dunne & Martin, 2006; Withell & Haigh, 2013). The Global
Design Thinking Alliance (GDTA), a network of 22 internationally recognized
academic institutions with the mission of developing DT education worldwide,
derives elements of DT’s core principles and the mindset behind DT from what
they call the big three “P”s: People, Place, and Process (GDTA, n.d.). “People”
refers to the focus on multidisciplinary teams, fostering collaboration with broad
perspectives. “Place” addresses the flexible innovation spaces, referring to materials
as well as communication, collaboration, prototyping, and sharing opportunities
through visualizations and other means. And finally, the “Process” offers guiding
steps to tackle complex problems in an iterative manner. In spring 2020, the Covid
epidemic disrupted DT education, which had to be massively transformed from
physical spaces to virtual settings. In this chapter, we explore how the three core
elements of the DT, People, Place, and Process, should be adopted to the virtual
setting.
First, we describe the Education Experience Model, a model that provides
insights on experiences that should be considered when teaching over distance.
We also give an overview about the three Ps and how they might differ in different
teaching settings, such as teaching face-to-face or virtually. Second, drawing on this
model and our own experience within student and professional education of facili-
tating a large spectrum of different DT programs virtually in the last 18 month, we
identified six fields of action—two for each of the three Ps—that help fostering DT
education in a virtual environment. We describe these fields of action in detail and
rely on a diverse set of research streams from psychology, business administration,
or economics to explain their effects. Last, we provide examples from our facilitation
experience, giving practitioners specific actions that can help them leverage the
opportunities given by these six fields of action. As the future of DT education
should include physical and virtual spaces as well as potential hybrid combinations
(HyFlex; Beatty, 2014), it is important to understand the challenges and opportuni-
ties in the different contexts.
Our chapter systematically uses two models to analyze the differences between
offline and virtual DT education. For researchers, we provide an overview of the
diverse set of research streams that might be of interest to deeper understand the
specifics of designing DT offers and facilitating DT activities in virtual settings. For
DT practitioners, we offer six specific areas of action, giving an understanding of
how these areas come into play and we provide specific behaviors or actions that
practitioners can engage in to foster the virtual facilitation of DT.
naturally and is also fostered by physical closeness between learners and educators’
interventions, a virtual environment needs new ways to ensure cognitive presence.
Furthermore, it is more difficult for participants to be present in online than in offline
trainings, since looking at a screen creates fatigue and technology offers manifold
distractions, such as trying out new software functions or answering e-mails.
Social presence refers to the component of feeling comfortable and is defined as
the “ability of participants [. . .] to project themselves socially and emotionally” into
the community, in other words, to bring themselves into the learning environment as
human beings with needs and desires and not only as learners. The absence of social
presence can easily turn collaborative online learning into a simple mode of lecturing
or ex-cathedra teaching (Schrage, 1995). In addition, emotions are more difficult to
read as the perception of others is reduced to their faces in a virtual setting and facial
expression is quite limited in range as many people focus on content on their screens
in parallel to trying to look at other people. Hence, facilitating DT in a virtual context
requires, in particular, embedding human elements and emotions that contrast with
the more technology-driven virtual teaching environment.
Teaching presence involves the two functions: (1) designing the educational
experience, including the selection of content, the design of learning activities, and
the development of an assessment, and (2) facilitating the learning experience.
Building on social and cognitive presence, it is teaching presence that provides
82 S. Mayer et al.
and delivers the actual learning experience. While virtual DT education might not
tremendously change the teaching content, it has severe implications for its
e-pedagogical design and facilitation.
Together, cognitive, social, and teaching presence create the educational experi-
ence. Transitioning from offline to online education, hence, requires the
virtualization of the entire experience, which means its three main components
need to be carefully aligned. In particular, adapting the teaching presence without
reconsidering cognitive and social presence can only deliver an incomplete online
education experiences. In the next sections, we will therefore discuss strategies that
ensure such an overall virtual DT education experience across a social, cognitive,
and teaching presence.
Many institutions around the world use the three Ps, People, Place, and Process, as
grounding pillars for facilitating DT, for example, at the HPI School of Design
Thinking in Potsdam (HPI D-School, n.d.) or the Hasso Plattner School of Design
Thinking at the University of Cape Town (UCT d-school, n.d.).
The first P, People, is deeply anchored in the core of DT. Research identifies
interdisciplinary collaboration as one of the key attributes to characterize DT
(Micheli et al., 2019). DT education therefore emphasizes bringing together people
from various backgrounds and with a broad set of expertise, to form diverse,
multidisciplinary teams that allow for the emergence of different perspectives on
complex challenges. Fostering collaboration between team members is central to
teaching DT. Setting up heterogeneous teams is equally possible in the face-to-face
setting as in a virtual setting—or, in fact, might be even easier in the virtual context.
Since international participation is not restricted by physical attendance, a larger
audience can be reached with virtual learning programs. Yet, we have experienced
differences in the communication, interactions and therefore interpersonal relation-
ships when it comes to virtual facilitation. While virtual facilitation might allow
more diversity and interdisciplinarity, it raises certain challenges concerning the
social presence as described in Sect. 1.1. For instance, the following key questions
arose: How do learners experience empathy? And How do people engage with each
other in a virtual setting? In Sect. 2, we focus on literature of team engagement and
embodiment to offer theoretical grounding for these two fields of action when
fostering DT facilitation in a virtual setting.
The second P, Place, refers to the creative spatial conditions DT often relies on to
foster collaboration and creativity in teams. This includes movable furniture or
material for quick prototyping as well as spaces designed for team work and for
gathering to share learnings in larger groups. Investigating the influence of space on
DT has found a wide interest in the research community (Overmyer & Carlson,
2019; Schwemmle et al., 2018; Schwemmle et al., 2021). As the physical space is
clearly different in a virtual context, we were curious as to how DT facilitation can
Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design Thinking:. . . 83
create a positive learning context in the virtual setting by offering a “safe space” as
well as the right atmosphere—both online and offline. The Education Experience
Model emphasizes the importance of setting climate, and incorporating the social
and teaching presence. In Sect. 3, we rely on research on psychological safety as well
as creativity research as a theoretical grounding for these two fields of action.
The last P, Process, refers to the underlying structure DT, i.e. the DT process
(Liedtka, 2011). While there is no clear definition or agreement on what DT exactly
is (Micheli et al., 2019), most academic and professional teaching institutions rely on
process steps. For instance, d.school Stanford uses a five-step process and the HPI
School of Design Thinking uses a six-step process (What, n.d.b). While the process
steps remain the same in a virtual facilitating context, Process also refers to sur-
rounding conditions and activities such as engaging in warm-ups to break the ice
between team members (Carlgren et al., 2016), using timeboxing to allow for speed
and multiple iteration cycles (Efeoglu et al., 2013), or supporting small teams via
expert coachings to enable learning in novices (Liedtka, 2020). We therefore wanted
to understand how much process and structure is needed in virtual facilitation and
how this structure might be different from a physical setting. In Sect. 3, we
investigate how random encounters also fit a structured process as to what is
important for managing workshops online.
To sum it up, the next three sections follow the structure of People, Place, and
Process and, for each P, present two fields of action that we derived from our
experience in facilitating DT in a virtual setting. As displayed in Fig. 2, the six
fields of action are (Digital) Engagement, Embodiment, Safe Space, Atmosphere,
Random Inspiration, and Managing Workshops. While they are not part of the
chapter structure, cognitive, social, and teaching presence underlie all of these fields
of action, as they are necessary for the creation of successful educational
experiences.
2 People
Fig. 2 Six fields of action to foster Design Thinking facilitation in a virtual context
creation of networks through random encounters are detailed in Sect. 4.1. These
overlaps, however, mirror the strong interwovenness of the different elements of
virtual education, as we have emphasized in the introduction.
In this section, we want to elaborate on aspects of technology and its conse-
quences for communication. As mentioned in the beginning, technology can hinder
aspects of our normal communication, but it also allows new channels to be created.
For example, being “alone” in front of a screen and muting the microphone often
creates a high threshold to engage in discussions in a plenum setting. Therefore,
addressing participants more directly than in an offline setting can help bridge these
barriers in a virtual setting. One easy trick can be simply naming participants and
asking directly for their opinion. While this might feel like being called on by the
teacher in school, it raises cognitive presence, as people tend to be more attentive if
there is a chance of being called on spontaneously. Furthermore, in a face-to-face
setting, we often rely on non-verbal cues to engage others in a discussion, for
example, by relying on eye contact. Due to the virtual setting, it is not possible to
Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design Thinking:. . . 85
address individuals simply through eye contact; we therefore have to resort to verbal
contact.
Another hurdle to engagement for the facilitator is the lack of feedback, especially
when faced with a larger group of learners. With larger groups, all the learners are
often not visible at the same time due to technological limitations. One way to get
easy feedback, for example, if participants have completed a certain task or template,
is to ask for low threshold reactions. Most online communication tools allow some
type of reactions, referring to icons demonstrating applause, thumbs up, or smiles,
therefore offering a low threshold to engage with this new channel of communica-
tion. In DT, we often plan for sharing rounds, where each team presents their current
results in a short time frame. In a physical space, these are often followed by
applause, while in a virtual environment presentations are followed by silence.
Introducing means of engagement explicitly (e.g., using the emojicon reactions,
waving your real hands, or unmuting all together and then clapping loudly) can help
to keep large audiences engaged. It can even be a source of fun for the group to try
out different emoticons or clapping rhythms together.
There are many ways how educators can bring in learners’ own bodies into the
learning experience. To begin with, warm-ups are a fantastic way of activating the
entire body. Hence, virtual facilitators should refrain from the temptation of using
technological-heavy warm-ups and create experiences that make learners aware of
and feel their bodies. Being a passionate singer, I (Martin) have made great experi-
ences with warm-up exercises from singing, as they involve body relaxation as well
as breathing and feeling vibrations on the skin while humming. Used as interven-
tions, such exercises can also re-activate learners during longer sessions in front of
the screen. Dancing, stretching, and guided relaxation activities provide similar
effects and also help learners reconnect with their senses. Second, not all virtual
education needs to take place in front of the screen. Seeing fellow learners as heads
in black tiles makes us easily forget that they (and we) all have an entire body.
Hence, encouraging learners to get up, move, or even go outside during a virtual
education experience will help rediscover the entire body. This can easily be done
with individual reflection or ideation sessions, but is also possible for many other
activities during a DT workshop. Third, online education usually reduces the tactile
experience to mouse and keyboard. Thus, facilitators should include elements, where
learners work with pen, paper, and other materials and then upload pictures to virtual
whiteboards. Examples include prototyping (certainly), but also the understand or
synthesis phase. Not only will such activities inhibit fatigue in front of the screen, but
they also make it easier for learners to be visual since hand drawings are much easier
made on paper than graphical objects on a board. Finally, physical props can
enhance embodied cognition in virtual teaching. For instance, educators can ask
students to prepare objects that refer to the challenge they are working on (like a
three-dimensional mood board) and actively involve them in the workshop. For a
challenge in the field of healthy nutrition, they might prepare a plate of fruit that
students (/participants) smell, touch, and eat during the workshop.
3 Place
Psychological safety refers to the individual’s belief, that a certain context, such as a
workplace or a classroom, is safe for taking risks without interpersonal consequences
(Edmondson, 1999). It is one key factor to fostering teamwork and team learning
(Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson & Lei, 2014). One meta-analytic review noted
factors that were influential antecedents for psychological safety. These included
peer support, learning orientation, interdependence, and role clarity (Frazier et al.,
2017). If a space feels psychologically safe, individuals experience a higher satis-
faction and engage more actively in learning behaviors, such as seeking and sharing
information, and reflecting and experimenting (Frazier et al., 2017).
One famous example for the influence of psychological safety is a study from
Google, which sought to determine factors that predict high performance teams. The
Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design Thinking:. . . 87
3.2 Atmosphere
Educators have only a very limited influence on their learners’ actual physical
surrounding. However, there are various ways of how they can make the most out
of the limited influence they have. First, and especially in longer formats, educators
can invest some time to talk about the physical learning environment and encourage
learners to try out different spots. For instance, learners could attend inputs sitting at
their desks, then move to the dining table during group work, and, finally, move to
the couch for reflections or feedback sessions. In doing so, they increase learners’
awareness for their spatial environment. Second, and extending this awareness
building, educators can include the physical environment and bring it to the virtual
space. For instance, learners can be asked to avoid using artificial backgrounds or
show a 360-degree view of where they are as part of an introduction or check-in.
Such activities allow all learners at least to see where their fellow students are, which
helps to foster social presence. Third, educators can encourage students to use breaks
to get some fresh air, by opening windows or even going outside. We have also had
good experiences with asking learners to go outside for a specific part of the
workshop. For instance, they might get inspiration when taking a walk during an
ideation session or while discussing team issues. Fourth, especially with longer
projects, learners could prepare their space with specific elements that relate to
their DT experience. For instance, they might choose an iconic object that refers to
the challenge they are working on. Or, every team member has the same object on
their desk that creates and communicates the teams' identity (e.g., imagine a team
that calls itself “Team Cactus” and each member putting a cactus on their desk to not
only remind themselves of their team mates, but also to show the other learners that
they belong to this team).
The two major atmospherical elements educators should influence in the virtual
space are music and esthetics. Music has a huge effect on individuals. For instance,
students who listened to classical music during a lecture showed better academic
performance compared to a group that listened to no music (Dosseville et al., 2012).
Other research shows that music influences the perception of the atmosphere in
banks and bars (North et al., 2000). Moreover, playing music can give spaces with a
negative atmosphere, such as basement room without windows, a more pleasant
atmosphere (Ehret et al., 2021). Taken together, using music deliberately during
workshops can advance both the overall atmosphere and learning outcomes. A
detailed analysis of which kind of music best suits which DT phase would go
beyond the boundaries of this book chapter. However, overall, more reflective
phases will benefit from calmer music, ideation and prototyping from more energiz-
ing music, and easy listening music similar to the background music in cafés can
create a welcoming atmosphere in breaks or before the workshop starts. Educators
Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design Thinking:. . . 89
Fig. 3 Digital whiteboard design for a workshop with three teams (designed by Félix Deraed)
should align the choice of music to both their own and their target groups' prefer-
ences. The majority of videoconferencing tools allows playing background music
directly from the computer, so that no complex technological set-ups are required.
The second atmospherical factor refers to the esthetics and design of virtual
elements. For most DT education experiences, this might in particular refer to the
design of digital whiteboards and other collaboration tools. On the one hand,
prestructured boards with headlines, colors, and other visuals create a positive
atmosphere, as they symbolize that somebody has prepared for the education
experience. On the other hand, other than physical whiteboards, virtual whiteboards
make it possible to create whole roadmaps. For instance, the structure of the entire
workshop can be visualized along different whiteboards. Figure 3 shows an example
for such a board design that especially illustrates plenary phases and team work in
three parallel teams (design by Félix Deraed). Figure 4 shows the whiteboard
90 S. Mayer et al.
Fig. 4 Digital whiteboard design for a Design Thinking education program at the HPI School of
Design Thinking (designed by Anja Harnisch and Maria Aragon)
structure of a Design Thinking Program at the HPI School of Design Thinking. It not
only contains boards where teams work together, but also provides an interactive
(i.e., clickable) structure for the entire semester (design by Anja Harnisch and Maria
Aragon). Preparing such whiteboard ecosystems almost creates an own virtual DT
space with its specific atmosphere.
4 Process
transfer of this structure to the virtual world can result in a meticulous structuring,
focusing purely on the content of the phases, decreasing learners’ internal motivation
and therefore reducing inspiration. During face-to-face programs, learners often
draw inspiration from random encounters with peers, for example, the classic
meeting at the coffee machine during a break. In a virtual setting, these chances
are limited or non-existent. We can draw from research to understand how meeting
people by chance or allowing some free time to exchange thoughts can be beneficial
in two main ways.
First, drawing from the economics of social networks, meeting people at random
is the starting point for creating (social) networks (Jackson & Rogers, 2007).
Researchers found the random meeting factor to be significant for building friend-
ships and lasting relationships, aside from an online community (Jackson & Rogers,
2007). Therefore, in order to allow participants in online education formats to
leverage the social contacts, it is important to provide them with opportunities for
random encounters. Second, research from cognitive psychology shows that task-
and goal-related thinking is different to mind-wandering, dreaming, and spontaneous
thoughts. Yet the latter three are significantly related to creativity, for example,
mind-wandering being positively correlated to creative achievement (Agnoli et al.,
2018; Tan et al., 2015). Therefore, allowing random encounters and times with no
specific task can be very beneficial to online facilitation, fostering the development
of social networks as well as creativity. From our experience, a little bit of process is
still helpful here, since a random meeting in front of the coffee machine, the
building, or at reception does not happen in a virtual context. We therefore set up
random “blind dates,” bringing random groups of two or three participants together
for coffee breaks or just for networking sessions, in particular at the beginning and
during program activities. These can be accompanied by an open question to start
conversions in the groups, but participants are explicitly allowed to turn to whatever
topic of interest they like, to allow spontaneous thoughts and mind-wandering for the
individual. As food and drinks play an important role in the physical setting to bring
people together in a more relaxed context, it is also possible to use food-delivery
services during online education. Doing so, participants get an individual meal, but
have the chance to share the “same” lunch or dinner experience.
DT Education not only includes teaching and coaching, but also a lot of organiza-
tional tasks to create an optimal educational experience. While virtual education
makes some aspects easier, such as the preparation of physical spaces, there are a
variety of new challenges that need to be managed. As the Education Experience
Model implies, communication, the tools allowing it, and the facilitation of the
education experience play important roles. Focusing on these elements, we share
our experiences in four fields.
92 S. Mayer et al.
4.2.3 Timing
One huge advantage of virtual workshops is timing. Educators can centrally time the
entire workshop using timers on boards or closing breakout rooms at a certain time.
However, especially in professional education, learners are also more time sensitive,
as they usually schedule follow-up meeting in breaks or directly after the workshop.
Hence, educators should communicate the timing of beginning, ending, and breaks,
Experiences of Facilitating Virtual Design Thinking:. . . 93
and stick to these schedules. Doing so provides learners the opportunities to include
their other work-related tasks and be more present during workshop times.
The majority of suggestions made in this section and the entire book chapter refers to
clear structure and procedures. For instance, boards are designed in advance, making
spontaneous changes harder than in physical workshops. Similarly, random encoun-
ters must be planned and facilitated (please refer to the previous Sect. 4.1). In light of
all these highly structured elements and the boundaries given by technology, edu-
cators should be aware of structure “overkill,” getting in the way of the playfulness
and creativity in DT education. For instance, planning buffer times in agendas allows
for spontaneous interventions or preparing two alternative board structures gives
coaches and teams the freedom to select what is best suited for a particular applica-
tion. Not only will such room for creativity and flexibility benefit the participants, it
will also make educating more fun for educators, as it goes beyond cooking after the
recipe.
5 Discussion
This chapter introduced the Education Experience model to highlight the changes
that occur when moving from offline to online education. Using the three Ps of DT,
People, Place, and Process, as a structure, we introduced six areas of action for DT
educators in the virtual world. The theories linked to these areas inspire further
research questions and give practitioners a rich resource for further reading.
Further research regarding “People” might, for instance, deal with the engage-
ment concept and analyze potential additional factors that foster engagement online.
In this regard, relying on online tools and gamification could offer a variety of new
opportunities for increasing learners’ engagement. Similarly, further research might
transfer the concept of embodied cognition to online settings and develop a taxon-
omy of how to include its advantages in online education. An assessment of different
ways of digital embodies cognition could indicate superior approaches and context
factors that need to be considered. In the field of “Place,” researchers might combine
extant work about psychological safety, trust, and data security to better understand
the additional opportunities and obstacles for creating psychological safety online.
Moreover, a deeper investigation of hybrid spaces and how to best combine digital
and physical education, is a promising field for further research. Lastly, in the field of
“Process” the question of how to plan for random encounters in online education, the
outcomes and intervening factors provides a field for many theoretical and empirical
investigations.
In general, we expect that in the near future, researchers and practitioners will
need to find criteria that help suggest if certain education experiences are better
94 S. Mayer et al.
created offline or online or how a proper mix might look like. The theories and tricks
suggested in this chapter can serve as a first step into this direction.
Acknowledgements The authors want to thank Sascha Hoever for his support with the creation of
the displayed illustrations. Additional thanks to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for her copyediting support.
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Accessibility of Linked-Node Diagrams
on Collaborative Whiteboards for Screen
Reader Users: Challenges
and Opportunities
Abstract Online whiteboards leverage our spatial thinking abilities to support rich,
collaborative, and interactive design. However, these tools are often exclusionary to
people who are blind. We ran a series of user studies with university students to
better understand the accessibility of current tools and evaluated several existing
audio and haptic approaches to inform design guidelines and future directions. We
observed how current interfaces do not provide access to the graph generation
process, provide incomplete access connections and spatial relationships, and can
lead to users feeling uncertain or misinterpreting information in the graph. By
exploring existing solutions, we identify and discuss the importance of reflecting
the diagram structure within the navigation scheme and provide a spatial overview
whereby users can reference their exploration. We summarize a series of recom-
mendations to inform the investigation of future interactions to improve the acces-
sibility of online whiteboards.
1 Introduction
Designers collaborate using a variety of media. Increasingly, we see the use of online
whiteboard software to allow users to collaboratively organize, and share, and reason
through information. Many of these tools allow for rich remote collaboration and
leverage our spatial thinking abilities. A large challenge is accessibility, and these
tools often exclude people who are blind and visually impaired (Coombs, 2010). As
Design moves to focus on the importance of inclusion and accessibility, we need
Blind Designers.
COVID-19 encouraged institutions to explore online methods of learning. Online
whiteboard platforms have often been adopted by instructors to engage students in
collaborative and interactive design (Metscher et al., 2021). These tools can be used
to construct a variety of spatial diagrams, such as mind maps, flow charts,
hierarchical trees (Zaqoot & Oh, 2018). Such diagrams belong to a class of diagrams
called “linked-node diagrams” (Burch et al., 2021), which are both spatial, and show
connections between different pieces of information presented.
In this work, we have sought to understand some of the accessibility gap when
interacting with linked-node diagrams within online whiteboards. We ran a series of
user studies with university students to better understand the accessibility of current
tools, and we observed many challenges to understanding the information conveyed
on them. These challenges include lack of access to the graph generation process,
incomplete access to connections and spatial relationships, and uncertain feelings or
misinterpretation of information on the graph.
Researchers and students then collaboratively evaluated several existing audio
and haptic approaches to inform design guidelines and future directions that might
improve user’s access and understanding of linked-node diagrams. We discuss the
importance of elucidating the construction process, reflecting the diagram structure
within the navigation structure, and providing a spatial overview to which users can
reference their exploration. We conclude with a summary of challenges as well as
design guidelines and research opportunities to address these challenges.
graphics, which are images with raised surfaces, are commonly used to convey
spatial information to people who are blind and visually impaired (Sheppard &
Aldrich, 2001), and are well suited for technical users to comprehend graphical and
spatial images (Gardner, 2002). However, these graphics are static and are not
practical in collaborative environments in which spatial information is constantly
changing.
There are many efforts to produce refreshable touch-based interfaces to support
dynamically changing content (O’Modhrain et al., 2015). Studies have explored
electrovibration (Xu et al., 2011), modulating electrostatic force (Winfield et al.,
2007), lateral skin vibration (Lévesque et al., 2005), vibrotactile feedback (Giudice
et al., 2012; Linvill & Bliss, 1966; Palani, 2013), actuated pin arrays (Siu et al.,
2019), and force displays (Magnusson & Rassmus-Gröhn, 2005), which provide
haptic feedback as users actively move their hands and/or fingers to spatially interact
with presented information.
While these dynamically refreshable interfaces provide compelling ways to
convey spatial information, they require specialized hardware, are limited in spatial
resolution, and are often prohibitively expensive (Gorlewicz et al., 2018;
O’Modhrain et al., 2015). Audio-based solutions that convey information through
natural language or through sound can deliver high levels of detail and are often
supported in ubiquitous computing devices such as smartphones and laptops (Billah
et al., 2017; Sawe et al., 2020). However, they are often not perceived spatially and
constrain the perception of information in less flexible sequences.
Several works have investigated speech-based interfaces to support linked-node
diagrams. These works explored hierarchical and connection-oriented navigation
schemes (Bennett, 2002; Brown et al., 2003), but were not able to determine how
well participants were able to internalize and form mental models of explore
graphics. Metatla et al. developed a series of interactions that support the modifica-
tion construction of hierarchical diagrams using an audio-keyboard interface
(Metatla et al., 2008). Horstmann et. al. provided additional options for users to
interact with hierarchical diagrams spatially through the use of joysticks and spatial
audio to support spatial understanding (Horstmann et al., 2004). They found that
participants were able to build mental representations using added spatial features.
These studies provided several recommendations, which include supporting both
hierarchical and connection-based browsing (Brown et al., 2003), helping users keep
track of orientation (Horstmann et al., 2004) and providing summary overviews
(Brown et al., 2004). How these findings might translate into collaborative white-
board contexts, and how to best leverage spatial interactions, are still research gaps
to be explored.
100 D. Fan et al.
To better understand how haptic and audio systems might improve a user’s access to
spatial information in the online whiteboard context, we ran a user study consisting
of three parts: (1) an informal interview, (2) an evaluation of online whiteboards, and
(3), an exploration of other spatial access methods. Three university students who
are blind and use screen readers participated in these studies. The studies took
roughly 60 min and participants were compensated $35 for their time. Participants
were between 18 and 20 years old, and all reported to have high understandings of
Braille, tactile graphics and familiarity with quantitative data (4–5 on a 5-point
Likert scale).
The informal interview was designed to better understand the problem setting.
Researchers asked participants to share contexts in which they may have encoun-
tered online whiteboards, if there were any challenges with their encounter, and if
participants relied on any strategies to better understand any information presented.
The goal of the evaluation was to identify specific gaps and challenges that partic-
ipants come across when consuming information through online whiteboards. Par-
ticipants were provided a sample whiteboard of a flow chart and hierarchical diagram
to explore using a screen reader with which they were familiar. The sample flow
chart depicted a product development workflow, while the hierarchical diagram
depicted the business objectives of a makeshift online video-streaming business
(Fig. 1), and was explored through Miro (n.d.) and Mural (n.d.), two commercial
online whiteboard platforms. Both platforms have accessibility statements indicating
efforts to improve the accessibility of their interfaces. Before participants began
exploring, researchers gave an overview of the graph context. As participants
explored the graph, researchers asked participants to try to gain as much information
as they could from the exploration, and to discuss their thoughts and strategies
through a think-aloud protocol.
Accessibility of Linked-Node Diagrams on Collaborative Whiteboards. . . 101
Fig. 1 Study participants explored a sample flow chart and hierarchical diagram hosted on
collaborative whiteboard services Miro (a), and Mural (b)
Mural, Miro, the audio-keyboard interface, and the tactile graphics were presented in
a sequence through which the participants progressively gained information as they
explored. Mural did not provide screen-reader access to the graphical Canvas, while
textual elements in Miro were conveyed as a sequential list and did not show any
102 D. Fan et al.
Table 1 Participants used the keyboard commands to navigate and retrieve information from the
audio-keyboard interface
Keyboard
command Interaction Spoken sample
“s” Articulates current node “Currently at <node text>”
“d” Articulates current node number out of “node id is <current node id> of <total
total number of nodes number of nodes>”
“Down Previews nodes that the current node is “Connects to <child node text>, <child
arrow” connected to. Repeated presses cycle node number> of <total number of
through those connections children of current node>”
“Up Previews nodes that the current node is “Connects to <parent node>, <parent
arrow” connected from. Repeated presses cycle node number> of <total number of
through those connections parents of current node>”
“Enter” Moves into previously previewed node “Navigating to <previewed node’s
text>”
Fig. 2 Study participants explored tactile graphics which depicted the flow chart (a) and hierar-
chical diagram (b) represented by Fig. 1.
With Mural, participants were only able to toggle through the interactive menu
items, but could not access the diagram canvas itself. Through Miro, the participants
were able to explore nodes of the diagrams through their screen readers. However,
while individual pieces of information were accessible, we observed many chal-
lenges with using the interface to understand the nodes. First, participants were
unable to tell whether a spoken piece of information was a part of the diagram, a
detail about the diagram, or a menu item, which led to uncertainty and confusion (p2,
p3). One participant recommended using tags to identify the type of information that
is described (p3), similar to when accessing the web. For example, nodes in the
graph should be tagged as a graph, and menu items can have a different type of tag.
Second, participants only had access to the nodes as a sequential list, but did not
reflect connections and spatial relationships of those nodes. While participants were
able to make loose inferences about connections based on the node content, such an
exercise often causes confusion (p3), and is mentally taxing (p1). Participant
3 recommended that the navigation structure reflects the connected structure of the
diagram. Third, additional efforts that were required to gain little additional infor-
mation about the graph made exploration cumbersome. For example, users had the
option to open additional pop-up windows that provide detailed information about
each node, such as its color and shape. While one participant appreciated efforts to
make this information accessible (p3), the execution of a series of keyboard events or
minimal information—necessitating user memorization—made quick exploration to
understand broader pictures difficult (p1).
104 D. Fan et al.
Navigation Schemes That Reflect the Structure of the Spatial Graphic Provide
Ways for Users to Form Structural and Spatial Understandings of the Graph
Navigation schemes that reflect the connective structure of linked-node diagrams
enable screen reader users to listen to details that resemble the information flow
communicated by the graph. While prior studies on hierarchy-based audio-keyboard
schemes did not indicate whether blind users could form accurate spatial models
without spatial information (Bennett, 2002; Brown et al., 2003), our preliminary
observations suggest this was possible for the types of diagrams used in the study
and with participants who self-reported having high familiarity with tactile graphics
and data manipulation. Consistent with previous studies are indications that under-
standing graphics through these interfaces takes significant cognitive load (Brown
et al., 2003). While this work focused on the accessibility of linked-node diagrams,
different types of navigation schemes may be well suited to different forms of spatial
graphics, and there is opportunity to explore how different schemes might work best
in different collaborative whiteboard contexts.
Anchoring Exploration to a Spatial Overview Can Potentially Reduce Cogni-
tive Load and Inform Exploration
Whether exploring the nodes as a linear list in the form of Miro or as an
interconnected hierarchy in the form of the audio-keyboard interface, participants
described trying to form spatial mental models to internalize explored nodes (p1, p2,
p3). Participants appreciated how the tactile graphic conveyed the overall structure
right away, reducing the need to piece together details from a part-to-whole
approach, and to potentially reform mental models as more information is explored.
Anchoring exploration spatially to an overview can also help users better track how
much there is to explore, and areas they have explored already. Using the tactile
graphic, participants quickly alternated between reading specific pieces of informa-
tion on the Braille labels, referencing the connective structures in the spatial vicinity,
and exploring broader spatial structures within the graph, highlighting advantages of
spatial haptic representation that enable flexible spatial exploration. For web-based
keyboard access methods, we think there might also be an opportunity for natural-
language summaries or sonified spatial summaries not just to provide broad spatial
overviews before exploration, but also smaller overviews to anchor users’ explora-
tion to spatial relationships within the exploration vicinity.
6 Conclusion
Through our user studies, we explored the accessibility of online whiteboards with
university students that use screen readers to access the web. We observed how
current interfaces do not provide access to the graph generation process, provide
incomplete access connections and spatial relationships, and can lead to users feeling
uncertain or to misinterpreting information in the graph. By exploring several
existing solutions, we identified potential recommendations on how the interfaces
Accessibility of Linked-Node Diagrams on Collaborative Whiteboards. . . 107
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Part II
Fostering Innovation Behavior
and Co-evolution
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory
Programming Workspace
Abstract Software design and the underlying programming activities entail a great
portion of exploration to better understand problem and solution spaces. There are
programming tools and environments that support such exploratory programming
practices exceptionally well. However, inexperienced programmers typically face a
steep learning curve until they can reach the promised efficiency in such tools. They
need a long time to study best practices firsthand in real projects. The tools in use
might also need adjustments, given that modern programming languages are con-
tinually introducing new features or redesigning old ones. We want to apply the idea
of patterns to capture traditional and modern practices of exploratory programming.
In this chapter, we focus on the workspace tool, whose core ideas transcend many
different programming communities such as the Smalltalk workspace, the Unix
shell, and data-analysis notebooks. We extracted the essence into a novel pattern
language around the conversations that programmers have with their environment.
We believe that our work can help programmers to quickly understand and apply the
idea of workspaces, as well as tool builders to increase the efficiency of their project
team when facing exploratory challenges.
1 Introduction
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 111
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_7
112 M. Taeumel et al.
Fig. 1 Workspace-like tools support effective and efficient conversations between programmers
and their environments. They can be found in many different domains such as (f.l.t.r.) Squeak/
Smalltalk (workspace), Ubuntu/Linux (shell), and Jupyter/IPython (notebooks)
reading, writing, debugging, testing, deploying, and so on. Programmers can thrive
within environments that offer a sense of liveness (Rein et al., 2018; Tanimoto,
2013) and short feedback cycles through tools. Mistakes can be corrected on short
notice—with the next iteration likely more productive than the previous one. While
an exploratory mindset expects certain things from tools and their user interfaces,
good tools for exploration can even foster such an exploratory mindset. As illustrated
in Fig. 1, exploratory tools have been around for a long time such as the Smalltalk
workspace (Goldberg, 1983), the Unix shell (Raymond, 2004), and notebooks for
scientific computing (Pimentel et al., 2015).
However, it is not easy for inexperienced programmers to learn about and grow
an exploratory mindset. Even if the appropriate tools are at hand, it can be challeng-
ing to use them effectively and efficiently. Many best practices are supported
(or even promoted) through tools but not easily discovered during normal use.
Without proper guidance, you may never leave the traditional path, that is, remaining
pleased with the habits you acquired by chance, completing your tasks in a “good
enough” fashion. Provided that you are a tool builder in a foreign environment, it can
be challenging to pinpoint specific issues but rather to criticize everything that does
not feel “like home.” For example, if you prefer the programming experience in a
Smalltalk environment, you might be tempted to recreate its entirety for your
JavaScript workflow. While there is the Lively system for modern web development
(Ingalls et al., 2008; Lincke et al., 2017) in the spirit of Smalltalk, it took a great
effort and many resources to reach its productivity level as of today. Instead of
specific tool implementations, we are looking for a way to capture the essence of
exploratory programming practices—covering both mindset and tools—and that is
easily accessible for learners and practitioners—for tool users and tool builders.
We apply the idea of patterns to capture the core of best practices for exploratory
programming. Originally promoted for architectural design (Alexander, 1979),
patterns have proven useful for software design (Gamma et al., 1995) as well as
for guiding human behavior (Iba & Isaku, 2016). We like the generative aspects of
the pattern form, which allows for variation while clearly separating the repetitive
elements. For example, there is clearly an overlap between Smalltalk workspaces
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 113
and Unix shells, but it is not easy to see for a non-expert. The patterns in this chapter
build upon our previous work. Our experience with tools for exploration stems from
the Squeak/Smalltalk programming system (Ingalls et al., 1997), which we have
been using in teaching and research for more than a decade. Our first take on patterns
approached the concepts of enabling and controlling exploration (Taeumel et al.,
2021). Our second take presented actions around direct window manipulation
(Taeumel & Hirschfeld, 2021), which we collected during our work on the Vivide
tool-building platform (Taeumel, 2020).
In this chapter, we contribute a pattern language around the conversation style
that happens between programmers and their environments using workspace-like
tools: the exploratory programming workspace. The central pattern “Conversation in
Context” describes the typical question/response cycle that programmers follow to
learn more during their programming task such as the location of a bug or the best
way to implement a new feature. The three main components of that interaction lead
to the other patterns: “Elaborate Inquiry” and “Coach Your Environment” dive into
questions, “Concept in Shards” and “Proxy Transport” talk about the context,
“Simple Response” and “Tangible Response” address responses. The last pattern
“Pause and Explore” embeds a single conversation into the bigger picture, because
programmers must often manage multiple conversations at the same time.
In Sect. 2, we describe the pattern form and agents we use in each pattern. We also
give an overview of all pattern’s intents. In Sects. 3–10, we present the eight patterns
in this pattern language. Finally in Sect. 11, we conclude this chapter with a
discussion on pattern quality and possible next steps.
In this section, we describe the elements (or form) of each pattern, give an overview
of all intents in our pattern language, and elaborate on the agents whose character-
istics and actions we try to capture in each pattern. It is all about you working on a
project in an environment while continually switching between different interaction
contexts.
Our pattern language includes eight patterns. The first and the last pattern frame the
middle ones, which are organized in pairs dealing with questions, context, and
responses, respectively. Each pattern’s intent is as follows:
Conversation in Context (Sect. 3) Ask the environment one or more questions to
better understand the context you are currently working with. Iteratively revise
each question until you are satisfied with the environment’s response. In follow-
up questions, refer to prior responses to make your wording (and the responses)
more expressive and precise.
Elaborate Inquiry (questions, Sect. 4) Decompose the topic of your conversation
into parts. Then compose your central question from multiple sub-questions
according to those parts. Let the environment manage the topic’s complexity to
reduce your cognitive load and hence the risk of making mistakes.
Coach Your Environment (questions, Sect. 5) Extend the environment’s knowl-
edge by adding information to the current interaction context. Extend its language
vocabulary by adding tools for reference in follow-up questions. Both kinds of
additions can either come from your memory (and experience) or be loaded from
external resources.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 115
We are aware that readers of this chapter might not necessarily identify themselves
as programmers. Even though non-professional, end-user programming is wide-
spread (Burnett & Myers, 2014; Ko et al., 2011), we think that exploratory pro-
gramming affects devoted programmers more than hobbyists. The exploratory
mindset covers more than just “getting things done;” it entails an intensive relation-
ship with the computational medium. Therefore, each pattern’s “You” addresses the
reader as if they were programmers who really want to dive into source code to make
their software project not just working but simple and inspiring.
The exploratory programmer—meaning you—might be working on a multitude
of programming tasks where conversations—and thus our pattern language—can
provide guidance. Besides hunting down bugs or designing new features, program-
mers also add commentary to source code or write tests for untested modules. They
might also teach new team members about existing system components directly
through the live system, which is more credible than talking about (dead) documen-
tation. In all these cases, programmers engage with the programming environment
and its tools to investigate and learn.
Tool builders are programmers, too. While your project’s goal is mainly about
new software for your customers, there is other software to be built or adapted on
the side: the programming tools. In our pattern language, you will notice require-
ments for specific services that the programming environment has to provide. It is
the job of tool builders to ensure that there are tools in the environment that comply.
116 M. Taeumel et al.
If not, tool-using programmers cannot follow the particular pattern’s guidance. So,
when a problem force claims that “It is easy to ...” or the pattern structure dictates
that “The environment should ...,” tool builders have to take action. Note that every
programmer can take on the role of a builder, even ad-hoc during a task.
The environment has a knowledge base, which you will constantly probe and expand
during conversations: the interaction context. The context is the passive counterpart
to the active environment. It is separate from the language vocabulary and contains
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 117
3 Conversation in Context
Ask the environment one or more questions to better understand the context you are
currently working with. Iteratively revise each question until you are satisfied with
the environment’s response. In follow-up questions, refer to prior responses to make
your wording (and the responses) more expressive and precise.
Note that the actual representations of questions and responses are not captured in
this pattern. We assume that you want to engage with the environment in a direct
conversation to help you move forward in your programming task. There can be
many reasons for why you would want to keep up a conversation, such as unclear
wording in your prior question or confusing details in a prior response. Represen-
tations might be textual, visual, or even audible, which depends on your human–
computer interface.
Imagine that you read about the notion of DateAndTime in a piece of documen-
tation. Now you want to learn more about it. By example, you reason like this:
“Today is Friday. The environment should know that. Let’s ask it.” Visually, the
conversation might have happened as follows:
First, you found a space on screen where the environment could listen to your
questions. Second, you posed several questions using the (programming) language
that the environment could understand. In this case, simple text-based representa-
tions of both questions and responses drove the conversation successfully. Finally,
you learned more about the interface of DateAndTime, which is knowledge that you
can now apply in your task (and program).
You want to ask the environment a question about something you have on your
mind, that is, within a context. You also know about the (textual or visual) language
that the environment can understand, that is, evaluate to present a notable response.
However, you cannot directly express your thoughts even though you have the
feeling that the environment has all the information it needs to answer your ques-
tions, to help you move forward.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 119
• It is easy to type, draw, or drop something using your input devices (e.g.,
keyboard, mouse, or touch screen).
• It is difficult to find a space where (1) you can focus on phrasing the question and
(2) the environment will (try to) respond.
• It is difficult to find the right words for a question the first time.
• The environment’s responses can be too technical or verbose, thus not compre-
hensible immediately.
Therefore, you engage with the environment and establish a conversation to
learn more about the current context. First, you locate a space where the environment
waits for your direct input. Then you type, draw, or drop something that complies
with the environment’s language. After posing your question, you make a gesture to
let the environment evaluate your words and present a response. After your initial
interaction, you can establish a conversation through (revised) follow-up questions
to clarify misunderstandings or unpack complexity. Consequently, you can rely on
the environment to maintain a history of prior questions and responses. On the one
hand, you can easily revise your prior wording. On the other hand, you can precisely
refer to selected pieces of information you just acquired. Your goal is to continue this
conversation until you fully understand the environment’s response(s).
3.4 Consequences
Direct conversations with the environment reduce the need for taking offline notes.
Both histories of questions and responses document your thoughts and can thus help
you remember them later in the process. Plus, the notes you would take outside the
environment would be detached from what actually goes on in your project, chal-
lenging to synchronize. Being immersed within your environment, instead, you can
easily build up trust in your knowledge and your decisions.
A conversation can only be as effective as its representations for questions and
responses. For example, if you cannot express your thoughts in text, you might wish
to draw a shape instead. Yet, the environment’s language might not support a visual
syntax. At worst, inappropriate representations can be misleading and thus time-
consuming.
The environment’s response might be “rich” and interactive in the sense that it
promotes you to a different tool (window) and experience. In a similar fashion, your
questions might also be formed through an elaborate interaction using keyboard,
mouse, or touch. That is, even though there are many text-based command-line
interfaces following the “Conversation in Context” pattern, you might also be able to
establish conversations through a graphical tool’s interactive widgets.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 121
The environment benefits from an efficient window manager to help you organize
your questions and responses on the screen. Screen space is limited, and you might
struggle finding a “quiet place” where you can focus on your next conversation.
Multiple other conversations might also be in progress at the same time. The
integration of multiple tools (and windows) might become an issue. Otherwise,
you have to repeat your query in every new conversation, risking mistakes on
the way.
The environment should respond as fast as possible; it should create a feeling of
liveness during conversations. Otherwise, there is a chance of you losing interest in
engaging with the environment in the first place. To avoid unnecessary workload in
the environment, you finish your question with an extra gesture. Yet, unforeseen
complications might increase the time before you can receive and read a response.
Maybe you even want a pause button to be able to further explore the environment’s
current progress to then cancel and revise your question.
The history of prior questions and responses might consume many resources, thus
possibly interfering with your other tasks. You might not be able to decide when to
discard older information. You might not even know about the actual footprint of a
question or response. So, the environment should probably figure out a way to
discard deprecated information and compress redundant details to save resources.
It might be able to inform you about the most demanding artifacts to help you make
critical decisions.
This pattern is the umbrella for all other patterns in this chapter:
• The questions in a conversation are covered in “Elaborate Inquiry” and “Coach
Your Environment.”
• The context that the environment needs to evaluate each question is covered in
“Concept in Shards” and “Proxy Transport.”
• The responses that the environment produces is covered in “Simple Response”
and “Tangible Response.”
The final pattern “Pause and Explore” complements the liveness and flow (that
we strive for in each conversation) with the importance to manage conversations at a
higher level and be able to reflect on every little detail.
122 M. Taeumel et al.
4 Elaborate Inquiry
Decompose the topic of your conversation into parts. Then compose your central
question from multiple sub-questions according to those parts. Let the environment
manage the topic’s complexity to reduce your cognitive load and hence the risk of
making mistakes.
Simple questions are good conversation starters. You learn about the environment’s
vocabulary and can easily browse the current interaction context. Soon you begin to
wonder whether it is possible to combine selected pieces of information, that is, prior
questions or responses. There are some operations that you could do in your head or
on a piece of paper such as picking the longest entry from a longer list, sorting a
shorter list alphabetically, or removing all odd numbers from a list. However, all of
these operations are tedious and error-prone, especially if done repeatedly and
manually. And your exploratory journey has just begun. Many interesting artifacts
might lie ahead, waiting to be explored. Computers are generally good at sorting,
filtering, and transforming millions of data points repeatedly and efficiently. You just
have to apply the environment’s means of combination and abstraction.
We assume that the environment’s language is either a general-purpose or
domain-specific programming language that allows for combining simple expres-
sions. Such a language does not have to be textual but usually is. Provided that you
are working in a Unix shell, you can easily combine small (filter) programs through
pipes:
curl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix \
| grep -o -P ’href="/wiki/.*?"’ | sort | uniq \
| sed -r ’s/href="(.+)"/https:\/\/2.zoppoz.workers.dev:443\/http\/en.wikipedia.org\1/g’ \
> urls.txt
This program fetches a website, extracts URLs from its contents in a sorted and
unique fashion, and finally writes everything into the urls.txt file. You can now use
this “Elaborate Inquiry” to continue exploration at a higher level, that is, for
extracting URLs from arbitrary websites.
A language’s means of abstraction can help you wrap complex questions (i.e., the
combinations) into modules (e.g., functions) which you can then refer to by name in
follow-up questions. For example, think about the beginning of the Fibonacci
sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3. You want to know the tenth number but not calculate it by
hand. So, you begin a conversation and describe the underlying rule of the sequence,
which is “Add the two prior numbers to get the next one.” Visually, the conversation
might have happened as follows:
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 123
First, you wrote a little reminder about what you want to discuss here. Then you
designed the underlying rule as a recursive function, which you labeled “fib.” You
tried out the function multiple times until you got it right. Finally, you collected the
sequence up to ten and found your definitive answer: 55. Given that function, you
asked for the 100th number, but after waiting for a while you decided to cancel the
computation without getting a response.
You are in the middle of a “Conversation in Context.” It turns out that the topic you
are interested in has several aspects with rather complex relationships. You notice a
substantial risk of making mistakes, relying on guesswork.
However, you struggle with comprehending the environment’s responses
because their complexity outranks your questions’ simplicity. Follow-up questions
only increase your cognitive load because you start to combine facts in your head
rather than letting the environment combine the facts for you.
• It is easy to ask follow-up questions that refer to prior responses.
• Such follow-up questions benefit from a good understanding of prior responses.
• It is difficult to manually interpret complex responses.
• Mistakes in understanding can infect follow-up questions.
• It is difficult to express your complex thoughts using primitive vocabulary.
Therefore, you adhere to a modular approach when (com-)posing your (follow-
up) questions. At best, the final revision of your central question will satisfy your
entire informational need. First, you decompose the topic of your conversation
into—more or less isolated—parts. Second, you compose your question from
sub-questions, each addressing one important part. The combination of
sub-questions will naturally process the environment’s intermediate responses.
Consequently, the manual, error-prone act of posing multiple follow-up question
will become an automated, robust one. The environment will immediately tell you
when you make a mistake. Eventually, you will feel like an author who can safely
124 M. Taeumel et al.
prepare the script for a play, rather than a person who is trapped in the middle of a
heated discussion.
4.4 Consequences
If you can manage to reduce the conversation to a single (or few) composite question
(s), your cognitive load will be reduced, too, because the environment can process
even millions of data points without making any mistake. Yet, you have to be sure to
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 125
ask the correct questions or you will be faced with millions of misleading results.
Overall, an “Elaborate Inquiry” is more prone to errors than a couple of simple
(r) questions.
While the environment can be optimized to ensure quick response times for
simple questions using only standard vocabulary, complex questions might take
longer to process. Without taking extra care, your “Elaborate Inquiry” can easily
include operations whose time-to-process grows exponentially. A progress indica-
tion can help you assess the impact of your question, but then you need to be able to
pause or cancel the computation to fix your mistake.
Think about a conversation with another person. There, you can give instructions
like “Imagine that you are visiting a foreign city.” You can keep on describing the
situation like “Now your smartphone stops working.” And finally, you can ask
questions like “How would you find the next good Italian restaurant?” The other
person is able to learn about (imaginary) constraints to then reason within those
constraints while answering questions. Your programming environment can do that,
too. You just have to coach it.
Your questions can be as expressive as the environment’s vocabulary. Thus, if
you install new tools, that vocabulary can grow. For example, there are tools for
static and dynamic analysis that allow for very specific questions about your
system’s modular structure.
The environment’s responses are only as informative as the data they are based
on. Thus, if you load more information from external sources into the current
interaction context, the same questions can yield more meaningful responses. For
126 M. Taeumel et al.
example, if you ask questions about photographs (e.g., number of recognized faces),
having more photos available will increase the responses’ quality.
You can also coach your environment by writing prototypical programs. In
object-oriented systems, programmers often explore the interfaces of objects. They
instantiate classes, send messages to the instances, and observe the (side) effects. It is
still a conversation with the environment, but with a focus on selected objects in
particular. Side effects play an important role when “setting up the scene” before any
meaningful question can be asked.
Provided that you wanted to learn more about event handling, you prepared the
scene as follows:
First, you instantiated a Morph (i.e., a basic shape) and positioned it on the screen
(here: the world). Then you configured an event handler to react on mouse clicks.
The handler will either log information on the Transcript (here: event printString) or
change the Morph to a random color (here: Color random). Clicking this prototypical
button is still part of the conversation about understanding event handling. Every
click is a question, the change of color a response. You taught the environment how
to do this.
You are in the middle of a “Conversation in Context.” You repeatedly question the
quality of the environment’s responses. You get the feeling that the environment’s
knowledge about the current topic is too limited.
However, you cannot think of a better way to phrase your questions so that the
environment might provide a satisfactory response.
• It is difficult to know everything about a topic.
• It is easy to learn something new during a conversation.
• Your questions must use the vocabulary from the environment’s language.
• The quality of responses depends on the environment’s knowledge (i.e., current
interaction context).
• Both language/vocabulary and knowledge/context can be extended during
conversations.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 127
Therefore, you tell the environment to remember new things so that it can react
differently to your follow-up questions. Technically speaking, your interactions with
the environment should have side effects. You can add information to the current
context by writing down what you know in a primitive form (e.g., text, numbers,
records). You can also tell the environment to load external information from outside
its boundaries (e.g., host file system, network storage, Internet/Web content).
Considering the environment’s language, you can add new vocabulary like you
would in an “Elaborate Inquiry” using, for example, labels (or names) for new
classes/methods or the information you just loaded into the interaction context.
Note that you can also load external tools into the environment, which usually
bring along additional vocabulary as well. This extra vocabulary can help you
make your follow-up questions more precise.
5.4 Consequences
If you are not careful, you can break the environment’s current context. For example,
you can get punished for your coaching if you overwrite existing knowledge with
useless (or wrong) facts. Follow-up questions will then yield misleading results. You
can also tamper with the language vocabulary in the sense that once meaningful
questions cannot be processed anymore. Fortunately, many environments support
“undoing” your latest mistakes to then continue the conversation in a fruitful
manner.
The state of having too limited knowledge can quickly turn into an oversupply of
information. It can then be difficult to narrow down a question to get a response that
you can actually understand. Some external sources might be of poor quality, which
will further increase your cognitive effort because you will constantly have to
scrutinize the value of the environment’s responses. Having no information on a
topic is easy to check, an oversupply, however, time-consuming to explore.
Your questions might head into the wrong direction, which might be why the
environment seems to have no valuable responses for you. Instead of loading new
external information, you might want to backtrack and double-check the point where
your environment became less helpful. Maybe you made a mistake earlier that needs
to be corrected.
Both “Coach Your Environment” and “Elaborate Inquiry” are close friends.
6 Concept in Shards
Relevant information might be scattered all over the environment. Do not be satisfied
with the first useful response. Keep asking questions to reduce guesswork and to
gain more substantial insight. If necessary, import external knowledge from outside
the environment.
concrete details about abstract code. While details can be overwhelming at times,
programmers have the chance to explore first-hand, reliable facts if they manage to
persevere. Here is a typical interface of a debugger in an object-oriented
environment:
You are in the middle of a “Conversation in Context.” You just got the first response
that has information you are looking for.
However, you notice that several important details of the conversation’s topic are
still unclear or missing. You wonder whether you should start to “Coach Your
Environment” about what you know from your own experience. But then you
remember:
• The environment’s knowledge (i.e., current interaction context) encompasses
many (software) artifacts.
• A concept (or topic) might reach across artifact (or module) boundaries.
• It is easy to ask follow-up questions.
• It is possible to combine multiple responses in an “Elaborate Inquiry.”
Therefore, you keep on having this conversation to collect more details. The
concept you are talking about lies “in shards” virtually in front of you. You just have
130 M. Taeumel et al.
to pick up each individual piece to appreciate its value. Do not stop at the first piece
but reason over a comprehensive amount of information. While you might not be
able to collect all shards of a concept, the relevant fraction will bring you further.
Note that there might be relevant knowledge located outside your environment.
Therefore, you might have to “Coach Your Environment,” after all, in how to access
the external knowledge.
6.4 Consequences
conversations could derail your train of thought. You have to be extra careful not to
lose focus.
When comparing pieces of information, it can be challenging to assess the quality
of similar pieces coming from different (external) sources. If you accumulate too
much similar information in your conversation’s interaction context, follow-up
questions can become tricky to pose or their responses cumbersome to handle.
When loading external information into the environment, you can face conse-
quences similar to the ones of “Coach You Environment.” An oversupply of
information can noticeably increase your cognitive effort.
While you “Coach Your Environment” to reach a shard outside the environment, a
“Proxy Transport” can help you reduce memory consumption within the environ-
ment. An “Elaborate Inquiry” can help you connect all relationships in a
compact form.
7 Proxy Transport
The environment’s knowledge is limited. You can surely talk about all the code
artifacts that you have created. After all, code management is among the primary
features of the environment’s tools. However, there is much information only
indirectly related to the software system under construction: tickets in a bug tracker,
emails in your inbox, or documents in a forum. Chances are that your environment
does not manage all these artifacts itself but that other environments take care of it.
There are two main reasons why you should not just copy external knowledge
into your environment. First, its actuality can quickly be compromised if outside
tools keep on updating the information without informing your copy. Second, your
resources and your environment’s resources are limited. It can take a while to copy
data from external environments, which can conflict with the time you estimated for
your current task. At some point, your local machine might be out of memory, or the
tools need what seems like an eternity to provide meaningful results. Consequently,
132 M. Taeumel et al.
You can now have conversations in the same way as you would about artifacts
stored inside the environment. Yet, if the external files get moved without notice, the
flow in your conversation will break. You have to make the trade-off between
availability and efficiency.
You are in the middle of a “Conversation in Context.” You want to “Coach Your
Environment” to load external information, maybe because your central “Concept in
Shards” pointed to a shard outside the environment.
However, you realize that the external information sources you selected are
rather demanding in terms of access time and/or memory consumption.
• It is easy to load external information into the current interaction context.
• The environment relies on the context’s common format (e.g., objects, files,
tables).
• It is easy to map an external format (e.g., files) onto the context’s format (e.g.,
objects).
• It is difficult to find a good mapping, meaning, one that fits your conversation’s
needs (e.g., file’s contents to object’s fields).
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 133
7.4 Consequences
The biggest issue with proxies is a leaky abstraction in the middle of a conversation.
For example, if you talk about an artifact that you did not know was a proxy, a
sudden increase of response times—because an external resource became
unavailable—can break the entire flow of that conversation. You can then either
choose to become a tool builder to fix it or you can exclude that artifact from your
conversation and risk guesswork.
The second biggest issue is “proxification,” because in many environments you
have to construct a proxy transport for external artifacts yourself. It is typically not a
single button click but involves actual programming effort. Depending on the quality
of the external source, you might risk not having a caching strategy to be able to
quickly return to your conversation. However, a leaking proxy might bring you back
to the construction site more quickly than you want. Eventually, programmers often
try to bring external information closer to the environment if it cannot be loaded
entirely into the environment. For example, information from the Web can be cached
in a database on your computer. Your environment can then access that (still
external) database without any noticeable lag of a slow network connection.
You will have to “Coach Your Environment” to set up the proxies for external
information, which can itself be part of your conversation’s central “Concept in
Shards.” Note that the Proxy pattern is common in object-oriented software design
(Gamma et al., 1995), which provides implementation guidelines for tool builders.
8 Simple Response
Every question has a simple response. Do not hesitate but ask away; embrace trial-
and-error. A text will appear, a picture will render, a sound will play—tackle
complexity with a combination of these.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 135
Every screen cluttered with a multitude of windows, each one filled with plenty of
information, is made of simpler, comprehensible elements. Not just the windows
(or views) themselves, but also their contents are made of smaller pieces. Color,
shape, animation, and interaction help users to distinguish a single piece from its
surroundings. We know what buttons look like and that we can click on them. We
know that textual labels in a list view can be selected. We know that such labels
represent abstract handles to more structured information. Think of your address
book as an example with all its details about your friends. Of course, at some point,
we had to learn about these elements, but now we know and expect certain things
from a graphical interface.
During conversations, the environment will give you responses that look rather
simple, even if they entail more complexity. In object-oriented systems, for example,
every object has a print-string, which is a textual representation of its most prom-
inent (and identifying) features. That print-string is used in many tools to provide
you with familiarity during exploration. You will read it and might think: “Ah! I
know this object from before.” Therefore, simple responses will keep you oriented
and focused during conversations.
However, simple responses can be misleading. If you forgot to “Coach Your
Environment” about the identifying features of a new kind of domain object, the
environment can only present generic features. Take the following list of fruit
objects as an example. On the left, there is only a generic representation, which is
difficult to explore. In the middle, the kind of fruit got exposed, which made you
realize that a Tomato might be in the wrong class. On the right, you see a more visual
take on each object’s features:
8.4 Consequences
9 Tangible Response
During conversations, you and the environment will fill the screen with (visual)
information. Your questions take space, and so do the environment’s responses.
Therefore, you have to keep track of the meaning of all those visuals. Yet, occa-
sionally, the environment will show you something that you do not quite understand
(or have already forgotten about). Then, the follow-up question is simple: “What
is that?” You can use touch or mouse input to point at something; you can also use
the keyboard to move a cursor to indicate curiosity. In any case, you want to look
“behind the pixels” on screen. A textual label might hide details about an important
artifact. A graphical composite might be connected to data as well.
In the Web, documents offer clickable (hyper-)links. We have gotten used to
hovering over and clicking on anything colorful and suspicious. Yet, your program-
ming environment can offer more tangibility than plain web browsers do. It can help
you deconstruct and explore everything you see. The following examples indicate
tangible interactions during conversations:
On the left, you told the environment to create and show a button that is now
sitting on the screen, waiting to be clicked on. In the middle, you discovered a special
gesture to open a halo (Maloney & Smith, 1995) around a window to take a look at
its composite structure. On the right, you found a link in a text field that you can click
on to explore more information. Overall, your environment can help you explore and
understand everything it knows and shows.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 139
You are in the middle of a “Conversation in Context.” You just got an interesting
“Simple Response” and want to learn more about its details.
However, you cannot figure out how to ask the environment about details without
knowing what lies behind that simple form of the latest response. You are not sure
whether there is any vocabulary to express your intent.
• It is easy to touch or click on something that is visible on screen.
• It is more difficult (but possible) to indirectly reference prior responses in a
follow-up question.
• A response can be a (generic) question on its own: what is this?
Therefore, you directly engage (i.e., click/touch/activate) with the response as it
is represented on screen (Hutchins et al., 1985). The environment will treat this
interaction as a generic “What is this?” question, whose response will be more
detailed and informative, yet keeping it simple in its parts. You then “Pause and
Explore” until you are ready for your next follow-up question. You might already be
satisfied and finish the conversation. You might also have many new different
questions and thus spawn several new conversations. Note that the “Conversation
in Context” maintains a history of prior responses so that you can engage with any of
them later on as well.
9.4 Consequences
Direct manipulation for exploration needs dedicated gestures such as mouse clicks.
Yet, graphical, interactive objects already need many gestures for normal interac-
tions. Thus, for tool builders, the design challenge is to find a trade-off between
extra/hidden/overlapping gestures to integrate exploratory and normal use. A special
exploration mode can help to temporarily free reserved gestures from such objects.
Visual clutter affects the size of click targets, which can lead to input errors. It
might be easier to indirectly reference a prior response in a follow-up question than
to interact with it, even if it is visible on screen. Any “Conversation in Context”
should reserve enough screen space for you to compose your question. Even if
graphical objects get occluded, you can rely on programmatic references such as
variable names.
The direct inspection of a response leads to “Pause and Explore” and thus another
conversation about the response’s details.
A single conversation will probably not satisfy all the information needs that arise
during an exploratory programming task. Chances are that you hit a block in one
conversation that can only be resolved by approaching the topic from a different
perspective in another conversation. The environment has several specialized tools
that each offer their own conversational interactions. Therefore, you keep on
jumping between tools to collect all their insights. The environment’s window
manager helps you organize screen contents and thus all open conversations:
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 141
Note that, in the process, you can only focus on a single conversation at a time
(Miyata & Norman, 1986). Also, resuming suspended conversations takes extra time
(Parnin & Rugaber, 2011). On the bright side, you can ask very precise questions
through specialized tools, whose constraints allow them to also provide very specific
responses. After all, your exploratory journey benefits from a rich tool set and your
ability to select and integrate appropriate tools as you go.
10.4 Consequences
Efficient conversation management relies on a good window manager, just like when
collecting your “Concept in Shards.” Too many (overlapping) windows will clutter
the screen and thus affect click targets of a “Tangible Response.” Overall, you might
lose your focus and forget about which conversation was spawned because of which
other conversation.
You might want to merge two conversations if you realize they lead you to
complementary insights. Technically speaking, you might want to merge two
(scoped) interaction contexts to then continue your conversation based on a com-
prehensive knowledge base.
A Pattern Language of an Exploratory Programming Workspace 143
Every time you take a break from one conversation to explore data in the context of
another one, you will find you way back to a “Conversation in Context” and with it
all patterns that come along.
11 Conclusion
Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the HPI Research School
on Service-oriented Systems Engineering (www.hpi.de/en/research/research-schools) and the
Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program (www.hpi.de/en/dtrp).
144 M. Taeumel et al.
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Practice-to-Research: Translating
Company Phenomena into Empirical
Research
Innovation Behavior in Turbulent Times
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 147
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
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148 L. Mayer et al.
1 Introduction
The basis for this chapter is the lead author’s doctoral research project with an
industry partner,1 which we have kept anonymous for reasons of confidentiality. The
company’s headquarters is located in Germany. It employs more than 110,000
people worldwide, with approximately 39,000 employees working at the headquar-
ters itself. We describe how employees shared stories and observations with the
research group and how these narratives led to the empirical design of a survey to
assess employees’ innovation behavior during turbulent times. Shortly after the start
of the project, the corporation was going through a fundamental reorganization
which was set to last for the succeeding 3 years. Next to planned labor shortage,
the new organizational strategy came with newly formed teams. Responsibilities
were additionally shifted from governance units to business units, thereby providing
more autonomy to business units enabling them to act and adapt faster.
One of the complex challenges of conducting research in industry is to match
scientific research gaps and questions with organizational interests. While industry
partners are looking for direct practical and hands-on implications of the results,
researchers have to follow strict scientific standards to get valid and reliable results to
add value to an existing body of literature. Another dilemma emerges when
researchers want to study a specific condition, derived from an academic standpoint
and research gap, which is not or only partially reflected in the organizational
context. This dilemma was the impetus for this research project. While the experi-
ence was troubling at first, it provided an opportunity to seek a more practice-
embedded research topic and to observe and listen to organizational relevant topics
with an unbiased perspective.
We describe this approach of identifying company phenomena, matching them
with suitable explanations in the literature, deriving a research gap, defining con-
structs, and the subsequent study design. In this way we believe industry research
scholars can make a two-fold contribution—both to the scientific community and by
offering applicable organizational results.
1
The corresponding analysis reported in our empirical paper was accepted at the 28th Innovation
and Product Management Conference (access via MayerMayer et al., 2021).
Practice-to-Research: Translating Company Phenomena into Empirical Research 149
The final inspiration for this study came from a conversation with an employee
who worked in the internal consultancy department of the organization. He told us
about his experiences accompanying two independent innovation project teams.
During the exploration phase2, one of the teams (Team A), which today is an internal
startup, finished their exploratory activities in around eight months. The members of
the other team (Team B) belonged to a subsidiary company. This team completed the
exploration phase in approximately two months. Surprisingly, Team B was highly
motivated, although these employees were not sure whether or not they would keep
their jobs—the subsidiary company had announced plans to cut staff. This made us
wonder if the pressure and potential of losing jobs urged employees to create results
faster. From a psychological standpoint, we were, however, not satisfied with
looking at the phenomena of putting employees under pressure. Hence, we reversed
the question and opted to examine whether organizational factors could foster
employees’ innovation behavior, so they can exhibit their full potential. Walking
away from the conversation, we wondered: In moments of crisis, how do
employees feel? And how does this influence their innovativeness?
AHA-Moment: The team that had to deal with the fear of job loss was more
motivated and it finished the innovation exploration phase earlier than the
other team.
We considered this story within the overall context of an extensive restructuring.
Such a reorganization is accompanied by constant change, agitation, upheaval, and
loss, which can lead to feelings of insecurity for individuals (e.g., Keim et al., 2014).
At the same time, innovation research suggests that a safe working environment is
crucial for employees to engage in open conversations, generate innovative ideas,
and allow for new thing to happen unintentionally (e.g., Anderson et al., 2014).
We captured this narrative in 2019 and started to deep dive into the literature to
set up a study design. At the beginning of 2020, we were close to completing our
survey design. This time marked the starting weeks of the Covid-19 spread in
Europe. Hence, in addition to the internal structural alterations in the company,
everyone faced the economic and personal effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
This combination of events reinforced the experience of uncertain times and the fit of
our research topic.
During such globally unstable times, the topic of job security is of particular
relevance and it has been discussed in relevant research trend publications, such as
the “Innovation and Covid-19: Impulses for the Future of Innovation”3 report by the
German research institute Fraunhofer (Bauer et al., 2021). The authors state that the
pandemic has led to a heightened insecurity in companies and markets, which could
lead to innovation budget cuts. They conclude that companies should try to prevent
this situation by further increasing their competitive ability in reaction to these
challenges.
2
Innovation processes within the company are commonly divided into three phases: Exploration/
Discovery/Ideation, Incubation/Prototype, and Acceleration/Grow.
3
Translated from the German report title.
150 L. Mayer et al.
Furthermore, employee insecurity has also become an emphasized focus point for
important industry bodies: In 2020, the German trade union IG Metall (representing
the metal industry) centered “job security” as their core topic for their collective
bargaining (retrieved from the German newspaper SZ online on November, 4, 2021
www.sueddeutsche.de).
The appearance of our research topic in public and contemporary research
literature assured us that it was not only relevant for our partner company, but that
the phenomena were experienced throughout society and needed to be examined in
more detail.
The internal employee’s story was our ignition point to dive into literature on
creative and innovative behavior, organizational behavior and crisis. Our first
impulse was to look for a construct and measure that captures the extent to which
employees feel that their jobs are safe and secure, using the keyword search “job
security.” Quickly, it became obvious that the inverted construct “job insecurity”
(JI)4 was represented more prominently in the existing literature and only a few
papers examined “job security” as a variable (e.g., Probst & Lawler, 2006; Davy
et al., 1997).
Employees are central for organizations. Their innovative behaviors are vital for
the innovation performance of an organization (see, e.g., Strobl et al., 2020).
Organizations should therefore take measures to stimulate the innovation willing-
ness of employees and promote their innovation behavior.
If employees go through a profound internal reorganization while experiencing
the threat of a global pandemic, this can create a feeling of unpredictability and lack
of control (Keim et al., 2014). If on top of that, innovation is expected from
employees, a challenging situation arises for both them and their employer.
Figure 1 depicts how we translated the narrative and the organization’s situation
into scientific and quantifiable terms.
In summary, we derived the following research questions:
In moments of crisis,
– how do employees perceive their job security?
– how does this influence their innovation behavior?
– which environmental factors could be fostering individual innovation behavior?
4
Two major conceptualizations for JI exist in the literature: quantitative vs. qualitative JI, and
cognitive vs. affective JI. We decided for the more recent differentiation between quantitative and
qualitative JI (e.g., see review by Shoss, 2017, p. 1913). Quantitative JI captures to what extent
employees fear losing their job, and qualitative JI to what extent they are afraid of losing important
job characteristics (e.g., change of location).
Practice-to-Research: Translating Company Phenomena into Empirical Research 151
4 Moderator Search
It was important to us to pick moderator variables that were suitable and relevant for
the company context. We first collected an extensive list of possible moderators from
the literature5, and then discussed and verified them with our contact at the com-
pany.6 The conversation helped us to identify crucial factors that our contact
experienced as potential levers for employees in the innovation landscape.
As factors hindering innovation aspects, the contact listed “no time, no leadership
by results, little appreciation from leadership and little rewarding, no customer
validation, no training/how-to/coaching, company is not market-based.”
He also named some supportive characteristics, all referring to the employee
themselves: “intrinsic motivation, working closely with the customer, hierarchy
aversive people, those providing ecosystems and networks, experience with internal
projects (based on long history of know-how).” Besides this, he mentioned “many
degrees of freedom (e.g. budget)” as beneficial for employees’ innovative activities.
In other conversations, employees told us about feeling micromanaged, not
having the freedom to get work done but feeling instead like jour-fixes and meetings
prevented them from engaging in their “real tasks.” Another narrative referred to the
board and middle management members. One employee described them “sitting
5
For example, based on the Shoss’ (2017) integrative review and her “Conceptual Model of
Antecedents and Outcomes of Job Insecurity.”
6
We did this in an open discussion asking which organizational factors he perceives as hindering
and which ones as supportive for employees in the innovation scene.
Practice-to-Research: Translating Company Phenomena into Empirical Research 153
behind an internal information filter,” where they could feel safe. He specified that
these filters are to be understood as time-fixed meetings with auditioned content. He
claimed that this prevents dynamics as well as honest conversations or transparency
about current and future states. Nonetheless, “behind that filter,” board and middle
management members are highly alert and aware that changes are necessary for the
company.
From these narratives and moderator suggestions in the literature (for theoretical
literature reviews, see Shoss, 2017, and De Witte, 2005; organizational relevance for
innovation climate is put forward in Anderson et al., 2014, and Crossan & Apaydin,
2010), we added three moderators to our study design: Organizational Support,
Participative Decision-Making, and Job Autonomy (see Fig. 2; short definitions are
summarized in 5 Final Study Design & Assessment). We presumed that each
moderator serves as a psychological contract variable that alters the direction of
the JI-IB link (see details in Mayer et al., 2021).
5 Defining Hypotheses
• H4: Job Autonomy (JA) moderates the negative relationship between JI and IB
such that the relationship becomes weaker as JA increases.
For our company partner, the survey story was crucial. It was necessary to commu-
nicate transparently with employees and to distinguish our survey from the
company’s own employee survey conducted by HR. The introductory story is
shown in Fig. 3.
Our contact also emphasized that we need to create a win–win situation for
colleagues to participate in the survey. If they take the time to fill in the survey
and provide their data, we need to consider what they can get and expect from us in
return. In response, we added a pdf file containing creative tips to start online
meetings as a gift—this came at a time when many employees had just shifted to
remote work and were new to facilitating online meetings.
We chose existing validated scales per variable to get robust results and aimed for
good construct scale reliabilities. For most constructs, we tried to choose prominent,
well-established measures.
All measures in our questionnaire captured self-reported ratings. In order to
counteract common method bias, we applied three recommendations from
Podsakoff et al. (2003). First, we informed participants that taking part in the survey
is completely voluntary, that all data will be aggregated and thereby anonymously
analyzed, and that there are no right or wrong responses. Second, we guaranteed for
proximal separation between the dependent variable (IB) and the independent
variable (JI) in our survey. IB was placed as the first itemset, and JI as the last
itemset within the questionnaire. Third, the introduction ensured psychological
separation.
A 5-point Likert response scale accompanied all measures (except for the control
variables). In total, seven persons contributed to the translation (from English into
German and back) of the scales. Four of these contributors work in innovation
research.
Additionally, we wanted to reassure that the item batteries, derived from the
literature, would resonate with the target audience of employees within the organi-
zation. Hence, we engaged in a conversation with a senior head of innovation and an
innovation inhouse consultant to capture their feedback and accommodate it where
possible. The final measures are listed below.
Job Insecurity (JI). Due to the incomplete assessment of JI in previous JI-IB
studies, we proceeded with measuring Qualitative as well as Quantitative JI.
Quantitative JI measures the level of fear that employees experience at the
prospect of losing their job.
We applied De Witte’s (2000) Job Insecurity Scale (JIS), which has been
validated in several languages (see Vander Elst et al., 2014). Also, the scale yields
scientific proof for good construct and criterion validity, as well as good reliability.
In particular, Vander Elst et al. (2014) even advise practitioners to use the short scale
for screening purposes. In accordance with our company partner, we included the
following two items: “Chances are, I will soon lose my job,” and “I feel insecure
about the future of my job.”
The qualitative dimension captures to what extent employees fear losing elements
of the job, such as fear of being passed up for a promotion in the near future. We
chose the scale Multidimensional Qualitative Job Insecurity Scale (MQJIS) by
Brondino et al. (2020) as a suitable one. The scale is composed of four dimensions
with eight items in total.
156 L. Mayer et al.
During our discussion sessions before the company assessment, as well as after-
wards when presenting results, we always had to make clear that we are talking about
“subjective, personal” Job Insecurity. Company members and researchers at confer-
ence meetings regularly voiced their concerns about measuring how secure
employees feel about their jobs in a corporation. They argued that the company
has solid contractual structures, providing high security and protecting against
gratuitous job loss. The construct we measured, perceived subjective JI. This does
not refer to written contracts that formalize mutual responsibilities and duties.
Following psychological contract theory, subjective JI applies to psychological
contracts in the shape of unwritten mutual expectation between employee and
employer (see Shoss & Probst, 2012).
Practice-to-Research: Translating Company Phenomena into Empirical Research 157
7 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have elaborated our embedded research approach to find inspi-
ration from narratives within an organization and to translate them into an empirical
study design. Going back and forth between literature and organizational voices
defined and shaped our study. Furthermore, we discussed in close loops with our
company partner. Thereby, we could adapt to company jargon, foresee potential
survey acceptance issues participants might have, and integrate valuable variables
into the company context. With this approach, we believe we could counter the
research-to-practice gap while gaining a unique data access, which otherwise would
not have been possible. Making sure that our observations from practice were
constantly aligned with research, we derive valuable insights and results on innova-
tive behavior in times of crisis also for companies beyond the study's organization
context.
Acknowledgements We thank the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Program and our company
partner for enabling this study and research collaboration. We want to convey our thanks to
Dr. Robert Rose for his extensive advice and contribution to the survey creation as well as to all
translation helpers. Many thanks to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for copyediting and language support.
References
Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-
of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Manage-
ment, 40(5), 1297–1333. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314527128
Bauer, W., Edler, J., Lauster, M., Martin, A., Morszeck, T. H., Posselt, T., et al. (2021). Innovation
und COVID-19: Impulse für die Zukunft der Innovation. Update 2021. Fraunhofer-Verbund
Innovationsforschung.
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Brondino, M., Bazzoli, A., Vander Elst, T., De Witte, H., & Pasini, M. (2020). Validation and
measurement invariance of the multidimensional qualitative job insecurity scale. Quality &
Quantity, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-020-00966-y
Crossan, M. M., & Apaydin, M. (2010). A multi-dimensional framework of organizational inno-
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Davy, J. A., Kinicki, A. J., & Scheck, C. L. (1997). A test of job security’s direct and mediated
effects on withdrawal cognitions. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International
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323–349.
De Jong, J., & Den Hartog, D. (2010). Measuring innovative work behaviour. Creativity and
innovation management, 19(1), 23–36.
De Spiegelaere, S., Van Gyes, G., De Witte, H., Niesen, W., & Van Hootegem, G. (2014). On the
relation of job insecurity, job autonomy, innovative work behaviour and the mediating effect of
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Strobl, A., Matzler, K., Nketia, B. A., & Veider, V. (2020). Individual innovation behavior and
firm-level exploration and exploitation: How family firms make the most of their managers.
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Vander Elst, T., De Witte, H., & De Cuyper, N. (2014). The job insecurity scale: A psychometric
evaluation across five European countries. European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology, 23(3), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.745989
Wang, D., Li, X., Zhou, M., Maguire, P., Zong, Z., & Hu, Y. (2019). Effects of abusive supervision
on employees’ innovative behavior: The role of job insecurity and locus of control. Scandina-
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tarife-frankfurt-am-main-ig-metall-jobsicherheit-und-weiterbildung-sind-schwerpunkte-dpa.
urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-200116-99-503753
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution
of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems
1 Introduction
Every day we interact with computational systems that adapt over time. For exam-
ple, smartphones learn from usage patterns and optimize their charging rate to
improve the lifespan of the battery.1 When users are typing on a smartphone,
1
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 161
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_9
162 P. Abtahi et al.
predictive text algorithms provide suggestions based on prior user activities to make
typing on a small keyboard more efficient.2 Another category of everyday technol-
ogy that learns and adapts over time is recommender systems (e.g., Spotify music,
YouTube videos). Recommender systems are also an integral part of social media
platforms and news websites and play an important role in the information we have
access to and the media we consume. Recommender systems learn from user activity
patterns and recommend posts and news articles that a particular user is likely to be
interested in, such that they can increase engagement with their platform.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices in smart homes are another set of dynamic
systems. These devices evolve over time as new user data arrives; however, due
to a lack of timely feedback, users’ mental model of the system remains largely
static. For example, the Nest Learning Thermostat learns by observing users’
interactions and identifying patterns. After a week of use, the thermostat learns
users’ temperature preferences and automatically schedules heating and cooling
throughout the day. It treats weekdays and weekends as separate entities and over
time becomes less sensitive to everyday changes. These design decisions as well as
the learned patterns are not effectively communicated to users. The dynamic nature
of the system and the constant change in behavior make understanding and
interacting with the system challenging for users. Particularly, when the system
makes incorrect decisions, by cooling or heating the space to an undesirable tem-
perature, users feel frustrated because they do not understand the learned pattern and
cannot correct it (Pernice, 2015).
The growing gap between a dynamic system’s state and the user mental model
leads to expectation violations and system incorrigibility. It is necessary to expose
the system state to users at different times throughout long-term interactions to
enable user mental models and dynamic systems to co-evolve and to ensure users
are well-positioned to handle system errors in cases of failure. This raises the
question: when and how often should we communicate system changes to
users? Perhaps the simplest strategy is to expose the system state at all times. This
approach is not feasible, because the system may change often, both globally
through software updates and locally as the system learns by observing implicit
and explicit interaction patterns. Moreover, the strategy of constant state exposures
does not scale to a large number of dynamic systems, which is inevitable given the
ubiquity of intelligent systems because they will all interrupt users simultaneously
and compete for their attention.
In this chapter, we explore state exposure timing strategies that enable users to
develop an up-to-date mental model of a system that continuously learns and evolves
over time (see Fig. 1). We begin by providing a brief background on mental models
and discuss how this next generation of computing systems challenges our tradi-
tional notions of good design and the user-centered processes we have established
for generating them. We then lay out the design space of timing strategies for state
exposure and report on our preliminary exploration using an article recommender
2
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207525.
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems 163
system. Finally, we highlight the need for new design methodologies to support the
real-time evaluation of user mental models and provide timely feedback.
2 Background
Fig. 2 Top: designers communicate their conceptual model of the system to users through the
system image, and users develop a mental model of how the system works through their interactions
with the system (Norman, 2013). Bottom: the open challenges that remain in understanding user
mental models and the role of designers in emerging dynamic systems that change and adapt over
time, highlighting the need for new design methodologies
adapt over time using a range of techniques, from simple heuristics to complex
machine learning. Moreover, most prior research in this space has focused on
studying mental models after explicit user interactions with the system. This
means proposing strategies that an intelligent agent can use to explain a particular
behavior or decision (Gero et al., 2020; Kulesza et al., 2013). Our exploration is
focused on the timing of state exposure in dynamic systems, not only after explicit
user interactions, but also as the system behavior changes over time.
The distinction between implicit and explicit interactions (Ju, 2015) is particularly
important in our discussion of timing strategies. When users are explicitly interacting
with a system (top left quadrant in Fig. 3) they expect feedback from the system and
this instance of interaction may be the appropriate time to provide an explanation.
For example, when the user clicks a button on a 2D graphical user interface, they
expect their input to be utilized in some way and the effects of their input can be
communicated then. However, when the system learns over time from implicit
commands (bottom left quadrant in Fig. 3) it becomes less clear when the changes
in the system can be communicated to users, particularly when the system performs a
silent action (bottom right quadrant in Fig. 3). For an example of such a system we
return to the Nest Learning Thermostat, where the thermostat silently adjusts the
room’s temperature based on the learned patterns. In this chapter, we explore the
design space of when and how frequently dynamic systems can expose their
dynamic state to users to engender more accurate mental models over time as they
learn from both explicit and implicit interactions.
In the remainder of this chapter, we refer to failures as instances where the system
behavior is incorrect and breakdowns as instances where the user mental model is
incongruent with the system, resulting in a system behavior that is correct
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems 165
Fig. 3 The implicit interaction framework (Ju, 2015) is particularly relevant in the discussion of
timing strategies for state exposure in dynamic systems
(or helpful), but unexpected. We also refer to instances where the system exposes its
state to the user as a form of feedback (shown as pink arrows in Fig. 2), and direct
interactions that the user has with the system as a form of user input (shown as
yellow arrows in Fig. 2).
As we argued in the introduction, never exposing the user to the internal changes in
the system results in inconsistencies between user mental models and system
behavior and ultimately leads to expectation violations. On the other hand, exposing
the internal state at all times is not feasible. Another approach is to provide feedback
during explicit interactions, which does not apply to systems that implicitly interact
with users, as described in Sect. 2. Providing feedback whenever there is a system
update, even if users are not explicitly interacting with the system at that instant,
gives the users a chance to keep up with system changes over time. However with
this strategy, if system behavior changes often, users will be frequently interrupted.
To mitigate this interruption overload, we can draw on prior research tackling similar
problems in mobile phone notifications. Using concepts from context-aware com-
puting literature (Abowd et al., 1999) we can identify relevant parameters (e.g.,
activity, location) and present notifications at opportune times (Fischer et al., 2011;
Pejovic & Musolesi, 2014), such as when users are experiencing less cognitive load
and are able to attend to the information (Adamczyk & Bailey, 2004).
166 P. Abtahi et al.
To begin exploring this design space, we built an online machine learning system
that recommended articles from the New York Times (NYT).3 We queried the NYT
API for articles published in 2020, collecting the titles, abstracts, and the news desks
responsible for them. For a given article, the news desk took on one of the following
values: “foreign,” “world,” “business,” “business day,” “US”, “national,”
“arts,” “arts and leisure, “book review,” “books,” “movies,” “television,”
“sports,” “science,” “climate,” “fashion and style,” “style,” “styles,” “technol-
ogy,” “dining,” “food,” “Washington,” “politics,” and “culture.”
We needed to strike a balance between system explain ability, accuracy, and
learning time. In general, the more complex a model, the less explainable it is and the
3
https://www.nytimes.com/.
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems 167
longer it takes to train; however, it is more expressive and thus performs better (e.g.,
better predicts user preferences). After some experimentation with smaller systems,
we settled on fine-tuning a large language model (BERT) to classify articles into
topics using their news desks (Devlin et al., 2018), and adding a simple reinforce-
ment learning layer (UCB1) to learn over time which topics and therefore which
articles users preferred to read (Auer et al., 2002). At each time step, the algorithm
selected a topic and then sampled an article uniformly at random from the set of
articles classified into that topic to present to the user. The user’s indicated prefer-
ence for this article was then used to update the recommender system.
5 Generating Explanations
We built a web application with a Flask4 backend and React5 frontend, to display
recommendations to the user and gather user input, as shown in Fig. 4. We showed
the user the title and abstract of a New York Times article and asked the user
(1) whether or not they would be interested in reading the article, and (2) whether
or not they think the system believes they would read the article (see Sect. 7). Then,
4
https://www.fullstackpython.com/flask.html.
5
https://reactjs.org/.
168 P. Abtahi et al.
Fig. 4 New York Times article recommender system. Left showing the user interface for collecting
user input (i.e., their prediction of system behavior). Right showing the user interface for state
exposure, including the system behavior and the explanation (i.e., SHAP values and article topic)
user’s ability to correctly predict the model’s behavior signals that the user under-
stands why a model makes certain predictions (Hase & Bansal, 2020).
We asked the user to simulate the system in two settings: after each article
recommendation and in intermittent quizzes. The former allowed us to capture the
user’s representation of a system at every step as the model learned and the system
evolved over time. This approach also allowed us to observe the accuracy of the
user’s mental model with regard to the most relevant content (i.e., the articles that
would be recommended to the user in a real-world setting). The latter gave us a
higher-level overview of the user’s understanding of the recommender system’s
behavior across the entire search space. While the first approach is useful, it is a
biased sample in that the articles that are recommended to users are more likely to be
articles that the system believes the user is interested in reading. On the other hand,
the quizzes evaluate the user’s ability to simulate system behavior over all possible
topics.
For different cohorts, we varied the timing of explanations to understand how state
exposure affects the development of user mental models. For our preliminary
exploration, we chose three different explanation frequencies:
1. Never: In our control group, users never received explanations.
2. Always: In the second group, users always received explanations. While this is an
unachievable standard in practice, we wanted to understand how well-timed
explanations improve the accuracy of user mental models relative to this ideal.
3. Upon failures: Users received explanations when the system mis-predicted
whether or not they would be interested in reading an article. We expected this
frequency to be both economical and scalable in practice. First, explanations for
cases in which the system did make the right decision are less useful, because
while user expectations may not align with system behavior, there is no need for
correction or intervention and as such, it is less critical for the user to have an
accurate mental model. The cases in which the system fails are those for which
the user needs an explanation so that they can adjust their own behavior or
expectations to predict or even prevent failures in the future. Second, system
failures should become much less frequent than system successes over time
(or else the system is fundamentally unusable), so users will not be overwhelmed
with information as they receive explanations with this strategy.
170 P. Abtahi et al.
Fig. 5 User prediction errors based on user input after every article shown for each condition
9 Preliminary Results
We conducted a pilot study with three volunteers (2 male, 1 female, ages 14, 19, and
52), each randomly assigned to one of the three conditions described above. Each
participant used our NYT article recommender system, shown in Fig. 4, for roughly
half an hour. For each article, they predicted system behavior (i.e., whether or not the
system thinks they will be interested in that article) and provided ground truth data
(i.e., whether or not they were interested in the article). After interacting with each
article, for some articles (the frequency of which was determined by the state
exposure strategy in the condition they were assigned to), they were provided with
an explanation in the form of words that were highlighted based on SHAP values.
Finally, after interacting with ten articles, participants completed a more compre-
hensive, intermittent survey described in Sect. 6.
The results for prediction errors after interacting with each article are summarized
in Fig. 5 and for prediction errors in the intermittent surveys are summarized in
Fig. 6. Due to the limited number of participants, we cannot perform statistical
analyses on the data; however, the stratification points toward the following trends:
1. User mental models ossify. Without any state exposure throughout long-term
interaction, user mental models cease to develop along with the changes in the
dynamic system. As a result, error rates may not improve over time unlike other
system exposure strategies.
2. System simulatability may be a function of frequency of explanations. More
frequent system exposures may be inversely correlated with user error in
predicting system behavior.
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems 171
Fig. 6 User prediction errors in intermittent quizzes are shown for each condition, over a sliding
window of size 10 and balanced over news desks
10 Open Challenges
Many challenges remain in the exploration of the design space of timely state
exposure for dynamic systems, which can be summarized by discussing the follow-
ing four research questions:
172 P. Abtahi et al.
In our work, we asked users for their prediction of the system’s behavior at each
timestep as a mechanism for evaluating their mental model. This approach has two
main limitations. First, it is not practical for real-world systems, because asking users
to pause and predict system outcomes results in significant friction and delay during
their interactions with the system. Moreover, while correctly predicting system
behavior signals that users might have a correct mental model, it does not paint a
complete and accurate picture of their mental model of the system. In other words,
even though a user might correctly predict what the system state will be, they may
not be able to describe why they believe this to be the case.
A range of other techniques have been presented by prior research for evaluating
user mental models, each with its own strengths and limitations. For example, verbal
protocols have been utilized by asking users to “think aloud” as they perform a task
(Rouse & Morris, 1986). Another approach is co-experimentation in which two
people are asked to collaboratively complete a task and the communication of
knowledge between them is used to elicit users’ mental models (Sasse, 1991).
While these techniques provide information about what users are thinking, similar
to forward simulatability techniques, they offer little information about how they are
thinking. Particularly, if mental model representations are pictorial, it would be
difficult for users to accurately verbalize them (Rouse & Morris, 1986). But more
importantly, these techniques add a similar layer of friction that make them imprac-
tical for deployment in situ and throughout long-term interactions with a system.
Therefore, effectively and continuously evaluating user mental models of a
dynamic system without introducing significant friction during interactions remains
an open challenge. Can we evaluate user mental models without intervention and by
observing and analyzing their implicit and explicit interaction with the system?
As system designers, we have access to the internal state and the inner workings of a
dynamic system, however complex they may be. From this vantage point, once we
have an understanding of (or even an approximation of) the user’s mental model
over time, we might be able to predict when there will be a breakdown (i.e., when the
system might behave in a way that is unexpected to the user). Predicting such
instances offers an opportunity for infrequent state exposure that (1) reassures
users the system behavior is correct and (2) provides a timely explanation to help
user mental models co-evolve with the dynamic system.
While such a strategy may be effective, the mechanics of predicting mental model
breakdowns remains an open challenge. Can we articulate user mental models and
the current state of a dynamic system with similar representations? How can we
Timely State Exposure for the Coevolution of Mental Models and Dynamic Systems 173
compare these two representations? Through this comparison, can we predict, with
high certainty, when there will be a mismatch between the user’s mental model and
the ground truth (i.e., the current state of a dynamic system)?
Another strategy that requires further exploration is state exposures after system
failures. Through our initial explorations, we found that such timely and infrequent
feedback may be comparable to continuous feedback, in terms of facilitating user
mental model updates as the system changes over time. Dynamic systems are
optimized to prevent failures, nonetheless at times they may have incorrect behav-
iors. In practice, it may be challenging to detect when such system failure occurs.
How might we detect system failures from implicit or explicit user interactions
that follow? For example, if the user ignores a particular news article recommenda-
tion instead of reading that article, we may conclude that the system suggested an
incorrect article (i.e., an article that the user was not interested in). How might we
detect failures from user’s emotional responses to the system behavior? For exam-
ple, by analyzing the user’s response to a voice assistant, including their language or
tone, we may be able to detect negative emotions such as frustration and anger that
may point to a system failure (Cuadra et al., 2021). We may also be able to analyze
user responses indirectly, without access to video or audio during interactions. For
example, prior research has shown that we may be able to detect that users are
stressed indirectly from the motions of their computer mouse (Sun et al., 2014).
We used word highlighting based on SHAP values for state exposure. The highlight-
ing provided an explanation of which words were important in classifying an article
into a particular topic category, and the topic label communicated to the user that the
system believes they are interested in articles within that category. While this
technique may be appropriate for a user evaluation of a news article recommender
system, it may not be practical for real-world recommender systems and does not
generalize to other types of dynamic systems, such as those that are not text-based.
This raises the research question: how might we provide feedback about the state
of a dynamic system? Once we identify a suitable state exposure timing strategy and
have the mechanisms by which to do so (i.e., are able to predict mental model
breakdowns or detect system failures), what is the best medium to communicate this
information (e.g., visually, textually, verbally, etc.) and at what level of abstraction?
174 P. Abtahi et al.
11 Conclusion
In this chapter, we laid out the design space of state exposure timing strategies that
can be utilized to ensure user mental models of dynamic systems evolve over time as
the system learns and adapts. We implemented a news article recommender system
that learns from users’ reading preferences and suggests relevant articles that they are
likely to be interested in. For the state exposure strategy we highlighted words based
on their importance in the system’s decision-making process and utilized the “for-
ward simulatability” technique to evaluate the user’s mental model accuracy of our
dynamic recommender system. We then explored parts of the presented design space
with the system that we implemented. Our preliminary findings motivated further
exploration of infrequent, but timely state exposures, such as after breakdowns or
upon system failures. Finally, we discussed the open challenges that require further
study for effective utilization of these infrequent state exposure strategies, including
predicting when user mental models might break down and detecting when the
system may have failed. A deeper exploration of these topics will reveal new design
methodologies that do not assume a deterministic user flow, yet facilitate adaptive
feedback enabling user mental models and dynamic systems to co-evolve over time.
Acknowledgements The following icons from the Noun Project have been modified and used in
this chapter under the Creative Commons License:
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Designing for Value Creation: Principles,
Methods, and Case Insights from
Embedding Designing-as-Performance
in Digital Health Education and Research
1 Introduction
Healthcare is transitioning from care within hospital walls into broader digital and
physical spaces outside the direct reach of nurses, doctors, and insurance companies.
Apps, platforms, and digital infrastructure bring telemedicine opportunities and risks
as smartwatches and phone apps serve diverse communities from the old to the very
1
https://tommccallum.com/2019/04/23/price-is-what-you-pay-value-is-what-you-get/
J. A. Edelman (*)
Stanford, California, USA
B. A. Owoyele · J. Santuber · S. Konigorski
Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 177
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_10
178 J. A. Edelman et al.
young. Likewise, the role of healthcare providers, practitioners, and patients is also
in transition with the advent of self-management apps and personalized medicine.
Beyond just innovation for profit, the healthcare industry and individual
healthcare practitioners adopt Design (design modes of doing and thinking) to
explore problems and solutions. Beyond fancy prototypes and esthetically sound
user interfaces for smartphone applications, Design asks the types of questions that
lead to a richer understanding of people (doctors, nurses, patients, family) and thus
has radical implications for creating whole ecosystems of care offerings.
Design also allows for deeper explorations of what people value in healthcare,
their pain and pleasure, and why they value what they value. The design approach is
even more relevant in medicine in recent times, considering COVID-19. This
pandemic has forced many nations and organizations to be innovative with their
products, services, and systems. This increase in an adoption of Design doing and
thinking is evident in a way that it is relevant for both healthcare practice and
academia. Figure 1 shows the annual growth rate of literature related to Design,
design thinking in the medical context.
Much of the literature employing Design is related to understanding health
behavior, and rightly so, many studies focus on the human element in healthcare,
particularly related to behavior change through mobile applications. Many studies
leverage design to evaluate and configure procedures for randomized controlled trials,
while others leverage qualitative questionnaires to solve problems combined with
surveys and interviews. See Fig. 2 for top keywords in current digital health literature.
Digital Health and Design are thus seen as two sides of a coin that can help reduce
risk and improve treatment outcomes in healthcare, as well as improve profits or
reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes. Digital health offers society a way in
which patients do not have to get sick by leveraging smart devices and machine
learning algorithms to understand genotype and phenotype patterns, i.e., through
personalized medicine and preventive care approaches.
In parallel, design and design thinking education facilitates better outcomes of
research and innovation in healthcare contexts; specifically, by generating innova-
tive healthcare outcomes. Although Design is being adopted in healthcare, we see a
gap in current design approaches in healthcare contexts.
First, we see a lack of application of shared models across diverse medical teams
in regard to explicitly designing for value creation. Second, we observe that most
approaches adopting Design do not draw on robust and rigorous methods and
principles that have been vetted in a real-life medical context, beyond the anecdotal
approaches to brainstorming and using sticky notes to facilitate “ideation” sessions.
We believe that these current approaches may not deliver credible results in high
performing contexts such as healthcare.
To address this opportunity, we proceed in the following sections of the chapter
as follows:
1. First, we employ bibliometric analysis to map the literature on digital health and
Design in journals, books, and conference proceedings.
2. Then, using visual semantic networks as sensemaking tools, we determine and
show that healthcare is a distinct cluster in current design literature.
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . .
Fig. 1 Annual scientific growth annual growth rate: 49.9% from 1999 to 2021 (SCOPUS Database)
179
180 J. A. Edelman et al.
Fig. 2 Wordcloud digital health-design literature from 1999 to 2021 (SCOPUS Database)
3. Finally, we further zoom in on some key digital health design literature to situate
our contribution in this chapter.
We aim to show the landscape and then showcase our approach to Designing for
Value Creation (D4VC) in healthcare. Using the acronym D4VC from here on, we
show why and how Design can mediate and facilitate the creation of Value for “all”
actors involved, not just patients.
D4VC is about improving user engagement, reducing risk, and reducing
costs. In our approach D4VC, we depart from the dogmatic notions in design
thinking in healthcare approaches that focus too much on the patient while ignoring
other actors/agents/nodes, e.g. doctors, algorithms, families, radiologists. Yes, we
assume that patients deserve better experiences. But we believe this is also the case
with doctors, health professionals, managers, and other non-patient actors.
Patients are central in healthcare. Doctors save lives. There are high stakes for all
stakeholders in the network of healthcare. We need humble and high stakes design
paradigms and methods that are rigorous and robust through and through for multi-
actor value creation.
Our guiding questions:
• What characterizes the state of value creation research in design methods and
practice in digital healthcare and medicine from a bibliometric perspective?
• How can digital health design education benefit from action research to embed-
ding Designing-as-Performance in its r multi-actor practices?
We have explored these questions using action research, having focused on
educational contexts in which we have been embedded for the past 3 years at the
Digital Health Center at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam. We have engaged
both students and industry to iterate and finetune our principles and methods in a
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 181
reflexive mode of action research. Our work is far from complete but may offer some
insights into how Design may be embedded in Digital health. Our bibliometric
overview is also not exhaustive as we rely on titles, abstracts, and keywords
available from Scopus to generate these visualizations. Nevertheless, we hope they
inspire others to situate themselves in the emerging digital health design field and
perhaps drive research attention toward connecting the unconnected dots shown
throughout this chapter. Finally, we want to state that this work is not a systematic
literature review, although we invite others to explore or search phrases for such
tasks.
The following sections proceed as follows. First, we provide a high-level
bibliometric overview, i.e. a thematic mapping of the digital health and design
thinking field, discussing what topics (keywords) have been addressed in healthcare
using Design and design thinking. Next, we zoom in on digital health design
education to present our motivation for entering what we perceive to be uncharted
territory. Here we posit how Designing-as-Performance(D-a-P) principles and
methods can make design approaches more robust, rigorous, and reflexive in
healthcare contexts. Finally, to demonstrate the value of our approach, we discuss
3 cases where we iteratively developed and embedded MEDGI and PretoVids, as
two fundamental approaches to designing/exploring products, services, and systems
in digital health education contexts. Again, we emphasize that our goal is to ensure
robust value creation for multi-actor healthcare innovation.
The final section summarizes our work, reflecting on insights drawn from our
engagement at the Digital Health Center and with patient/user-facing partners.
We end the chapter with selected quotes from our participants over the years.
Finally, we suggest future emerging fields of Designing possibilities for Digital
Health teams, particularly implications for doing truly transdisciplinary work.
Design in its many forms has been growing its application in the medical field.
Design comes in different flavors, such as a human-centered approach
(Bhattacharyya et al., 2019) to place-based innovation (Vechakul et al., 2015).
Many of these experiences have been studied and analyzed in academic contexts,
particularly focusing on user-centered development (Chokshi & Mann, 2018).
Looking at scholarly outputs on the application of Design in medicine and health
serves as a proxy to illustrate the current state of the practice and application of
Design in digital health. This section presents the bibliometric review of the research
on the interface of Design, design thinking, and digital health.
See appendix with visual Mapping of DT and Design in Healthcare
182 J. A. Edelman et al.
Figure 3 illustrates the keywords (top bigrams) in the title of the literature in the
intersection of design, design thinking, and digital health.
Fig. 3 Top bigrams from titles of literature on digital health and design
Design is also valuable for reflecting on the opportunities and challenges of digital
technology, e.g. Artificial intelligence (Ala-Kitula et al., 2018; Belkacem et al.,
2020; Ferreira et al., 2020; Liyao, 2021).
For our research at the Digital Health Center, we see that Design is unequivocally
important in medical education as others have suggested (Badwan et al., 2018; Chao
& Chao, 2018), especially with approaches that leverage digital tools, platforms, and
infrastructure. Da Silva et al. (2020) have developed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation
prototype for health education contexts, while other authors emphasize the Value of
Design Thinking principles in bringing circularity and openness to medical innova-
tion (Albala et al., 2018; Buckley et al., 2021; Deitte & Omary, 2019; Gottlieb et al.,
2017; Hong et al., 2021). In collaborating with educational actors, Industry actors are
also adopting design thinking approaches to explore and exploit digital health
solutions for improving consumer care and usability (Bell, 2003; Janz et al., 2016;
Saidi et al., 2019). Related to digital health design education, DT has been applied in
IoT new product development (Kalyazina et al., 2019) for developing educational,
social media videos on inflammatory bowel disease (Khalil et al., 2020).
Furthermore, in terms of mapping digital health design, McLaughlin et al. (2019)
recently did a qualitative review of design thinking frameworks in health profession
184 J. A. Edelman et al.
education. They conclude that although the potential value of design thinking to
healthcare is high, many questions remain because of healthcare systems’ complex-
ity and multi-actor nature. Therefore, teaching medical students design thinking is
valuable but will not suffice to deliver value that is useful and appreciated by users,
doctors, payers, and other practitioners in healthcare.
As shown in Fig. 4, our mapping of the literature on digital health landscape
appears to generate 8 clusters, depicted in the variants colored.
In his book, the reflective practitioner, Donald Schön emphasizes rigor as a pinnacle
of professionals engaged in practice and action (Schön, 1987). For him, there is
value in professional education to move beyond analytic techniques, which have
been traditional in operations research, and more into the active, synthetic skill of
“designing a desirable future and inventing ways of bringing it about” (i.e.,
methods).
Following a thematic analysis of the Digital Health Education landscape, the
authors suggest that value creation in patient care can be more successful in terms of
reduced risk, learning outcomes, citizen engagement when some degree of design-
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 185
What are the ways that busy doctors could get into Design?
What are the fundamentals that should be practiced in care design settings, like in
sports or dance?
What kinds of exercises can be useful in boosting affective, cognitive, and skill-based
outcomes, particularly in the time-constrained and high stakes domain of
health care?
How can we design for a multi-actor healthcare setting where value creation for all
actors is the priority?
In the following section, we present the answers to some of these questions. It is
very much an ongoing work, and our cases reflect our initial experiences and
objectives as they have evolved.
To instantiate designing for value creation, we have two foundational elements to the
approach:
The first element encompasses the Designing-as-Performance principles.
The second and complementary element encompasses the collection of methods.
In the past years (Edelman et al., 2020; Edelman, Owoyele, et al., 2021; Edelman,
Santuber, et al., 2021), our research group has developed strong stances to address
Design for digital health and radical innovation. These stances encompass principles,
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 187
MEDGI-Shared
PRETOVIDS -low
team based model
cost video
for performing
pretotyping
Design
D4VC
Reduced Reduced
Risk/Improved Cost/Improving
Safety Profit
Following our elaboration of the three principles for design-based value creation,
this section describes what characterizes how design methods are used to
operationalize these principles. This section presents MEDGI as a method for
health-centered value creation.
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 189
Fig. 8 Sample of MEDGI exercise on N-of-1 App redesign. Source DHDL HPI
to see. In digital health, Educing refers to enacting what works and what doesn’t
work, pain and pleasure points, on an experiential level. For example, the notion that
a diabetes management app does not allow a user to log in to see their own data is an
example of an educed insight. The “pain” is that users are not happy or satisfied with
being locked out of their own data, even though they now have an app that lets them,
e.g. monitor their sugar intake. Here again, as in each step of MEDGI, the question
drives the digital health enquiry but also acknowledges what works. In digital health
taking stock of what works is as important as taking stock of what does not.
Disrupting in digital health design follows Mapping and Educing with a proposal
to the change to the state of affairs in an object-interaction, and take the form of
questions like, “what happens if...?” (Edelman, Owoyele, et al., 2021). For example,
a digital health design team would disrupt by asking, “What are some of the things
that could happen if we could hear diabetes intake via earbuds?” or “What happens if
we made the diabetes syringe a sensor that calculates the blood insulin state too?” In
digital health Disrupting, our experience is that there is little or no explicit notion of a
solution; the goal is more “towards exposing the potentiality of an object-interac-
tion” (Edelman, Owoyele, et al., 2021) (Fig. 8).
Gestalting follows the previous three steps and implies “roughing-in” or
“sketching” a novel object-interaction. Gestalting is seen as a general picture of
the field of health possibilities that could result from the Disruption previously
proposed. Here the digital health design team could sketch the diabetes syringe
that measures insulin with labels of how it could look. Here some level of details are
carefully articulated. In the spirit of rigor, the digital health design team may bring in
a product designer to Gestalt the syringe. If the solution is an app that gives data
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 191
Integrating Educing
Gestalting Disrupting
access to diabetes patients, the digital health design team may sketch the interface
using pencil and paper to give form to the concept.
Integrating is what typically follows a well-executed digital health design
process, here we say “the new state of affairs comes together, the crystallized in a
new articulation” (Edelman, Owoyele, et al., 2021). Integrating is about giving
specifications for manufacturing and distributing the solution so that users (e.g.,
doctors, patients, and family members) can truly enjoy the solution. With Integrat-
ing, the value is for radically highlighting a very compelling user experience and
interaction, as well as systems integration for the digital health product service or
system. The focus is on digital health app features like buttons and adjustors,
payment interfaces and giving the solution a novel name. Unlike Gestalting, in
which the question is about how does it look roughly, and how does it work roughly,
Integrating tends toward more questions like “How does it really work excellently?
Is it esthetically pleasing, and will users boast about this product, service, or system
to others?” (Fig. 9).
How can new digital product development teams proto-type new digital products
without writing a line of code or spending a dime on software development to learn
what customers love?
In recent work we presented PretoVids (see Fig. 10), a digital and practical,
research-based method for structured, evidence-based prototyping (Edelman,
Santuber, et al., 2021). PretoVids is a new prototyping technique that is genuinely
relevant for showcasing digital media’s role in design-as-performance in concept
development. We discovered early on that for digital health contexts “the traditional
prototyping methods do not provide an agile heuristic for digital product develop-
ment teams” (Edelman, Santuber, et al., 2021).
192 J. A. Edelman et al.
This section introduces the cases in which we applied the Design for Value Creation
methods (MEDGI and PretoVids) to real projects with partners and medical doctors
as well as master students engaged in designing for digital health. We conducted the
cases provided in the following section in the context of the Digital Health Design
Lab (DHDL), at the HPI Digital Health Center.
The Digital Health Design Lab is a hands-on studio course about shaping innovative
products, services, and systems. This course is part of the Hasso Plattner Institute’s
Digital Health Center and offered at a multidisciplinary international master pro-
gram. Our course website describes the course as follows: “Through richly
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 193
These goals are set in order that course participants become familiarized with the
principles and practices of human-centered Design in the context of Digital Health.
for real-life engagements, the course provides opportunities for boosting social
competencies: group work, discussions, and structured critiques. The course
offers lectures, group discussion, participant presentations, hands-on exercises,
and project work. This hands-on course requires active participation and engage-
ment from attendees. Participants are expected to contribute verbally and mate-
rially to each session of the course, sharing insights, questions and their project
work on a regular basis.
To further iterate the Designing for Value Creation in health care scenarios, we
collaborated with Charité Berlin to engage medical practitioners in exploring how
digital health design education might augment value creation in the Charité’s
education curriculum.
The mini hackathon took place entirely online as part of a 3-week module “Digital
Health” at the Charité University. Third-year medical students (sixth semester) and
students from HPI’s Digital Health Design Lab (DHDL) worked together in teams of
three to four people. The teams identified a challenge (see Table 1), developed ideas
to solve that problem, created a prototype, and presented their solutions in the form
of a short video (PretoVid).
The goal for the medical team was to learn basic methods of designing in
healthcare and to understand the underlying principles.
Fig. 12 Miro layout-hackathon prepared by the teaching team for the participants
One positive externality of doing this workshop online is that participants become
familiar and confident using online collaboration tools. One remote collaboration
tool we used for the mini-hackathon was Miro Boards (see Fig. 12). These digital
boards provide a shared space for participants to write notes, upload images, sketch
their maps, and display new user interfaces.
• 08.02.2021/10.30-11.15: Team building with preparation for individual small
group work
• 08.02.2021/11.30-12.15: MEDGI for Digital Health—more than just an app
• 16.02.2021/09:30-11:45: Problem Solving
• 22.02.2021/10:45-13:00: Prototyping
• 22.02.2021/14:30-17:00: Flexible working session with mentors
• 23.02.2021/9:30-12:15: Presentation Skills/Prototyping
196 J. A. Edelman et al.
Project Goal: To Explore Pain and Pleasure Points in Current N-of-1 Trial
Research App and then Redesign
Studies suggest that 10–30% of all adults suffer from chronic insomnia with a higher
prevalence in older people and pregnant women (Bhaskar et al., 2016). Insomnia and
sleeping problems in general have an impact not only on a person’s mental, but also
physical health.
By addressing sleep conditions with N-of-1 trials, Sleepfull has the potential of
helping 0.5–1.5 billion people in the age group between 15 and 653 (Worldometer,
2021). StudyU allows us to provide this large group of people with a professional
2
The following paragraphs are adapted from the DHDL participants’ reports. Team Members:
Dennis Kipping, Marius Michaelis, Larissa Röhrig, Denise Schmidt, Julius Severin
3
Population Ages 15–64 (% of Total Population), n.d., World Population Clock: 7.8 Billion People
(2021)—Worldometer, n.d.
198 J. A. Edelman et al.
N-of-1 trial without needing to leave the house. Sleep is something very personal,
which results in insomnia being a very diverse condition. Thus, N-of-1 trials have an
immense potential in finding the best treatment for everyone’s personal insomnia.
For a first iteration of the Sleepfull N-of-1 trial the following interventions were
chosen:
• Limiting screen time prior to bedtime: The usage of electronic devices before
sleep can have impact on the production of melatonin which results in an
increased alertness and thereby interferes with sleep (Pacheco, 2017)
• Restricting alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco consumption: The intake of certain
substances has a major impact on sleep. Not only on the duration, but mostly on
its regularity, which may result in a long but non-restoring sleep (Spadola et al.,
2019)
• Exercise: There is strong evidence that exercise helps in falling asleep. Never-
theless, timing matters and therefore there should be at least 2 hours between
exercise and bed time (John Hopkins Medicine, 2021)
• Meditation: Studies suggest that mediation, and in particular mindfulness may
improve sleep quality (Pacheco, 2020)
• Consistent sleep schedule: Following a consistent sleep schedule is especially
helpful when it comes to sleep-onset insomnia (Fry, 2018)
• Colored light exposure: Studies suggest that exposure to different light intensities
and wavelengths can affect the circadian rhythm and thereby adapt the sleep–
wake cycle (Tähkämö et al., 2019)
The opportunities the Sleepfull team leveraged (for example, new technologies or
new ways of collecting data or new medical knowledge or new insights into human
behavior) were many. Furthermore, the Sleepfull project leveraged from different
existing and ready-to-use technologies. Those easily accessible technologies were,
on the one hand, used to improve the outcome and adherence of the trial, but, on the
other hand, also to improve future trials by giving researchers the data they need.
More specifically, Sleepfull combined telemedicine with N-of-1 trials approach.
Insomnia is a disease that does not require instant treatment and interventions.
Therefore, the threshold for people to seek professional help is higher than with
other conditions. When a patient signs up for the Sleepfull N-of-1 trial, it offers the
patient to connect them with a suitable practitioner. Through video consultation, the
patient can then discuss the upcoming trial. Telemedicine also allows the patient to
be monitored throughout the trial and to discuss the outcome of a trial with an expert
and make sure that the right steps are taken.
The use of sensors allows holistic monitoring of the patient. It allows Sleepfull to
personalize interventions based on the current needs of the user. By donating the data
to research, a patient has the chance of not only improving the N-of-1 trial but also of
help researchers to understand insomnia better.
The average person spends around 26 years of their lives sleeping. Sleep plays a
crucial part for our health as it allows the body and the brain to slow down and
recover. At the beginning of the class, the whole Sleepfull team had sleep or a sleep-
related topic as one of the things they love. Many people take sleep as a given and do
Designing for Value Creation: Principles, Methods, and Case Insights. . . 199
not give more attention to it. But what happens if restful sleep, which is often taken
for granted, becomes a problem?
During the research for the N-of-1, the team members learned about the complex
multitude of factors that can influence the sleep quality and how different the impact
on the personal sleep of a person can be. In the development of the N-of-1 study
they, therefore, included manifold evidence-based interventions to cover different
perspectives of possible causes for insomnia and other sleep conditions. Sleep is as
diverse as people and therefore, insomnia and its causes are as well. This makes it a
perfect case for N-of-1 trials and gives patients a professional framework to try out
different interventions and thereby learn about themselves and their personal
insomnia.
In looking at the literature and practice we found a significant gap regarding an
understanding of the “user,” as understood as a synonym for the patient in healthcare
contexts. While we agree that healthcare systems should serve patients better, there
is a whole spectrum of users that remain underserved. Moreover, not only the quality
of the whole healthcare system improves when focusing on other stakeholders, but
also the value that creates the new product, service, or systems is higher. For
instance, in our projects, we have defined the value created for patients, doctor,
and scientists. This broader scope enables synergies of value to be created, while the
same data entry serves the patient goals, the doctor, and researchers well.
Figures 14 and 15 show examples of sketches of Sleepfull’s patient-facing
interfaces. These have been designed for making patient participation in an N-of-1
study easy, pleasurable, and meaningful. Here, comprehensibility of a time extensive
and somewhat complex process is key for patient compliance and the success of the
study. Patients are able to see where they are in the process, where they have been,
and what the next step is for their N-of-1 study.
Fig. 15 (a) Sleepfull PretoVids frames from patient view. (b) Sleepfull PretoVids frames from
doctor view
Redesigning our current healthcare products, services, and systems into digital
offerings requires multiple perspectives. Together with the technical and medical
capabilities, novel digital health solutions need to cover financial, regulatory, policy,
governance, legal, and the like. However, there is more to great design than technical
requirements.
In our daily lives, both analog and digital experience have been designed to
capture our attention and emotions. People—doctors, patients, and researchers—are
watching exciting movies on Netflix, meeting interesting people on Tinder, listening
to captivating music on Spotify, going to live theater, eating in well-appointed
restaurants with amazing menus, attending engaging sports competitions, calling
cars with Uber, and getting directions with Google Maps. The attention of doctors,
patients, and researchers is constantly being captured by ingeniously designed
analog and digital experiences that are addictive. In respect to the user experience
of doctors and researchers, digital health design has not shown an equivalent level of
concern for user engagement. Too much of doctors’ time has been allocated for
painful and tedious data entry—precious time that has been stolen from quality time
with their families and from caring time for their patients.
The Designing-as-Performance approach invites designers to think broadly about
value creation in its many forms: technical, financial, experiential, and existential. It
enables designers to consider that researchers are people too, and that their expe-
rience at work saving lives can be as fabulous as going to dinner and a show.
Designing-as-Performance challenges and empowers digital health designers to
ask questions like:
202 J. A. Edelman et al.
“What happens if . . . a digital health patient record was as enjoyable for doctors
and administrators as the home page of Netflix?”
“What happens if . . . segmenting and annotating brain MRIs was as engaging for
researchers as a first-rate video game?”
“What happens if . . . polygenic risk scores were as understandable and navigable
for doctors as Google Maps?”
A well-structured approach, with a strong theoretical foundation, as found in D-a-
P, can ease the adoption of Design in education and research. In the three action
research cases we have presented in this chapter, a clear, yet deep, approach to
designing has been key to the success of those projects. With a strong emphasis on
hands-on and learning-by-doing approaches, the theoretical aspect of the methods
used in Design are often lost. In the experiences we have made, a concise and
coherent theoretical explanation of the “why” of what is done helps participants to
make sense of things and be more confident when executing their tasks.
The Designing-as-Performance approach enables teaching teams and facilitators
to leverage decades of research on design and design practices. Because of this,
practitioners do not need to make up theory because sound design theory is provided
by teaching teams and facilitators. Because D-a-P is fundamentally transdisciplinary,
teachers and practitioners can readily draw from different design traditions and
increase team performance and the impact of their work. Moreover, different
approaches to designing are complementary and are not exclusive. D-a-P draws on
work in human–computer interaction, product design, graphic design, industrial
design, service design, experience design, fashion design, digital/web design, archi-
tectural design, mathematics, musical composition, visual and fine arts, opera, pop
culture... the list goes on. This rich diversity of sources helps digital health designers
to find multiple references that match and enhance to their experiences, and conse-
quently enriches their sensemaking processes. These rigorous approaches to Design
are immersed, embedded in a continuum of techniques, methods, approaches,
knowledge creation, and ultimately world views. Grounding digital health design
practices in mature fields of design practice can give our work as designers a much-
needed depth and rigor.
Acknowledgements This research was fully supported by the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking
Research Program and the Digital Health Center. Collaboration opportunity with Charite Berlin is
also acknowledged. Particularly the collaboration with Charite Berlin Researchers Dr Med Lina
Moosch, Ulrike Anders, Dr Med Akira-Sebastian Poncette, and Dr Med Daniel Pach.
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Part III
Problematizing Design Thinking
as a Concept
Different Concepts of Human Needs
and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes
Abstract While design thinking has been described in different ways, there is
widespread agreement about two characteristics of the approach: Design thinking
involves a “focus on needs” and works towards “radical innovation”. However,
some authors have argued that these two characteristics actually antagonize each
other. According to their assessment, a focus on needs reduces the innovation
potential of projects, rather than fostering new breakthrough solutions. What is the
logic of these arguments and is design thinking in trouble? The purpose of this
chapter is to shed further light on the concept of needs in design thinking. We review
need theories by three authors—John Arnold, Abraham Maslow and Robert
McKim—who have prominently shaped design thinking theory and practices from
the 1950s onwards. In each case, we summarize the author’s basic statements and
trace relations to present-day methodologies of working with human needs. The
chapter highlights notable agreement among all discussants concerning favourable
approaches to foster radical innovation. We further emphasize the importance of
distinguishing between narrow versus wide accounts of needs, where design projects
with narrow accounts stick closely to user statements that are often highly context-
bound, while projects with wider accounts include re-framing and visionary
contextualisation. Design thinking education as offered at the d.school in Stanford
and the D-School at Potsdam involves a wide account of human needs. In this
context, two important skills in order to move from need assessments to worthwhile,
radical innovation are the abilities to uncover need hierarchies from context-
dependent desires stated by users to basic human needs, and to identify conflicts in
need hierarchies that call for different and better solutions in society.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 209
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_11
210 J. von Thienen et al.
1 Introduction
Human needs are a key concept in design thinking. This focus is already emphasized
by Meinel and Leifer (2011) in the first Springer book on design thinking research.
Design thinkers are said to endorse a “human-centric point of view” (Meinel &
Leifer, 2011, p. xv). They work to solve problems “in ways that satisfy human
needs” (ibid.). The mindset of a design thinker is to “focus on human values” (d.
school, 2010, preface). While “design thinking” is interpreted differently across
institutions and by different authors (Lindberg, 2013; Schmiedgen et al., 2016),
there is widespread agreement about the importance of a focus on needs. “Although
the concept has different interpretations, Design Thinking is usually characterized by
[. . .] a human centered perspective, where innovators build empathy with users”
(Verganti et al., 2019, p. 1).
In all scientifically grounded endeavours, a thorough explication of key concepts
is part of the expected academic rigour. In this sense, a careful discussion of what a
focus on needs means in more precise terms is certainly desirable. Conceptual
clarifications also help to develop nuanced observations and analyses. For instance,
when design thinkers work with human needs, what potential measures quantify the
sophistication of their approach? How about measures such as the number of
stakeholders the team is in touch with, the frequency of interactions with stake-
holders, the diversity of stakeholders that get involved in a project (cf. Royalty &
Roth, 2016), the design thinker’s versatility in need analyses as via Why-How-
Laddering (d.school, 2010; von Thienen et al., 2012), or other measures?
Yet, a thorough discussion of human needs is important in design thinking for
reasons far beyond ordinary scientific diligence. Noteworthy claims have been
made, according to which the focus on needs would only help to improve details
in existing solutions (incremental innovation), while being ill-suited for finding
novel, worthwhile solution avenues (radical innovation). When design thinking
aspires to both—a focus on needs and radical innovation—such claims are of key
importance and call for careful consideration. Clearly, whether or not a focus on
needs hinders or facilitates radical innovation depends essentially on what a “focus
on needs” means. It is therefore key to explicate this meaning in careful ways.
This chapter begins by reviewing claims in the literature about the design
thinking focus on needs as advancing incremental rather than radical innovation
(Sect. 2). In this context, we also trace the particular understanding of a focus on
needs that underlies this line of argumentation. We then review three influential need
theories that inform practices at educational facilities for design thinking, such as the
d.school at Stanford and Potsdam’s D-School. These theories have been set forth by
design thinking pioneer John E. Arnold (Sect. 3), Abraham Maslow (Sect. 4), and
Robert H. McKim (Sect. 5). In each section, we also trace the legacy, which the
theory leaves in terms of shaping present-day design thinking practices. How each
need concept impacts the prospects of radical innovation is another important line of
discussion. The chapter closes by highlighting the diversity of human need con-
cepts across authors and communities (Sect. 6). Overall, we look at how conceptual
Different Concepts of Human Needs and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes 211
This discussion is well in line with Norman and Verganti’s description of “inner
visions” as important sources of inspiration for radical innovation. As a subtle
difference, Norman and Verganti highlight the potential of technologies to change
and thus bring about radical innovation. By contrast, Ishii et al. (2012) view
technologies as associated with the status quo. Thus conceived, technologies seem
to provide little directives for the development of radically different solutions for the
future.
Another aspect brought up by Ishii et al. (2012) concerns the endurance of
solutions. In this regard, too, the authors find vision-driven design more favourable
than need-driven or technology-driven design.
Different Concepts of Human Needs and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes 213
The reason why we focus on the vision-driven approach is its life span. We know that
technologies become obsolete in about one year, users’ needs change quickly, and applica-
tions become obsolete in about 10 years. However, we believe the strong vision can last
beyond our lifespan. (Ishii et al., 2012, p. 50)
Following such a vision-driven approach, the authors suggest a new way for
people to interact with the digital world: “Radical Atoms is a vision for the future of
human-material interactions, in which all digital information has physical manifes-
tation so that we can interact directly with it” (p. 38). Inspiration for this vision
emerges from careful observations and analyses of how humans interact with
physical objects: “Humans have evolved a heightened ability to sense and manipu-
late the physical world, yet the digital world takes little advantage of our capacity for
hand-eye coordination” (p. 38).
Much older and more fundamental than the concept of “user needs” is the concept of
“human needs” in design thinking traditions. This outlook was prominently intro-
duced by John E. Arnold, who laid important groundworks for design thinking at
Stanford Engineering and used the term “design thinking” already (Arnold, 1959/
2016; Clancey, 2016; von Thienen et al., 2017). John Arnold introduced need-based
theories of creativity and innovation. To Arnold, creative work is generally
“concerned with how the basic needs of man can be better satisfied” (1959/2016,
p. 63). This focus on needs provides an essential evaluative dimension for creative
performance. By his definition, every successful creative project yields a novel
solution that “better solves some need of mankind” (p. 66). Analogously, he takes
for granted the goal that “our innovations better satisfy some need of man” (p. 67,
emphasis in original).
According to this theoretical framework, human needs are a key factor in all
innovation projects, whether or not a design thinking approach is explicitly pursued.
However, the explicit endorsement of a focus on needs in present-day design
thinking can likely be of great service, according to Arnold’s theories. It will be
much easier to better satisfy human needs when the innovator is actually aware of
relevant needs and tracks the impact of potential new solutions carefully.
Notably, at Arnold’s time, there is not yet any clear differentiation between
innovator versus user. The creative person can very well work to satisfy their own,
personal needs. However, for Arnold and his successors at Stanford the great art of
innovation is to not make improvements regarding contingent, arbitrary needs, but to
satisfy basic needs. These are shared by many people.
Like Norman and Verganti (2014), Arnold analyses many different creative
projects to better understand the emergence of radical innovation. Amongst other
214 J. von Thienen et al.
case studies, he treats the development of instant colour pictures pioneered by Edwin
Land from Polaroid, the invention of Freon as a refrigerant by Thomas Migley, the
invention of disposable safety razors by King Gillette and many more. In his
analysis, Arnold invokes a major distinction between “organized” versus “inspired”
creativity approaches as avenues towards innovation. Organized approaches typi-
cally follow “a logical, orderly, step-by-step type of problem solving technique”
(Arnold, 1959/2016, p. 73). Examples can be: a structured form of marked research,
a systematic trial-and-error approach or comprehensive analyses and
re-combinations. By contrast, projects that pursue an inspired approach do not
follow a well-structured process. A prominent example of an inspired approach is
what Arnold calls the “big dream”.
The big dream approach [. . .] is carried out by asking yourself the biggest question you
possibly can, by dreaming the biggest dream that you possibly can, by sort of soaring off into
space with a grand idea, and then expending every possible effort to answer this big
question, to make this big dream come true, to get some tangible tie between your flight
into space and solid reality. (Arnold, 1959/2016, p. 76)
At the same time, for Arnold inspired approaches do not contrast with a focus on
needs, human-centred design or needs-driven design. Quite to the contrary:
According to Arnold, dreaming up new inner visions or meanings can be at least
as human-centred and focused on needs as market research. In fact, inspired
approaches are said to have a greater innovation potential than organized
approaches, and innovation is understood by Arnold as a move towards better
addressing human needs. Thus, dreams and visions can be even better approaches
to satisfying important human needs than organized market research (whether or not
market research is concerned with user needs). All in all, Arnold construes need-
based design much more widely than Norman and Verganti (2014) or Ishii
et al. (2012).
Regarding the two approaches Arnold distinguishes—inspired versus orga-
nized—he credits both with important benefits. Inspired approaches are considered
most apt for an exploration of radically new, innovative solutions. Organized
approaches are credited with being especially helpful in the development of highly
sophisticated and effective outcomes, with reliable step-by-step progress. Again, this
analysis resembles that of Norman and Verganti (2014), who describe structured
Different Concepts of Human Needs and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes 215
harmful. Why? Continuing with the inquiry, eventually a need will be reached that is
so abstract as to be shared by almost all humans, like “to be healthy”. This can be the
top of the hierarchy, if no further, even more abstract need seems to figure in the
background.
To clarify branches and details of the need hierarchy, one can also start with a
more abstract need and ask “how” the end would be pursued. For instance: “How do
you try to stay healthy?” “I try to nurture good organisms in my body”, which the
person may try to achieve by eating yoghurt. Concrete needs surface as “solutions”
to satisfy more abstract, basic needs. A visualization of this food example is provided
by the d.school (2010), showcasing the typical branch-structure of a need hierarchy
(Fig. 1).
According to this understanding and methodology, creative developments are by
no means confined to current-day limits when a project focuses on needs. This view
is a fundamental understanding in Stanford-Potsdam design thinking traditions up to
the present. In the same vein, Larry Leifer and Christoph Meinel, directors of the
Stanford-Potsdam Design Thinking Research Program, emphasize in an introduction
to design thinking: “The human needs that we seek to satisfy have been with us for
millennia” (Meinel & Leifer, 2011, p. xv). Here, we may think back to needs
discussed before: “to be mobile”, “to communicate”, “to be healthy”. Such needs
are unlikely to change in the next 100, 200 or even 1000 years.
Fig. 1 In the Stanford-Potsdam design thinking tradition, needs are analysed hierarchically, from
concrete and context-dependent to abstract, common-human and enduring (image reprinted from d.
school, 2010, p. 20, CC BY-NC-SA)
Different Concepts of Human Needs and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes 217
Along with John Arnold’s need-based creativity and innovation theory, another
outlook on needs and creativity authored by Abraham Maslow found its way into
Stanford-Potsdam design thinking traditions. John Arnold was a passionate collab-
orator. He worked and taught together with world-renowned theoreticians, including
people like Abraham Maslow, who contributed a guest lecture in Arnold’s Creative
Engineering Seminar at Stanford (Clancey, 2016) and also wrote a guest essay for
the course manuscript (1959/2016).
According to Maslow, basic human needs exhibit a structure that can be visual-
ized by a pyramid (Fig. 2). “There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call
basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actuali-
zation” (1943, p. 394). Moreover, according to Maslow’s theory, needs on lower
hierarchy levels must be satisfied to some degree before needs on upper hierarchy
levels emerge.
218 J. von Thienen et al.
Self-
actualization
Esteem
Love
Safety
Physiological
It is quite true that man lives by bread alone—when there is no bread. But what happens to
man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?
At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers,
dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”)
needs emerge and so on. (Maslow, 1943, p. 375)
At the highest level of the need hierarchy, humans pursue self-actualization. Here,
creativity is said to figure essentially. Maslow explains self-actualization as follows:
This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to
become everything that one is capable of becoming. The specific form that these needs will
take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form
of the desire to be an ideal mother [. . .] and in still another it may be expressed in painting
pictures or in inventions. [. . .] [In] people who have any capacities for creation it will take
this form. (Maslow, 1943, p. 382f.)
Among all three need theories discussed here, in Maslow’s account the focus on
needs remains most remote from “user needs”. Good creators, innovators or
designers are not described as individuals who excel at finding and satisfying user
needs. Rather, they are described as excelling in the pursuit of their own basic needs,
especially the need of self-actualization: People do something they find worthwhile,
creatively.
Maslow’s theory of needs was never fully endorsed in the Stanford-Potsdam
design thinking tradition. In particular, it is not customary to look for five different
basic needs (physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization) when making
sense of insights from user research. However, Maslow’s theory did have impetus. It
certainly contributed to a lasting ideal of people achieving self-actualization by
means of worthwhile, creative projects. In that sense, design thinking skills appear
Different Concepts of Human Needs and Their Relation to Innovation Outcomes 219
most serviceable to help people make the best out of their lives and tap their full
creative potential.
The concern for self-actualization has been enduring. Design thinking is not only
invoked to advance worthwhile, new products or services. Rather, there is also a
strong interest in how design thinking helps any human in satisfying their own
needs, so as to live a fulfilled life. In line with Maslow’s need theory, creativity is
highlighted as essential in this endeavour. In this sense, Bill Burnett, Executive
Director of Stanford’s Design Program, and Stanford lecturer Dave Evans (2017)
have authored Designing your life. How to build a well lived, joyful life. Here, they
write about design thinking independent of product development and user needs.
You’re going to see the benefits of design thinking in your own life. Design doesn’t just
work for creating cool stuff like computers and Ferraris; it works in creating a cool life. You
can use design thinking to create a life that is meaningful, joyful, and fulfilling. [. . .] A well-
designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing,
evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. (Burnett & Evans, 2017, p. xvi,
emphasis in original)
This fundamental concern with the design thinker’s private life satisfaction
shared by many influential educators would not be explicable if design thinking
were all about satisfying user needs. In the Stanford-Potsdam tradition, design
thinking is considered a very valuable approach for addressing basic human
needs—including everyone’s personal concerns.
However, even when design thinking is applied to deliver product or service
innovation, Maslow’s need theory and topos of “self-actualisation through creativ-
ity” help to clarify an important link: There is a connection between the innovator’s
needs and user needs. Humans are social animals, for whom relations to others are
220 J. von Thienen et al.
essential (Tomasello, 1999; WHO, 2004; Plank et al., 2021). In this sense, we can
also appreciate how it is more rewarding for creators themselves to deliver solutions
others care deeply about (because the users’ key needs get satisfied) than to deliver
solutions people hardly care about (because barely anything changes regarding the
users’ key needs). From this perspective, there seems to be a serendipitous evolu-
tionary alignment of creators/innovators being better able to pursue their own basic
need of self-actualization when they endorse a design thinking approach, compared
to following other product development strategies that disregard user needs. As
empathic humans, creative designers themselves will be happier when the creative
process leads to design outcomes audiences are deeply grateful for.
feeling socially recognized may develop the contemporary need to drive an expen-
sive, fast car furiously. A designer who straightforwardly tried to satisfy the cus-
tomer’s contemporary need by providing a respectively designed automobile would
endanger the driver’s basic needs for physical safety, and also that of others in the
driver’s vicinity.
In light of McKim’s framework, human-centred design or a focus on needs
implies critical re-assessments of the society’s current need hierarchies. In particular,
contemporary needs pursued with a high priority in a culture at the expense of more
basic needs should be corrected through better, often radically different designs. For
instance, some car models in the 1950s were associated with high rates of deadly
accidents. In these and other cases, need hierarchies informing contemporary designs
should be critically re-thought. Both the society’s need-hierarchies and products
emerging from them should be radically re-designed.
In a modern society such as our own, the cultural environment probably has a more decisive
effect upon human needs than does the natural environment. It often causes seemingly
irrational needs for design which appear absurd to the people of other cultures. It causes
fashions and styles in design. It sometimes frustrates the satisfaction of important human
needs. [. . .] A cultural environment which frustrates the healthy satisfaction of human needs
is, in my opinion, a culture which is in for a change. (McKim, 1959/2016, p. 200)
reflections can help to create products that are respectful of a broad range of human
needs, so as to close blind-spots and overcome potentially dysfunctional dynamics
where products satisfy some needs at the expense of others. When risks and benefits
have been identified in available products, this also helps to identify stakeholder
groups—namely people who benefit from the introduction of a new product and
those who may suffer a disadvantage. From the design point of view, a careful
consideration of latter stakeholder groups can also lead to favourable product
re-designs. This novel framework for comprehensive considerations of product
risks and benefits based on human needs will be shared in an upcoming chapter in
this book series.
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228 J. Auernhammer et al.
1 Introduction
Over the last century, Design has evolved from form-giving to the design and
development of technology, interactions, experiences, and organizations (Archer,
1965; Auernhammer 2020; Buchanan, 2015; Fulton Suri, 2003; Moggridge, 2007).
These developments emerged as new challenges required new design approaches.
For example, Archer (1965, p. 57) expressed: “[. . .] there has been a world-wide
shift in emphasis from the sculptural to the technological. Ways have had to be found
to incorporate knowledge of ergonomics, cybernetics, marketing, and management
science into design thinking. As with most technology, there has been a trend
towards the adoption of a systems approach as distinct from an artifact approach.”
A similar shift is the development of Human-centered Design that emphasizes
people and the living world rather than artifacts and systems. Over the last half-
century, various contextual challenges and developments have resulted in
approaches, such as Ergonomics and Human Factors, Participatory Design, Inclu-
sive Design, Creative Engineering, and Social Design (e.g., Arnold, 1959; Carlsson
et al., 1978; Chapanis et al., 1949; Clarkson et al., 2013; Rittel, 1987).
Early Experimental Psychologists developed approaches to assessing the psycho-
logical fitness for operating airplanes (Benary et al., 1919; Koonce, 1984). These
psychological developments changed from assessing people’s qualifications to
designing technology for people, resulting in Ergonomics and Human Factors
(Christensen, 1962; Edholm & Murrell, 1973). A similar development for designing
for specific needs of people resulted from developments in Medicine and Rehabil-
itation (Rusk & Taylor, 1953). Including non-designers in the design project in
Communal Architecture resulted from the opportunities provided by insights from
various stakeholders, such as urban dwellers and craftspeople (Rudofsky, 1964).
Humanistic Psychology developments of creativity and human values influenced
humanistic and creative design practices (Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; Christensen,
1976; Maslow, 1954, 1956). Similarly, developments in Social Psychology resulted
in dialectic design approaches to resolve social tensions (Lewin, 1936, 1946, 1947;
Rittel, 1987). Figure 1 outlines the evolution of these diverse Human-centered
Design approaches.
One of the first professional practices that considered people’s behavioral capabil-
ities and limitations was aviation psychology (Koonce, 1984). In the 1910s, psy-
chologists examined people’s abilities to identify their suitability for operating
Facets of Human-Centered Design: The Evolution of Designing by, with,. . . 229
airplanes (Benary et al., 1919). These developments shifted from assuring people’s
fitness to use technology to designing technology suitable for people.
The approaches developed for digital system design found their way back to the
industrial design-side integrating objects, media, and software under the term Inter-
action Design (Houde & Hill, 1997; Moggridge, 2007, 2010; Norman, 1988;
Winograd, 1996). Cooper et al. (2007) expressed that Bill Moggridge and Bill
Verplank, who worked on the first laptop computer, coined the term Interaction
Design in the 1980s. Several decades later, in 2005, the Interaction Design Associ-
ation was incorporated (Cooper et al., 2007). Designers and scholars focused on
non-utilitarian aspects of design, such as pleasure, emotions, and experiences (e.g.,
Buchenau & Fulton Suri, 2000; Fulton Suri, 2003; Green & Jordan, 2002;
Hassenzahl, 2004, 2018; Houde & Hill, 1997; Jordan, 2000; Norman, 2007). The
focus expanded to designing for embodied cognitive approaches and implicit inter-
actions (Ju, 2008; Kirsh, 2013; Klemmer et al., 2006).
In the 1950s, institutions, such as the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabili-
tation in New York, started developing a coordinated approach for the dissemination
of information concerning self-help devices that might aid disabled persons in the
performance of the daily activities of life and work (Rusk & Taylor, 1953). This
approach advanced and became popular based on the argument that despite scientific
and medical technological advancements, problems increase for people with disabil-
ities (Nugent, 1961). This movement resulted in the first building standard that
addressed disabilities, the ANSI 117.1–1961, and the first federal law requiring
accessibility in government buildings, the Architectural Barriers Act (American
National Standards Institute, 1980; Farber, 1975). Designers started evaluating
existing design solutions concerning people’s specific needs and abilities and uti-
lized these insights to redesign solutions for people with disabilities and toward a
barrier-free environment (Goldsmith, 1963; Morgan, 1976; Sommer, 1972;
Steinfeld, 1979). The human values and concern for people with different needs
resulted in Designing for People with Disabilities. In 1978, Larry Leifer created an
interdisciplinary design program and practice at Stanford’s Rehabilitation Engineer-
ing Research and Development Center at the Palo Alto VA (Burgar et al., 2000).
In 1972, scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, established the Center
for Independent Living (Zukas, 1975). This center was a grassroots organization that
created environments designed for independence and empowering people to perform
their daily routines. The emphasis shifted from disability to independent living,
without discrimination of ethnicity, gender, age, and immigrant status (Lifchez,
1987; Lifchez & Winslow, 1979). Scholars argued that such collaborative design
between designers and people with disabilities leads to essential attitudes for design-
ing for people (Finkelstein, 1975).
The increased attention from institutions and the growth of public interest resulted in
a focus on diverse groups. Design approaches matching the needs of people with
physical and sensory disabilities resulted in Transgenerational Design (Pirkl &
Babic, 1988). Designers considered the broadest spectrum of individuals, such as
young, old, able, and disabled people, without disadvantaging a specific group
(Pirkl, 1994).
Facets of Human-Centered Design: The Evolution of Designing by, with,. . . 233
Shortly afterwards the 1990 American with Disabilities Act was established with the
emphasis on considering all people in the design process (Americans with Disabil-
ities Act (ADA) of 1990; Lebovich, 1993). This act resulted in the emergence of
Universal Design (Mace et al., 1991). The Disabilities Act and Universal Design
profoundly contributed to reducing discrimination against people with disabilities in
all areas of public life. Designers are obligated to consider the entire life span of
people, including temporary disability and future use, when designing spaces and
products (Mace et al., 1991; Story et al., 1998). Universal Design became the
precursor of a new wave of approaches in which products must be universally
accommodating and cater conveniently to all people (Goldsmith, 2000). The spec-
trum of specific needs became the new prism through which postmodernity exam-
ines and defines itself (Davis, 2002).
In Ireland, the European Institute for Design and Disability was founded to foster the
practice of designing for people of all abilities, which resulted in the Design for All
(Coleman et al., 2003). In 2004, the institute passed “The Stockholm Declaration,”
which emphasized the design for human diversity, social inclusion, and equality
(Bendixen & Benktzon, 2015).
In a similar disposition, the core value proposition of Inclusive Design optimizes the
design and development of solutions for individuals with specific needs (Clarkson
et al., 2003; Coleman et al., 2007). The design approaches that emphasize design for
all people focus on accommodating and empowering all people. Commercial design
and design for disability can inspire each other through a more playful, creative
approach (Pullin, 2009). Many designers and design scholars have developed
practices and methods to create inclusive solutions, systems, and environments
(Guffey, 2017; Null, 2013; Steinfeld & Maisel, 2012).
234 J. Auernhammer et al.
The evolution with the emphasis on the designers’ values, attitudes, abilities, and
activities to design for people emerged in the 1950s. Christensen (1976) suggested
that the emphasis on human values reflects the perceived movement up Maslow’s
(1954) scale toward self-fulfillment. Noticeably, humanistic psychology has had a
decisive effect on the development of design education and practice (Auernhammer
& Roth, 2021).
Designers, including John Arnold (1959) and Bob McKim (1959), developed a
humanistic and creative design approach. Both collaborated with psychologists,
such as Abraham Maslow and J.P. Guilford. Insights from gestalt and creativity
psychology, including Wertheimer (1945), Duncker (1945), Maslow (1954, 1962),
Guilford (1950, 1959), and Rogers (1954), informed the creative design practices.
This approach focuses on creatively satisfying people’s physical, intellectual, and
emotional needs (Adams, 1974; Arnold, 1959; Fuller, 1957; McKim, 1959, 1980).
These creative practices aimed to design for impact in the real world (Papanek,
1973). Such design works with conviction and enthusiasm in the intersection of
designers’ and clients’ interests and profound considerations for society (Eames &
Eames, 2015).
These design practices based on liberal arts, incorporating science, art, and human-
ities, developed into Design Thinking (Buchanan, 1992; Cross, 2011; Lawson, 1972,
1980; Rowe, 1987). From a structuralist perspective, psychological theories of
productive thinking resulted in developments in design science and design cognition
(Eastman, 1970; Selz, 1922; Simon, 1969, 1981). Similarly, many design scholars
have built on the work by Gestaltists, including Wertheimer’s (1945) Productive
Thinking to develop insights and approaches in design thinking (Goldschmidt, 1991;
Lawson, 1972, 1980; McKim, 1980; Schön, 1963). In 1991, the research workshop
in Design Thinking focused on design cognition and computational modeling of the
design process, establishing the Design Thinking Research Symposium series
(Cross, 2018). Many design scholars studied and developed design thinking models
and strategies (Dorst, 2015; Dym et al., 2005; Eastman et al., 2001; Eris, 2003; Faste,
1994; Gero, 1996; Goldschmidt, 1991; Jung, 2011; Lawson, 1980; Minneman,
1991; Plattner et al., 2011; Rowe, 1987; Schön, 1983; Tang & Leifer, 1988;
Valkenburg & Dorst, 1998).
Facets of Human-Centered Design: The Evolution of Designing by, with,. . . 235
In the 1960s, another movement emerged that focused on designing with people as a
source of inspiration and democratization in design (Rudofsky, 1964).
Early ideas of involving people in design resulted from the argument that architects
and designers got out of touch with people’s needs, and there is an untapped source
of inspiration from the practical knowledge of the untutored builders and urban
dwellers (Rudofsky, 1964; Turner & Fichter, 1972). Design emerges from different
people in society, and participation in design allows tapping into this source of
emerging perspectives and ideas. A similar idea was developed in the 1960s in the
Netherlands based on Habraken’s (1972) “support and infill” concept, incorporating
different stakeholders (Carp, 1986). In 1971, these ideas were brought together in
The Design Research Society conference with the primary theme Design Participa-
tion (Cross, 1972).
gathered at the first Participatory Design Conference (Bødker et al., 1995; Robertson
& Simonsen, 2012). Participatory Design democratizes the design practices and
embraces the politics involved in a design project (Björgvinsson et al., 2010;
Kensing & Blomberg, 1998). However, there are several challenges in providing
the conditions for designing with people, such as considering who is participating,
the time frame of continuous participation, power-structures involved in decision-
making, compensations for participation, and social dynamic where no social com-
munity exists and no consensus seems to be possible (Bjögvinsson et al., 2012;
Bødker, 1996; Robertson & Simonsen, 2012). Several designers and scholars
developed techniques and practices for designing with people (e.g., Bjerknes et al.,
1987; Greenbaum & Kyng, 1991; Schuler & Namioka, 1993). Participation in
information system design became common practice (Bannon et al., 2018; Bodker
et al., 2009; Carroll & Rosson, 2007; Smith et al., 2017).
The practices developed in social psychology evolved into action science and
organizational learning, emphasizing the conflict between the individual and the
designed organizational system (Argyris, 1957, 1970; Argyris et al., 1985; Argyris
& Schön, 1989, 1992, 1996). Resolving social tensions requires dialogue and action.
In architecture and urban planning, similar ideas emerged, requiring dialectic rea-
soning to tame wicked problems inherent in a pluralistic society (Rittel, 1987; Rittel
& Webber, 1973). In a similar vein, social informatics focuses on designing infor-
mation systems and technology to enable social systems, such as organizations
(Kling, 1973, 1977; Kling & Scacchi, 1980, 1982; Kling & Star, 1998). Socio-
political dynamics influence the design practices and projects, and the design
outcome impacts society (Frascara, 2002; Margolin, 2002; Margolin & Margolin,
2002). Designing is a socially constructed and political effort that requires many
diverse groups who do not have the economic or political means to generate a formal
design demand (Manzini, 2015; Margolin, 2002; Rittel & Webber, 1973; Whiteley,
1997).
Facets of Human-Centered Design: The Evolution of Designing by, with,. . . 237
From a bird’s-eye view, design solutions are created collaboratively by, with, and for
many people. This is a design culture in which many people contribute results in
open, free, distributed, and shared innovation (von Hippel, 1988, 2005, 2016). In
management, the term co-design emerged with the emphasis on co-creating value
between customers and organizations. The meaning and creation of value shifted
from a product and a firm-centric approach to personalized consumer experiences
(Prahalad, 2004; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Co-design is a network of
informed, empowered, and active people who co-design valuable solutions with
organizations, resulting in entire distributed communities of people co-designing
solutions. It is also a force for social and political change (Heller & Vienne, 2003).
Such Social Collaboration of designing is an ongoing social activity that requires
people with attitudes, values, attributes, and abilities within a supportive environ-
ment, allowing design for various needs and tensions collaboratively (Auernhammer
& Roth, 2021).
7 Conclusion
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Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study
on the Long-Term Impact of Design
Education
Sheri D. Sheppard, Helen L. Chen, George Toye, Timo Bunk, Nada Elfiki,
Felix Kempf, J. L. Lamprecht, and Micah Lande
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 247
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_13
248 S. D. Sheppard et al.
1 Introduction
For more than 50 years, design has been a strong component of mechanical engi-
neering education at Stanford University. Within the Department of Mechanical
Engineering, the Design Group offers a robust set of undergraduate and graduate
courses and curricula to support mechanical engineering design learning opportuni-
ties. The founding of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) in 2005
marked an evolution of design methodology, popularized as design thinking, beyond
just the disciplinary bounds of traditional engineering. This methodology also served
as an extension to the long tradition of project-based learning in support of engi-
neering design. The creation of engineering design-centered courses started at
Stanford in the early 1960s and showed a steady growth throughout the subsequent
decades. Today there are over 100 design courses offered each year and many
include an emphasis on project-based pedagogies (Arnold, 1953; Adams, 1974;
Auernhammer & Roth, 2021).
In this research we examine the longer-term impact of engineering design courses
on graduates’ career paths and their practical utilization of design, post-graduation.
We have focused our attention on several decades of alumni from two specific
graduate course sequences, Project-Based Engineering Design Innovation & Devel-
opment (ME310) and Smart Product Design (ME218), in order to gain a deeper
understanding of how particular course elements and strategies are directly linked to
what alumni retain and take away from their education. These course sequences
represent two possible Mechanical Engineering depth areas that leverage a project-
based learning approach to allow students to dive deeply into designing and building
functional systems of some engineering complexity.
Both ME310 and ME218 share similar pedagogical approaches of a product-
focus on learning (Larson et al., 2020) and a type of Maker-based pedagogy (Lande
et al., 2017). Students have some autonomy to explore and direct their design
challenges through the effects of prototyping (Schrage, 1996; Gerber & Carroll,
2012), scaffolded by activities, labs, and milestones (Lande, 2016). Students not
only engage in the application of a mechanical engineering design process but are
mentored in the ingenuity of developing a technology into a product with regular
engagement with a supportive teaching team of instructors and teaching assistants as
design process and technical coaches (Reich et al., 2009; Strong et al., 2019). This
high degree of interaction between the students and teaching team translates into a
healthy network of course alumni who participate on the periphery as coaches or in
quarterly events, presentations, or end-of-year activities.
The specific content of ME310 and ME218 differs in significant ways. ME310 is
focused on team-based design processes for innovative product development with
industry-sponsored projects. Since the mid-2000s, there has also been an element of
distributed collaboration with a number of academic partners around the world
(Carleton & Leifer, 2009). In contrast, ME218 has emphasized the combined
engineering disciplines in mechatronics and employed projects as a means for
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 249
2 Background
through studies of students, faculty, and early career engineers (Atman et al., 2010,
Sheppard et al., 2010). About a decade later, the National Academy of Engineering
(2018) highlighted the diversity in the skills that engineers use across occupations
and industries, the need for engineers with diverse backgrounds and life experiences,
and the ability of the engineering community to convey the value of engineering
education to diverse stakeholders.
Employing Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
The transition from a pipeline to pathways model recognizes that there is no one
singular student experience (Atman et al., 2010) and more expansive research
methods must be used to effectively gain insights into the perspectives of engineer-
ing students and alumni (Sheppard et al., 2014). The National Academy of Engi-
neering (2018) found that the limitations of national survey-based datasets
contributed to data gaps that impede the field’s understanding of educational and
career pathways. As a result, triangulation among datasets informed by surveys as
well as interviews can strengthen the credibility and generalizability of research
findings.
Connections to Entrepreneurship and Innovation Outcomes
Gilmartin et al. (2017) documented the findings from the Engineering Majors
Survey, an instrument designed to investigate undergraduate engineering students’
decisions and plans for the post-graduate transitions into the workplace and to gain a
more nuanced understanding of the academic and professional learning experiences
as well as the individual characteristics that contribute to entrepreneurial and inno-
vation interests and goals. Barth et al. (2020) provide another model of examining
the innovative behaviors and outcomes of early career engineers. The findings from
Bunk (2021), Elfiki (2021), and Sheppard et al. (2021a, b) advance the research
literature and the methodologies used to explore how graduate-level curriculum
incorporating both design and engineering components contribute to entrepreneurial
and innovative actions and career interests of alumni.
us not only to collect enough data for some interesting quantitative data analyses, but
also to explore how careers change over time (in a cross-sectional manner) and
conduct comparative analyses between the two course sequences.
Brief Description of ME310 Project-Based Engineering Design Innovation &
Development, with its emphasis on industry-sponsored engineering design projects,
was first taught in the Stanford Mechanical Engineering department in 1967. Pro-
grammatically, the ME310 A/B/C course sequence is a graduate-level, academic
year-long, multi-disciplinary, project-based learning, design engineering, student
experience. In the 1990s, ME310 updated its emphasis toward providing an integra-
tive journey of team-based innovative product design development processes (going
from concept explorations to tested prototypes), grounded in real-world contexts
through its industry-sponsored project framework. Team projects with students from
across a growing network of international academic partners reflect the increasing
interest in and adoption of globally distributed teamwork in industry. Annually,
ME310’s project portfolio spans a varying multiplicity of product and service
domains, where design challenges often include considerations for human psychol-
ogy, economics, and business models (Carleton, 2019; Carleton & Leifer, 2009;
Sheppard et al., 2021b).
Brief Description of ME218 This Smart Product Design course sequence origi-
nated in the 1970s as a single course for graduate students to design and build
electromechanical systems (also known as “mechatronics”) and has now evolved to
cover continuously advancing technologies and topics in software/firmware and
electromechanical and electronic hardware design. The ME218 A/B/C/D course
series offered in Mechanical Engineering is a graduate-level, depth sequence option
that spans four academic quarters where students incrementally acquire greater
technical knowledge and master more advanced design, build, and debugging skills
through a series of hands-on laboratory assignments and projects. ME218A empha-
sizes fundamentals, ME218B applications, and ME218C practice. In ME218D,
student teams dedicate their efforts to industry-sponsored projects.
Crafting a study approach to answer our research questions was not without
challenges, since the instructors and curricular topics for ME310 and ME218 have
changed over the decades—although we believe that their core fundamentals have
remained largely intact. In addition, there have been generational variations given
the changing profile of graduate students admitted to Stanford’s Mechanical Engi-
neering program as represented by the research on Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen
Y/Millennials, and now Gen Z (Pew Research Center, 2015). The picture is further
complicated by the fluctuating job market, especially as engineering work continues
to evolve and expand.
Figure 1 and Table 1 provide an overview of the various datasets that were
collected and that constitute our overall research design. This mixed methods
study weaves together quantitative data collected through surveys with semi-
structured interviews that draw out more details about alumni’s course experiences
and subsequent career choices. The research design, funded by the Hasso Plattner
252 S. D. Sheppard et al.
Table 1 Summary of the ME310 and ME218 instruments, participants, relevant research ques-
tions, and researchers
Research Lead
instrument Participants Research questions/goal researchers
ME310 Survey: ME310 Alumni from 1992 RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, RQ4 Toye, Chen,
deployed July to 2018. Survey sent to Kempf, Elfiki,
2020 734 ME310 alumni. 41% Sheppard
response rate.
ME310 Inter- Alumni identified from RQ3, RQ4, with a particular Elfiki
views: conducted ME310 Survey Responses, focus on identifying entre-
in November based on Entrepreneurial preneurs and intrapreneurs
2020 and Innovation Self-
Efficacy Measures. 39 inter-
views conducted out of
75 invitations.
ME218 Inter- ME218 alumni who are or RQ3, RQ4, with a particular Bunk
views: conducted who have been successful focus on identifying suc-
December 2020– entrepreneurs. Interview cessful founders
January 2021 candidates were identified
from recommendations
from E. Carryer, LinkedIn
profiles and ME218 public
archive, based on founder
activity. 19 interviews
conducted out of
26 invitations.
ME218 Survey: ME218 Alumni from 1987 RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, RQ4, plus Toye, Chen,
deployed to 2019. Survey sent to distinguishing how/if the Kempf, Lande,
August– 1735 alumni. 33.8% emersive experiences in Bunk,
September 2021 response rate. ME310 and ME218 differ Lamprecht,
from one another. Sheppard
Design Thinking Research Program (HPDTRP), evolved over the course of 2 years.
The first year facilitated the design and development of the ME310 Alumni Survey,
and the second year expanded the work to include alumni from ME218 which
allowed for comparative analyses.
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 253
Both the ME310 and ME218 Alumni Survey instruments share common sections on
Education (degrees earned), Career Pathways (post-course occupations, current/
most recent job, future plans), Attitudes and Skills (self-efficacy and innovative
behaviors) and Demographics. Self-efficacy, the belief in one’s ability to perform a
specific task or action (Bandura, 1986), and its relationship to Social Cognitive
Career Theory (Lent et al., 1994; Lent & Brown, 2006) serve as the theoretical
foundation informing our alumni research particularly as it relates to engineering,
innovation (Barth et al., 2020; Gilmartin et al., 2017; Schar et al., 2017a, b),
entrepreneurship (De Noble et al., 1999), and design thinking (Schar, 2020).
Table 2 describes the three self-efficacy measures included in the survey instruments
that were particularly relevant to the ME310 and ME218 interviews, along with a
key behavioral measure on innovation. These items concentrate on the attitudes and
skills demonstrated on the job, and build on prior research findings from the
Engineering Majors Survey (Gilmartin et al., 2017; Schar et al., 2017a, b) and De
Noble et al. (1999), who focused on innovative and entrepreneurial activities and
behaviors. ME310 and ME218 survey participants were also asked how often they
engaged in various activities and behaviors listed in Table 3 as a strategy to build a
more nuanced picture of individuals’ day-to-day work.
Survey Items Tailored to the Course Experience
Each survey also includes survey questions that focused on the attributes of the
course experience, outcomes, and takeaways. Sheppard et al. (2021a, b) provide
more details about the rationale and development of these measures.
Some of the ME310 and ME218 survey questions focused on recalling and
assessing the impact of course-specific core design strategies and skills, whereas
other questions were designed to prompt reflection on their course projects. These
strategies and skills varied between the two courses. Furthermore, because of
ME310’s emphasis on the social-dynamics of design, additional questions related
to the team and classmate interactions and performance and the durability of
teammate relationships, both locally and globally, were included. In contrast, a
series of questions on the ME218 survey related to the pervasiveness of continued
activities related to software and electronics design, writing interface firmware, and
designing mechatronic systems. These differences are summarized in Table 4.
Key Survey Deployment Details
Details of the deployment of the ME310 Alumni Survey are provided in Sheppard
et al. (2021a, b). Many of the same procedures were followed with the deployment of
the ME218 Alumni Survey (e.g., using Qualtrics, working with the Institutional
Research office to identify names of students who had completed the course over the
25 year period, and then with the Alumni Relations group within the School of
Engineering to send out email invitations to the identified alumni). For the ME218
alumni, a commemorative digital poster representing a collage of course photos was
commissioned and sent out to all survey participants. In addition, 19 survey partic-
ipants were randomly selected in a drawing to receive a gift card to the Stanford
Bookstore and/or an invitation to a virtual meal with the current ME218 instructor
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 255
and fellow alumni. It is important to note that the success of both surveys relied
heavily on leveraging the social capital of class alumni to participate.
Survey Respondents
The demographics of the survey respondents among ME310 and ME218 alumni
who had been invited to participate in the survey are shown in Table 5. These
demographics largely mirror those of the larger population in the graduate program
in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford, where there has been a slow and steady rise
in female enrollment over the years. Noteworthy is the underrepresentation of those
who self-identified as American Indian, Black or African American, or Hispanic.
The ME310 and ME218 survey datasets represent a unique and heterogeneous
network of alumni who graduated from Stanford between 1993 and 2017 for ME310
and 1988 to 2019 for ME218. Despite the extraordinary course histories and multi-
generational survey audience, the survey respondents are evenly distributed across
year groups and clusters as visualized in Fig. 2a. An even distribution of survey
participants across year groups allows us to gain robust and valuable insights into
how these courses were perceived over the years. Figure 2b shows the response rate
across the years.
The response rate is defined as people with registered email address divided by
the number of responses. Note: In the ME218 dataset we have 12 missing values
regarding the academic year of enrollment.
256 S. D. Sheppard et al.
Both interview studies described below employed a multiple case research strategy
for theory building (within the case of the ME310 or ME218 course) so as to focus
on further understanding the dynamics that are present within a single context
(Eisenhardt, 1989). The fundamental source of data stems from semi-structured
interviews, as these are an effective and efficient technique of gathering
information-rich data from numerous and highly knowledgeable informants who
view the focal phenomena from diverse perspectives (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007).
Selection and Recruitment for the ME310 Interview Study on Entrepreneurs
and Intrapreneurs, and Development of Interview Protocol
A theoretical sampling approach was taken to identify which ME310 survey partic-
ipants to interview based on the following criteria:
1. Moderate to high average Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE) and Innovation
Self-Efficacy (ISE) scores (see Table 2)
2. Current position: entrepreneur or intrapreneur
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . .
Fig. 2 (a) Enrollments and invitations sent to ME310 and ME218 alumni, by year of class enrollments
257
258
Fig. 2 (continued) (b) ME310 and ME218 alumni survey response rates by year enrolled in course
S. D. Sheppard et al.
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 259
students in a lecture and how they would demonstrate their acquired skills to
students with entrepreneurial interests.
In total, interviews were conducted with 19 individuals from a variety of indus-
tries. Men accounted for 89% and women represented 11% of those interviewed.
More details on the study procedures can be found in Bunk (2021).
4 Results
Table 6 shows that some 36.7% of ME310 course alumni were working in medium-
to-large firms (49% when missing responses are excluded), and 15.0% were working
in small firms (20% without missing responses). This is in contrast to 49.1% of
ME218 alumni who reported working in medium-to-large firms, and 23.5% working
in small firms. These results suggest that ME218 course alumni may be more drawn
to smaller organizations than ME310 course alumni.
Another 13.1% (17.6% without missing responses) of ME310 alumni are foun-
ders of a for-profit organization, compared with 11.9% of ME218 alumni; both
numbers are significantly higher than the 4% number reported in the National
Academy of Engineering (2018) report on academic and career pathways of engi-
neering graduates.
We also see that 7.6% of ME310 alumni (excluding missing data) and 6.4% of
ME218 alumni identify as being a faculty member at a university or college. These
numbers are in the range reported for individuals who choose to pursue a PhD degree
after earning a Master’s degree, then going on to careers in academia (National
Academy of Engineering, 2018).
Both alumni surveys asked respondents to classify their current or most recent job
and their first job after completing ME310 or ME218 from a list of 16 job functions.
Respondents were asked to “mark all that apply.” As shown in Fig. 3, the three job
functions that saw notable increases in respondent involvement between the first
post-ME310 (or ME218) job and their current job were Marketing/Public Relations,
Sales, and Technical Management (suggesting migration into these functions). The
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 261
Table 6 Organizational role best aligned with current or most recent job
Fig. 3 (a) ME310 alumni respondents reporting various job functions of their current job and first
post-ME310 job (N ¼ 267). (b) ME218 alumni respondents reporting various job functions of their
current job and first post-ME218 job (N ¼ 503)
262 S. D. Sheppard et al.
Fig. 3 (continued)
Table 7 Engineering and non-engineering classifications of first position after course and current
position
Position type: ME310 Alumni ME218 Alumni
Engineering Respondents Percent Respondents Percent
First position after course 220 82.4% 452 89.9%
Current position 104 39.0% 353 70.2%
three job functions that saw notable decreases in respondent involvement were
Design, R&D, and Production/Manufacturing (suggesting migration out of these
functions).
We also asked ME310 and ME218 alumni to classify their first and current jobs as
engineering or non-engineering. As shown in Table 7, some 90% of ME218 alumni
described their first job as “engineering”; this number decreased to 70% when
classifying their current job. For ME310 alumni, some 82% identified their first
job as “engineering”; this dropped to 39% when describing their current job.
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 263
The findings from the ME310 and ME218 alumni interviews are documented in
Elfiki’s (2021) and Bunk’s (2021) master’s theses, respectively. Elfiki (2021) iden-
tified four main categories (Mastery by Doing, Connection to Real Life, Interdisci-
plinary Exposure, Supportive Environment) that have the potential to enhance
Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Innovation Self-Efficacy. Bunk (2021) examined
other factors that influenced ME218 alumni’s decisions to start companies and
further aspects crucial for their entrepreneurial success including Relevant Learnings
for the Entrepreneurial Path (important lessons learned by founders during their
education beyond their ME218 experience), and Success Factors, Entrepreneurial
Motivation Factors, and Confidence for Entrepreneurship, which described ele-
ments that have the potential to inspire more students to consider an entrepreneurial
pathway.
Sheppard et al. (2021b) provide details on the design of the ME310 survey,
including logistical considerations for survey deployment and participant incentives.
Cronbach’s Alpha scores, based on the data, for the self-efficacy measures of
Innovation Self-Efficacy (α ¼ 0.72), Engineering Self-Efficacy (α ¼ 0.85), Entre-
preneurial Self-Efficacy (α ¼ 0.87), and Design Thinking Self-Efficacy (α ¼ 0.75)
were reported, along with the actual calculated values of these measures based on the
weighted average of associated items.
Sheppard et al. (2021a) was shared results at the annual meeting of the American
Society of Engineering Education in July 2021. In this conference paper and
presentation, variations across the self-efficacy measures among the ME310 alumni
were investigated. Through comparative analyses of the ME310 survey data, we
looked at how leadership roles, employment in various types of organizations, and
job functions might result in differences in self-efficacy and/or innovative behaviors.
We found that greater Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Innovative Behaviors were
exhibited by those who reported more leadership responsibilities and/or who were
currently a founder. Furthermore, those whose current job involved R&D and
design, and whose first job had involved one or both of these functions exhibited
greater Engineering Self-Efficacy, but no greater Innovation Self-Efficacy or Entre-
preneurial Self-Efficacy than any of the other groups we considered. Those whose
first and current jobs did not include any design and/or R&D functions exhibited the
lowest innovative behavior.
As part of our efforts to gain insights into the ME310 course experience for the
teaching team, we experimented with new approaches of data analysis including a
“word salad” question where we presented survey participants with a list of 18 words
and asked them to mark all that were applicable to describing their overall ME310
design journey. Using the R programming language to analyze the data, the word
cloud in Fig. 4 summarizes how frequently an individual word was selected by the
ME310 survey participants. The majority of the words identified by 301 respondents
(84.1%) were deemed positive (e.g., engaging, enjoyable, inspiring) rather than
negative (15.9%, e.g., painful, frustrating, tiring). These results were included in a
264 S. D. Sheppard et al.
report to the ME310 teaching team. This same survey item was also included in the
ME218 alumni survey and we also expect to share the corresponding findings with
the course instructor.
The spring and fall 2021 Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program
(HPDTRP) community meetings served as important touchpoints for our project
with the workshop format prompting synthesis with the design educator audience in
mind. The multi-disciplinary community of HPDTRP with diverse expertise—
engineering, design, medicine, science, and the humanities—served as a critical
sounding board for how we continue to frame and communicate our findings to a
broader community of designers and educators. The feedback and suggestions we
received have directly informed the development of the framework in Fig. 5 which
situates the intensive project-based design courses within a broader context of the
pedagogical and curricular components identified in our research.
We also shared sample findings from the ME218 survey at the fall 2021 ME218
alumni BBQ, a fall gathering that has been hosted for the last 10 years by the firm
219 Design. The ME218 research team wanted to thank the alumni for their
participation by providing some preliminary survey insights at the annual ME218
alumni gathering. In order to present the data in a memorable and creative way, the
team used Kahoot!, a game-based learning platform, to create a poll with seven
questions from the actual survey. For example, participants could each pick one out
of four options to guess how many survey respondents are currently founders or
co-founders of their own organizations. After each question, the quiz responses were
compared with the actual survey data and people with the correct answers received
Decades of Alumni: Designing a Study on the Long-Term Impact of. . . 265
Fig. 5 Emerging framework for the design, implementation, and assessment of project-based
design engineering courses. (a) The blue triangle highlights the Course Elements of Design
Thinking, Engineering, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship, with affiliated courses (indicated by
the dots) in hypothesized locations; (b) the red triangle identifies the Teaching Strategy dimensions
and their hypothesized alignment with the Course Elements
points. At the end of the poll, the winner with the highest number of points was
announced followed by a short Q&A regarding the actual survey results.
5.1 Discussion
(say 1992)—we recognize these are generations of engineers are very different. We
were also challenged by wanting the data collection experience for the alumni
(whether through a survey or interview) to be a positive interaction since the user
experience is critical to good design.
At the time of writing, we are in the midst of several lines of inquiry with the
datasets, as outlined below.
6 Parting Remarks
Acknowledgments We have an extended team to say “thanks” to: Professors Larry Leifer and
Mark Cutkosky, Dr. Ed Carryer, Crystal Pennywell, Gosia Wojciechowska, Elizabeth Mattson,
Mark Schar, Hung Pham, Elizabeth and Lucy Higgins, Nicole Esther Salazar, Katie Toye, Niclas-
Alexander Mauss, Lawrence Domingo, and Jan Auernhammer, and colleagues in the Stanford
Designing Education Lab. We could not have completed this study without the help of Alumni
Relations and Student Engagement in the School of Engineering—in particular Drea Sullivan and
Catherine McMillan. We are very grateful for the keen editing-eyes of Tammy Liaw and Sharon
Nemeth, and the organizational talents of Jill Grinager in bringing the Springer volume into
existence each year. We are also grateful to Dr. Claudia Liebethal and Prof. Helmut Schönenberger
from UnternehmerTUM who helped recruit dynamite researchers to join the team. Finally, we are
appreciative to those who participated in the pilot phases of survey design, the many ME310 and
ME218 graduates who completed these surveys, and those who agreed to be interviewed—they
represent the essential ingredients of this research. Finally, we acknowledge the generous support of
this work from the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program.
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Different Types of Productive Thinking
in Design: From Rational to Social Design
Thinking
Abstract This book chapter outlines the theory of Productive Thinking in Design.
This theory is the psychological foundation of today’s Design Thinking. Productive
Thinking incorporates the psychological processes of finding a need, problem, or
structural tension and determining a means that satisfies the need and harmonizes the
tension. These psychological processes are driven by forces and factors, including
attitudes, attributes, and human values. In this article, we outline five different types
of Productive Thinking and discuss them in the context of Design. These are
(1) Rational, (2) Situational, (3) Experimental, (4) Dialectic, and (5) Counterproduc-
tive. Each type of Productive Thinking is dependent on the situational context for
which a design solution needs to be created. For example, a situation in which a
solution-method can be determined directly requires Rational Productive Thinking,
while unintelligible, ambiguous, and emerging situations require Experimental or
Dialectic Productive Thinking. We emphasize that it is essential to cultivate a
Productive Culture in which individuals can freely, creatively, confidently, compe-
tently, and collaboratively design for a harmonious ecological and social whole.
1 Introduction
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 271
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_14
272 J. Auernhammer and B. Roth
and solving and meaning creation. These thought processes are foundational to
creative accomplishments in science, art, and design (Duncker, 1945; Guilford,
1950; Selz, 1922; Wertheimer, 1945). Productive Thinking occurs in mathematics,
physics, music, painting, design, and sports, to name a few (Arnheim, 2009; Arnold,
1959; Pólya, 1957; Selz, 1922; Wertheimer, 1945). Questions regarding Productive
Thinking are still being investigated in contemporary research in psychology and
neuroscience (Kounios & Beeman, 2009, 2014; Mayer, 1995; Wertheimer, 1996).
In Design, Productive Thinking has been reconceptualized into Design Thinking
over the decades. For example, Eastman (1970) and Simon (1969, 1981)
reconceptualized Selz’s (1922) Productive Thinking through de Groot’s (1965)
work in Thoughts and Choice in Chess as “design” and “design cognition.” Simi-
larly, Dorst (2019) writes that there are many parallels of design models going back
to de Groot (1969). Others, such as Lawson (1972, 1980) and Goldschmidt (1991),
refer to Wertheimer’s (1945) Productive Thinking as theoretical explanations of how
designers think. Schön’s (1963, 1992a, b) work on the displacement of concepts,
design education, and reflective practices incorporates Wertheimer’s (1945) Produc-
tive Thinking and Dewey’s (1938) Theory of Inquiry. Similarly, Rowe (1987), in
Design Thinking, outlines theoretical positions, including the Würzburg School and
Gestalt Movement. Selz (1922) was part of the Würzburg School (structuralism)
while, e.g., Wertheimer (1945), Koffka (1935), Köhler (1925); Duncker (1945), and
Arnheim (1954, 1969) were Gestaltists (humanism). Arnold’s (1959) and McKim’s
(1972) work incorporate various aspects of Productive Thinking by Wertheimer
(1945), Duncker (1945), and Guilford (1950), as well as Visual Thinking by
Arnheim (1954, 1969). McKim (1972, p. vii) expressed that John Arnold influenced
him through his “pioneering efforts in educating Productive Thinking.”
Productive Thinking theories are the psychological foundations of Design Think-
ing. For example, Selz (1922) outlined that directly determining a solution-method
of a task requires grasping a purpose-means relationship (Zweckmittelverbinding).
Simon (1969) reconceptualized Selz’s (1922) work as a means-end analysis, pro-
viding the basis for his Science of the Artificial. It also comes as no surprise that
design researchers identified that designers determine solutions by building “brid-
ges” between problems (purpose) and solutions (means) in conceptual design tasks
(Dorst & Cross, 2001). The Productive Thinking theories influenced many fields,
including artificial intelligence, creativity, design research, entrepreneurship, inno-
vation management, organization studies, philosophy of science, and human–com-
puter interactions, to name a few (e.g., Card et al., 1983; Guilford, 1950; March &
Simon, 1958; Newell & Simon, 1956; Popper, 2002; Sarasvathy, 2001; Schön,
1992a; Simon, 1957). In that sense, Design Thinking provides a renaissance of
Productive Thinking (i.e., human creativity) in diverse fields and disciplines. This
book chapter outlines the Psychology of Productive Thinking and discusses different
Productive Thinking types in Design.
Different Types of Productive Thinking in Design: From Rational to Social. . . 273
This distinction has existed since the early developments of the theories in
Productive Thinking. The first distinction is the understanding of the task and
situation. Through introspection, Selz (1922) investigated Productive Thinking, in
which the tasks represent the situation. As the situation is equal to the given task, it is
possible to determine a solution-method by grasping a purpose-means relationship,
as there is a very close relationship between a given task and a solution-method. In
contrast, Koffka (1927) expressed that such Productive Thinking is enforced by an
artificial stimulus and effected by alien and arbitrary factors rather than psycholog-
ical processes and forces that represent the nature of real-life situations. He argues
that the coincidental constellation of the circumstances brings about the effect, not a
property inherent in the causal process (Koffka, 1927). This position emphasizes that
the task and solution are not “assigned” to one another because the solution is not
triggered by the task-situation but emerges from it. Psychological forces and prin-
ciples reshape the phenomenal fields (i.e., the perceived situation) to reduce tensions,
and with each new insight emerges something new, and something new enables new
possibilities (Koffka, 1927).
Secondly, Selz’s (1922) position has been labeled a “machine theory” (Benary,
1923). The stimulus, reflexes, and operational results can be determined as an
abstracted schema (i.e., purpose-means or if-then relationships). Selz (1922)
expressed that it is secondary for his theory if the insight occurred from anticipation
as long as a purpose-means (if-then) relationship can be determined retrospectively.
Koffka (1927) expressed that this position does not allow for identifying, e.g., if the
operational result actually emerged from the anticipation of a purpose-means
(if-then) relationship. Individuals are aware of and can anticipate circumstances
without a conscious abstraction of an if-then schema, and this is the most critical
distinction between Productive Thinking from a structuralist and Gestalt position
(Koffka, 1927). From a Gestalt position, Productive Thinking is grasping a “struc-
tural tension” through direct experience, which sets forth a motivation toward a
“harmonious structure” (Wertheimer, 1945). Like Wertheimer (1945), Dewey
(1938), from his functionalist position, described the activities of inquiry as resolv-
ing an indeterminate (i.e., confusing or conflicting) situation and into a determinate
situation, which is an experimental and social activity.
Thirdly, the two positions differ in the understanding of novelty. In Selz’s (1922)
Productive Thinking, novelty is the determination of a new solution-method by
grasping a purpose-means relationship. In contrast, Koffka (1927) expresses that
transformation processes in the perceptual field (e.g., Rubin’s Vase: Perceivable as a
vase and two faces) create new environmental conditions. In such cases, the
“abstraction of circumstances” is a truly productive (i.e., creative) process as some-
thing novel is created, which was not in psychological existence before. In design,
this distinction is present in Simon’s (1969) interpretation of means-end analysis
(structuralist) and Schön’s (1983) interpretation that the “situations talks back”
(Gestalt and functionalism).
Selz’s (1922) position influenced the “cognitive revolution” of machine models
of human thinking, replacing behaviorism as the predominant position (Mandler,
2002; Simon, 1981). Many scholars debated aspects inherent in the distinctions of
276 J. Auernhammer and B. Roth
the different positions over the decades (e.g., Clancey, 1993; Csikszentmihalyi,
1988; Greeno & Moore, 1993; Schön, 1992a; Simon, 1988; Vera & Simon, 1993).
For example, Neisser (1963) criticized the machine position in human psychology,
and Bruner et al. (1986) expressed that psychology is now in the shackles of
“computational models.” The distinction between the two positions is particularly
evident in research on color vision, as it is an ecologically embedded activity rather
than a form of information-processing (Koffka, 1912; Varela & Thompson, 1990).
The distinction in psychological position matters in the conception of the different
types of Productive Thinking, particularly in situations that are “unintelligible.”
Different situations require and lead to distinct types of Productive Thinking. The
different types of Productive or Design Thinking are (1) Rational, (2) Situational,
(3) Experimental, (4) Dialectic, and (5) Counterproductive. Figure 1 shows the five
different types of Productive Thinking.
The first type is Rational Productive Thinking. In this type, a solution-method can be
directly determined by abstracting the means-purpose or if-then relationship from
the given task, and the situation is totally intelligible (Duncker, 1935, 1945; Selz,
1922). The purpose-means or if-then relationship is inherent in the nature of the
situation, such as mathematical problems (e.g., winning a chess game).
In a given situation, Rational Productive Thinking is essential in which the if-then
relationship is grasped directly through analysis (constitutional co-constrained) and
synthesis (non-constitutional co-constrained). The if-then relationship can be
3.3.1 Anticipation
3.3.2 Resonance
3.3.3 Recentering
structurally better, the gap is filled adequately, the structural trouble has disappeared: it is
sensibly complete as against S1.
Similarly, Eames and Eames (2015) expressed that great design happens in the
intersection of designers’ interest (i.e., motivation), clients’ wishes (i.e., socio-
economic complexity), and social concerns (i.e., profound concerns of the living
world). Wertheimer (1945) provides an example of two boys playing badminton for
self-actualized Productive Thinking in social settings. The older boy outperforms,
the younger, making it an unpleasant game for the younger boy. An insight of “let’s
see how long we can keep the ball going between us” changed the rules of the game,
making it a more enjoyable experience and harmonious Gestalt and social situation
(Wertheimer, 1945). In such Productive Thinking, individuals’ attitudes are becom-
ing imperative as changes of centering from self to others are characteristics of
profoundly important accomplishments in human beings and society (Wertheimer,
1945, p. 170). Attitudes that are ego-based harmonize for one’s own satisfaction
(e.g., winning), while self-actualized attitudes result in psychological processes of
Productive Thinking that harmonize for togetherness. Maslow (1954) expressed that
self-actualization requires overcoming primary and ego needs. This perspective
provides a humanistic perspective in Productive Thinking in which the human
experience matters (e.g., in playing chess), in contrast to the fixed means-end
conception of design.
This attitude inherent in self-actualization is essential when designing for people
(McKim, 1959). Designers are not neutral in situations, as beliefs and values
influence every step of the design (Rittel, 1987). Translating structural tensions in
people’s lives into a harmonious and valuable experience requires qualities, such as
attitudes, human values, and need sensibility (Auernhammer & Roth, 2021). For
example, need-finding is a deliberate effort of recentering to others. It aims to
understand structural tensions from diverse points of view through awareness and
282 J. Auernhammer and B. Roth
direct experience within the situation. Grasping and envisioning a new and valuable
Gestalt of the situation allows creating and prototyping concrete artifacts and actions
that change the situation as a whole. This new situation can be directly experienced
and assessed for its structural tension or harmony. Designing a harmonious situation
includes considering needs, meaning, usefulness, and usability. In self-actualized
Productive Thinking, designers translate the structural tension in people’s lives (i.e.,
needs) into a new tangible and valuable design that changes the whole situation
(McKim, 1959). Such humanistic Productive Thinking is essential in social situa-
tions. However, the complexity increases when designing for a pluralistic society,
making the situation essentially a “wicked problem” (Rittel & Webber, 1973).
The fourth type is Dialectic Productive Thinking. This type of Productive Thinking
is required as it is not possible to grasp and experience all felt tensions of diverse
groups inherent in pluralistic society. Such social situations cannot be grasped and
resolved as a purpose-means relationship as there is no stable state (Schön, 1973).
In social situations inherent in a pluralistic society, many needs of diverse groups
produce emerging and ever-changing situations of need-tensions (Lewin, 1936,
1946). These situations are “wicked problems” inherent in a pluralistic society
(Rittel & Webber, 1973). In such situations, social tension cannot be comprehended
before solving it, as each situation is viewed from many diverse perspectives, and
there is no correct perspective (Rittel, 1982; Rittel & Webber, 1973). Rittel (1982)
emphasizes that tensions in social situations have no final solution as they can
always be resolved in new and different ways. Every social tension is a symptom
of another “solution” (e.g., one’s group harmonic situation is another’s group social
tension) with no time limits to the consequences, making testing a solution impos-
sible as each trial changes the situation (Rittel, 1982). Each social intervention
results in unique societal consequences, making the problem solvers (i.e., designers)
responsible for what they are doing (Rittel, 1982). Such social situations as a whole
can only be grasped indirectly by identifying the inherent value-tension within the
social interactions of diverse groups. A social Gestalt (e.g., need-tension or harmo-
nious situation) can be directly experienced in the many everyday social interactions
of diverse groups and within a culture (Lewin, 1943, 1946). Resolving these social
tensions requires a productive dialogue (Lewin, 1936, 1943, 1946, 1947; Rittel,
1987).
Lewin (1936) stated that Dialectic Productive Thinking requires the conditions of
a high level of fluidity within a social situation, which is an essential dynamic
property of a situation in which social change is possible. Such Dialectic Productive
Thinking is required to destruct the forces maintaining the “old equilibrium” (e.g.,
social tensions) and establishing or liberating forces toward a “new equilibrium”
(e.g., social harmony) (Lewin, 1943). Such a fluid social situation is a space for
Different Types of Productive Thinking in Design: From Rational to Social. . . 283
and freedom for creativity (Arnold, 1959; Rogers, 1954). In such a culture, designers
can create, build, break, and learn from mistakes in a safe environment (e.g., Design
Loft and Product Realization Lab culture). Individuals build creative confidence
through countless projects (Kelley & Kelley, 2013). To enable such an educational
environment, John E. Arnold redeveloped the student shop (today Product Realiza-
tion Lab) program in the late 1950s to put creativity and design skills into practice
(Beach, 1974). Such a productive environment allows people to explore and develop
solutions that contribute to society. A Productive Culture is established through a
critical mass of self-actualized, confident, capable, and considerate individuals. This
culture enables Productive Thinking in Design, and it holds the potential to resolve
the continuous emergent tensions in the real world collaboratively and productively.
Acknowledgment The first author would like to thank Larry Leifer, Bernie Roth, and the wider
design community at Stanford for cultivating this self-actualized behavior. It is tremendously
freeing when people support and help one another.
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The Cultural Construction of Creative
Problem-Solving: A Critical Reflection
on Creative Design Thinking, Teaching,
and Learning
Xiao Ge, Chunchen Xu, Nanami Furue, Daigo Misaki, Cinoo Lee,
and Hazel Rose Markus
Abstract While people around the world constantly come up with ingenious ideas
to solve problems, the expressions of their ingenuity and their underlying motiva-
tions and experiences may vary greatly across cultures. Currently, the role of culture
is often overlooked in research and practice aimed at understanding and promoting
creativity. The lack of understanding of cultural variations in creative processes
hinders cross-cultural collaboration in problem-solving and innovation. We chal-
lenge the unexamined American perspectives of creativity through a systematic
analysis of how ideas, policies, norms, practices, and individual tendencies around
creative problem-solving are shaped in American and East Asian cultural contexts,
using the culture cycle framework. We share initial findings from several pilot
studies that challenge the popular view that only agentic change-makers are seen
as creative problem solvers. In the context of design, designers are culturally shaped
shapers who are motivated to solve problems in creative ways that resonate with
their cultural values. Our research seeks to empower designers from non-Western
societies. We urge design educators and practitioners to explicitly incorporate
culturally varied ideas about creative problem-solving into their design processes.
Our ultimate goal is to ground the theories and practices of design thinking in
cultural contexts around the world.
X. Ge (*)
Center for Design Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
C. Xu · C. Lee · H. R. Markus
Stanford SPARQ, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
N. Furue
School of Management, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan
D. Misaki
Faculty of Engineering, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 291
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_15
292 X. Ge et al.
1 Introduction
As soon as winter begins, locals in Harbin, a city in the northeast part of China,
cannot wait to stock up piles of napa cabbage on their porches and balconies. As the
temperature quickly falls below zero Celsius in the dry winter, the perfect conditions
are created to keep the cabbage fresh and tasty for several months. Stews with
cabbage, glass noodles, pork, and tofu make this perfect dish throughout the dark
winter. For people in northeast China, the tradition of eating this dish in winter dates
back to thousands of years ago during the Tang Dynasty. To Harbiners, storing
stacks of cabbage is not just a casual tradition, it is a cultural practice that bridges
millions of families and connects the young with the old and the present with the
past. In Harbin, such connection to the past and to people is a prevalent element in
everyday life, manifesting itself in both material and symbolic cultures.
In San Francisco, by contrast, the experience of food is an ever-changing fashion.
People seek diverse dining experiences—from unique menus to unconventional
dining occasions. Chez Panisse, a popular high-end restaurant, for instance, is
famous for its distinct culture and cuisine, whose menu “changes everyday”
(Chesbrough et al., 2014). High-tech companies in Silicon Valley are venturing
into new territories to reimagine food production and consumption (e.g., Dance,
2017). In San Francisco, people discover novel sensations and constantly seek to
break with tradition.
These food practices in San Francisco would be considered creative in the USA,
because creativity in the USA has been represented and exercised as “defying the
crowd” (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995) and “breaking tradition” (Lubart, 1999). As a
consequence of reinforcing such cultural ideas in practice, creative idea generation is
widely perceived as serving to instigate change: coming up with new ideas to change
the status quo, stand apart from the past, assert control over their surrounding
environment, as well as establish their uniqueness from other people.
If we were to adopt such a theory of creativity, Harbin chefs who do not seek
changes in their food tradition would be seen as less creative. The role of culture,
however, is not explicitly discussed either in deriving the theory or in promoting
certain creative practices. For example, the amplification of radical change and
transformation as a goal and attitude is widely observed in various settings of design
education and innovation practice regardless of the participants’ cultural back-
grounds. Creative idea generation is widely understood as “a structured way of
breaking out of structure,” as Tim Brown, chair of IDEO, famously quoted in his
book Change by Design (Brown, 2009). “Enable change in Japan through design
and creativity,” is the mission of IDEO Tokyo (IDEO, 2021). Culture is too often
overlooked, such that the interpretation of East Asian behaviors and practices
becomes rather a projection of American ideas. This in turn leads to misunderstand-
ing and misjudging East Asian creativity. Online discussions of “Can Asians be
creative?” and popular book titles such as Can Asians Think? (Mahbubani, 2002,
cited in Morris & Leung, 2010) provide a glimpse of such stigma.
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 293
We would first like to revisit design thinking development and research by putting
on a pair of cultural perspective goggles. The underpinning role of culture was made
visible in design thinking from the very beginning. John Arnold (1913–1963), the
founding father of design thinking at Stanford, conceived designers as other-directed
294 X. Ge et al.
Fig. 1 Life Magazine captures John Arnold’s unconventional teaching (Hunt, 1955)
rather than inner-directed, and recognized that culture has a direct influence on how
designers view the world (Clancey, 2016). Yet Arnold’s view on culture is also a
product of his own cultural experience—he criticizes other-directedness and calls for
a recognition of one’s unique individual mind—the so-called Uncommon Man
(Clancey, 2016). This is consistent with the mainstream belief in the USA that
motivation and action spring primarily from desires, beliefs, and attributes of the
independent self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), which can be activated by freeing
individuals from constraints of the environment and of tradition.
Arnold’s iconic, unconventional course at MIT in the 1960s also set an example
for this (Fig. 1). He presented students with design problems for clumsy birdlike
inhabitants on an imaginary planet called Arcturus IV, which was based on the belief
that creative problem-solving could be trained by temporarily freeing students from
their accustomed environment and placing them in a new imaginary one (Clancey,
2016). In his study of Arnold’s philosophy, William Clancey concludes that, in
Arnold’s view, “the creative individual is a positive non-conformist.” Such a view of
creativity is reflected in the recent development of design methods and tools, such as
the rules of brainstorming (Sutton & Hargadon, 1996) and methods for breaking free
from “blocks” in problem-solving (Adams, 2019). In the early years, visitors of
Stanford Mechanical Engineering Design Group were sometimes taken to drag
racing competitions to understand the “American design” and engineering (mascu-
line) creativity. These tools and practices were designed to allow designers to
systematically free themselves from institutional and cultural constraints. However,
they do not address designers’ cultural and emotional needs and motives, especially
outside of the context of America. Could it be that creativity is fostered by self-
sacrifice rather than individual freedom in certain cultural contexts? Rolf Faste’s
work offers some insights on this question.
In the development of design thinking, Rolf Faste played an important role in
bridging Zen and Japanese esthetics with Western thinking of design (Kelley, 2003;
Irani, 2019). The design thinking adage of bearing a beginner mindset is partly
influenced by Zen (Irani, 2019). In his unconventionally visual essay (Faste, 1995),
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 295
to draw any conclusive remarks about the cultural needs of designers in creative
problem-solving.
The desire to create ideas seems to be universal, yet beliefs and experiences about the
what (new and different, or similar and connected), how (independent with passion,
or interdependent with hard work), who (male or female), and why (instigating
transformation or preserving connection) may differ across cultural contexts. We
take the perspective that culture shapes ideas, practices, interactions, and beliefs
around creative problem-solving. In delineating how creative problem-solving is
culturally constructed, we use a culturally responsive analytical framework, called
“culture cycle” (Markus & Hamedani, 2019; Plaut et al., 2012), to frame and analyze
prior research on creativity and problem-solving. Where the word “culture” is used,
we intend to align with Adams and Markus (2004) in understanding culture as
consisting of:
explicit and implicit patterns of historically-derived and selected ideas and their embodiment
in institutions, practices, and artifacts; cultural patterns may, on one hand, be considered as
products of action, and on the other as conditioning elements of further actions (Adams &
Markus, 2004, p. 341).
Fig. 2 Line and circle, as a metaphor (Biao, 2001) for two different possible cultures of creativity
and a summary of culture cycle analysis. This model is built upon an earlier version of the figure in
Misaki and Ge (2019)
direct their own destiny. Freedom of choice is therefore often regarded as a prereq-
uisite to enable solving problems creatively. According to Wight, the Western idea
of “individual creativity”—whereby new ideas originate in the human mind and in
the ability of the individual (Wight, 1998)—became widely acknowledged during
the Enlightenment. At this time, people started to emphasize the importance of
individual rights and elevate individual rights in order to understand the universe
and to direct their own destiny (Szczepański & Petrowicz, 1978; Albert & Runco,
1999, cited in Niu & Sternberg, 2006). As a result, Westerners tend to consider
creativity as an ability that one unleashes from within and expresses outwards.
Because the modern concept diverges greatly from the ancient divine beliefs of
creativity in the West, the latter is not reviewed here (for more, see the philosophical
roots reviewed in Niu & Sternberg, 2006).
the blue” unconventional thinkers. According to the Taoist classics, the creative
process is a process of “the inner apprehension of dao, when all the distinctions
between subject and object vanish” (Niu & Sternberg, 2006). Chu argues that,
“[Chinese] creativity is related to meditation, because it helps one to see the true
nature of the self, an object, or an event” (Chu, 1970, p. 340). In Japan, the creative
process is broadly recognized as entering into a free state of “pure experience”
(Yuasa, 1987; Nishida, 1960) that transcends body-mind and subject-object distinc-
tion. This has been used to explain, for instance, the critical social process of
crystallizing new products (Nonaka, 1994) and the superior stage performance of
master actors (Yuasa, 1987).
Oneness is also exemplified in what has become known as “dialecticism,” a form
of folk wisdom in Chinese and other East Asian countries’ cultures, which is seeing
oneness of—and seeking a balance between—contradictory propositions in
problem-solving. Peng and Nisbett (1999) argue that Chinese ways of dealing with
seeming contradictions often result in “retaining basic elements of opposing per-
spectives by seeking a ‘middle way’.” Partly because of seeing a shared nature with
others and the environment, people consciously experience facilitating and
restraining forces (Lewin, 1999), to borrow Lewin’s words, from the external, active
environment, which act upon them and induce constant changes. A “middle way” is
perceived to best handle constant changes. The Chinese Proverb—“Sai Weng Shi
Ma,” for instance, tells a story of an old man who finds good in the bad, yet also
foresees misfortune in an apparent fortune. Interestingly, although Chinese people
admire the versatility that is embedded in ambivalent attitude or a lack of clear
position-taking (e.g., “Bian Yi,” in Yan, 2015), such an attitude and behavior can be
considered quite undesirable in the USA.
According to linguist Liu (1995), “创造力(chuang zao li)” or “chuang zao xin” (both
words mean creativity in Chinese) comes from a modern Japanese word, “sozosei,”
which was translated from the modern English word, “creativity” (Note: Niu and
Sternberg cited the Japanese word as “kozosei,” which might be a typo, e.g., in Niu
& Sternberg, 2006). In Chinese history, the terms “chuang zao li” and “chuang zao
xing” are rarely used (Yan, 2015). Nowadays, although “creativity” is no longer a
rare word in China, it is relatively new and carries the meanings and cultural ideas of
Western creativity. In Hui and Lau’s investigation of educational policies on crea-
tivity education in four Asian societies, they find that mainland China is the only
place where creativity is not clearly defined (Hui & Lau, 2010). As Yuanqiang Zhou
at Tsinghua University contends, “‘creativity’ is a product of the West, of course it’s
a Western thing” (via personal communication).
Many efforts have been made to reconcile the cultural differences. For instance,
in analyzing the philosophical roots, Niu and Sternberg (2006) argue that Chinese
natural creativity and Western divine creativity share many similarities. And
although Western conceptions of creativity may go against the notion of oneness,
300 X. Ge et al.
they match well with Taoism in terms of the pursuit of mental freedom. Many argue
that while Confucianism presides over Chinese social life, Taoism presides over
their own mental life (e.g., in Lu Xun’s 1918 Letter to Xu Shou-tang; Zhang & Chen,
1991; both cited in Peng et al., 2006). “Obey publicly and defy privately,” as Hwang
(2000) puts it.
This may explain why many great minds in history are free from conventions and
pragmatic concerns despite their Confucian practice. For example, Wei and Jin
Dynasties (CE 220–420) are known as a mental freedom era. Poet Li Bai
(CE 701–762), arguably the most famous poet of Chinese history, is also known
for his high-level pursuit of mental freedom. The Japanese Physicist Nobel laureate
Hideki Yukawa (1907–1981) greatly attributes his creativity to his systematic study
of Taoism in his book Creativity and Intuition (Yukawa, 1973). He remarks that he
is personally docile but mentally rebellious—“I can never work on a problem that
I’ve been told to solve by someone else. My subconscious always rebels against
being ordered to do something. Personally, I look on myself as a docile kind of
man.”
In the USA, the co-existence of social conformity and mental freedom may posit
tension and contradiction and induce eventual separation spatially in content and
temporally in process. This reflects an Aristotle’s “either/or” frame (Li, 2014). Yet
from the Chinese philosophical perspective, contradictions are meant to co-exist in
harmony. To some extent, “mental freedom” in Taoist tradition also suggests a
meditative practice of losing oneself (therefore, the self is set free mentally) to
connect and fuse with every other thing. Csikzentmihalyi has also mentioned that
people can experience this “flow” during the utilization of Eastern styles of medita-
tion (Csikzentmihalyi, 1997). Yet the experience of “flow” is not unique in the East
and can be found across many cultures.
As discussed above, the East Asian words of creativity come from the West and
inevitably carries with it the Western cultural ideas. Despite its relative short history
in Chinese language, the word has been quickly incorporated into formal documents
and daily use, especially among the younger generations. China’s government has
played a big role in the promotion of creativity. However, little research is done and
therefore little is known about how much of its meaning and cultural practices get
carried over to the East and internalized by the East in its translingual practices (Liu,
1995). Government statements and news reports seem to suggest an acculturation.
Specifically, driven by advancing technological and economic development, scien-
tific and technological creativity is the major concern in mainland China’s policy
(Hui & Lau, 2010). Creativity as an individual’s ability is often described as
“innovative spirit.” As the Higher Education Law (Ministry of Education, China,
1998, cited in Hui & Lau, 2010) states, “cultivating an innovative spirit in the
personality development of young talents is an important strategy.”
In the last 15 years, China’s government has been greatly advocating the culti-
vation of creativity and innovation, as reflected in its five-year plans. According to
Wang (2015), the state documents of five-year plans from 1949 to 1996 primarily
described creativity as the potential of individuals or a way in problem-solving
(we should “creatively” solve the problem), and innovation-related creativity only
appeared in science and technology sections, serving as the synonym of scientific
research. The term “self-independent innovation” first appeared in the ninth five-year
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 303
plan (2001–2005), which, according to Wang (2015), was an official signal of China
joining the “creativity warfare” in competition with the West. Yet, the contextual
meaning of “self-independence” in “self-independent innovation” emphasizes a
collective effort to be independent from the West, rather than suggesting individu-
alism. This notion of being less reliant internationally is reinforced in China’s 14th
five-year plan as well (Mallapaty, 2021).
Since 2009, numerous innovation and entrepreneurship demonstration zones
have sprung up across cities and provinces, under the direction of China’s State
Council. These strategies are driven by the needs of economic development and
global competitiveness. Although these official policy documents borrow concepts
of creativity from the West, the emphasis of creativity and innovation almost always
comes together with preserving tradition, as well as sustaining and strengthening the
classics and the cultural roots. For instance, in the recent series of five-year plans
(e.g., Xinhua, 2021), innovation has been regarded as a savior to revive the bankrupt
traditional industries and as a promising way to sustain Chinese traditional cultural
products and practices, such as historical villages, Chinese medicine, and traditional
handcrafts, highlighting the collectivist goal of social contribution and utilitarianism.
The Chinese political system and social structure of today have a direct impact on
what messages are promoted in social media. “Innovation” and “tradition” are often
paired in news reporting, such as:
继承传统、创新经典 (Sustain the tradition; Innovate the classics)
正确传承比盲目创新更重要 (Correctly passing ideas to next generations is more
important than blindly innovating)
传承是基础、创新是生命(Inheriting ideas from the past makes the foundation, based
on which innovation offers [new] life)
传承不泥古、创新不离宗(Inheriting tradition flexibly; Innovating without going far
from the root)
In East Asia, modern designs often emphasize preserving the past, connecting
with traditional cultural values, and finding consistent meanings in modern practices
of traditional ideas. New architectural designs would be endowed with traditional
values—Kengo Kuma’s design of the JP Tower is such an example (Kengo Kuma
and Associates, 2012). JP Tower was a project to preserve and renovate the historic
Tokyo Central Post Office Building by adding a new skyscraper structure. The
architect behind JP Tower is Kuma, a renowned Japanese architect who most
recently designed the Japan National Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic
Games. A New York Times interview with Kuma (Saval, 2018) describes Kengo
Kuma’s design vision as “a story of returning to the values of traditional Japanese
architecture.” In Kuma’s mind, architectural design should “through acquaintance
with local materials and methods, relate itself harmoniously to its surroundings.”
Who is the Steve Jobs in Japan? The name that comes into many Japanese
people’s minds is Gunpei Yokoi, known as the “father of handheld games.” Yokoi
founded the product philosophy of “lateral thinking of withered technology (枯れた
技術の水平思考)” at Nintendo (Yokoi, 2021). The idea behind this philosophy is to
refrain from cutting-edge technologies, and instead focus on past technologies and
develop ideas by viewing these ancient technologies through the lens of lateral
304 X. Ge et al.
thinking. This philosophy has not only shaped Nintendo’s product development
policy, but also influenced generations of designers and technologists in Japan.
The Chinese TV show National Treasure featuring stories of past creations is yet
another example that emphasizes the importance of bridging the past and the present.
Started in 2017, now in its third season, it has remained one of the highest rated
shows in mainland China. It received the best TV show award in the 24th White
Yulan Prize of Shanghai TV Festival in 2018. The show allows the audience to
admire the hardworking creators’ superb skills and high-level experiential state that
the creators were able to achieve. The depiction of superb craftsmanship often
highlights the creators’ ability to merge themselves with their creation and become
one with it.
Indeed, although the word “creativity” is relatively new in Chinese history, there
are many Chinese characters, terms, and phrases that entail the idea of solving
problems in creative ways, such as “Xin Ying” (新颖), “Jiang Xin Du Yun” (匠心
独运), “Qi Si Miao Xiang” (奇思妙想), and so on. Yet, the contextual meanings of
these words, terms, and phrases diverge from American conceptions of creativity. A
thorough review of anthropological, philosophical, and psychological literature
suggests that while American conceptions of creativity focus on novel solution/
product outcomes and individual autonomy and uniqueness, East Asian conceptions
of creativity, as consistent with the message of National Treasure, emphasize the
creator’s inner processes and fulfillment (Lubart, 1999; Paletz et al., 2011; Shao
et al., 2019).
East Asians tend to value the embodiment of direct, personal experiences during
the process of creation, where ambiguity is preserved yet logic is unquestioned. The
emphasis of “on-the-spot” personal experience, rather than reliance on abstract
theories in Japanese management, is a manifestation of such an epistemological
tendency (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). The Chinese character wu (悟) depicts such a
creative mental process that uses metaphorical, intuitive imagination to jump from
the known to the unknown (Li, 2012). According to Peter Ping Li, “almost all
Chinese leaders prefer wu in their thinking process to rational analysis. In particular,
Yun Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, is an excellent example of a wu leader. He practices
Zen as well” (cited in Sundararajan & Raina, 2015).
In China, every child grows up learning legends about Zhuge Liang, and classic
stories about Effendi, Cao Chong, and Sima Guang, to name a few. For instance, the
old tales about Sima Guang, who saves a drowning child by quick-wittedly breaking
the water tank, and Cao Chong, who creatively solves the problem of weighing an
elephant with a boat and rocks, are part of the required reading in the first and second
grade of elementary school education. These people are depicted as capable of
creatively and calmly solving impossible problems in urgent situations. The Chinese
saying “急中生智 (Ji Zhong Sheng Zhi)” depicts a calm thinker who comes up with
ingenious solutions amid crisis. Ingenious problem-solving acts are associated with
calm and keen observations with few words, as opposed to passionate, eloquent
expression of outside-the-box ideas. The East Asian cultural value of silence rather
than speaking is more thoroughly examined in Kim and Markus (2002).
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 305
In addition, creative people in East Asia, from business magnate Yun Ma, to
famous songwriter and singer Jay Chou, to the great chefs Tetsuya Saotome and Jiro
Ono, consistently place far greater emphasis on their effort and experience as
opposed to ability or passion as the cause of achievement. For example, great effort
is needed in the disciplined, embodied creative practice of Japanese ink painting,
called sumi-e (or Suiboku-ga), which has a philosophical origin in the Taoist notion
of “uncarved block.” Artists in Japan would spend years applying sumi-e ink brush
painting to attain higher states of creative experience—the so-called creativity of no
mind (Mushin) (Steinbock, 2013). As Yan (2015) argues, “‘aha’ moments in East
Asians’ creativity come from hard work, great effort, and long-term accumulation of
knowledge and experiences.”
cognitive flexibility) and be able to break free from their setting (De Dreu et al.,
2008).
In the independent self-construal, the environment is largely perceived as inert, or
as the background against which the self stands out (Nisbett et al., 2001). From this
perspective, the role of the self is to influence the environment and to enable change
(Markus, 2016; Nisbett et al., 2001; Markus & Hamedani, 2019). The motivation to
promote change—radical transformation—is widely held to underpin the generation
of new ideas and value creation. As the motto of Stanford Graduate School of
Business goes, “change lives, change organizations, change the world.”
Implicit theories about other creative processes, such as focusing on inner
processes, oneness, or connection with others, are less examined. Where dialectic
one-ness (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), holistic thinking (Nisbett et al., 2001), or other
associated tendencies are examined, research on the relation between these tenden-
cies and creativity is extremely limited. Conflicting findings and opinions, for
instance, in the research about the relation between dialectical thinking and creativ-
ity, build up more roadblocks for pushing forward new theories of creativity (Paletz
et al., 2018). Implicit theories that may be more relevant in East Asia still, unfortu-
nately, mostly stay at the theoretical and philosophical level.
For instance, creativity research often takes for granted the supposedly positive
relation between self-directed autonomy and creativity and, as a result, attributes
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 307
Fig. 4 Compared with U.S. participants, Chinese participants indicate a stronger belief that
“change” comes from context, t(361) ¼ 2.974, p < 0.01
Fig. 5 Compared with U.S. participants, online participants in China (t(236) ¼ 2.522, p ¼ 0.012)
and in Japan (t(314) ¼ 2.448, p ¼ 0.015), as well as Japanese engineering students (t(273) ¼ 3.736,
p < 0.01), indicate a stronger belief that “good ideas for solving problems” come from context
actively involved factors external to the self (e.g., tradition, other people, situations)
in motivating people to come up with sound ideas for solving problems.
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 311
Fig. 6 Examples of ideas and products used in the manipulation survey to examine how people’s
perceptions of an idea’s purpose and uniqueness are affected by their beliefs about the agency of the
context. (a) Hippo Water Roller (2022). (b) Multi-purpose Tent in Desert (Seikaly, 2015)
312 X. Ge et al.
that Americans tend to evaluate ideas more positively when these ideas are perceived
as breaking away from past ideas, whereas East Asians may prefer ideas that are
connected with practices and ideas people had in the past. Based on our culture cycle
analysis, the process of creation that emphasizes continuity with the past and the
environment in East Asia is idealized in a dramatically different way than in the USA
where such connection is often missing.
Through iterative design and pilot testing based on U.S. participants, we have
designed a 12-item composite measure that looks at the characteristics of ideas for
problem-solving: six items characterize “continuity” and describe current ideas as
connecting with, grounded in, and revitalizing past ideas; another six items capture
“discontinuity” and picture current ideas as departing from ideas in the past. We
believe that the current empirical approach is promising and can pave the way for
discovering systematic cultural differences. We will continue to investigate the
perceived desirability of ideas that stand away from or build upon past ideas in
different cultural contexts.
5 Discussion
The dominant ways of creativity assessment (e.g., in Fig. 3) not only dominate
scientific research, but also decide who excels in school. This essentially rejects
diversities that are inherent in the human processes of creativity and creative
problem-solving. Why does research on implicit theories that may be more relevant
in East Asia still mostly stay at the theoretical and philosophical levels? Is it because
we lack exposure to other perspectives and ways of being? In the increasingly
globalized society, culture clashes are supposedly abundant. Yet it is difficult to
overcome the confusion and rejection when one is confronted by a different reality of
creativity. “It is the conventional way of defining creativity that prevents us from
measuring it beyond the rigid frame we use in research,” argues Lutz Eckensberger
(cited in Sundararajan & Raina, 2015). As Gustav Ichheiser (1970) eloquently
writes:
314 X. Ge et al.
[W]e fail to understand that people whose personalities are shaped by another culture are
psychologically different—that they see the (social) world in a different way and react to it as
they see it. Instead, we tend to resolve our perplexity arising out of the experience that other
people see the world differently than we see it ourselves by declaring that those others, in
consequences of some basic intellectual and moral defect, are unable to see things “as they
really are” and to react to them “in a normal way.”
Without resolving the confusion and rejection of other ways of creative being,
however, empirical studies that employ an American perspective will continue to
reinforce misleading conclusions, such as the lack of creativity in Chinese and
Japanese people (Riquelme, 2002; Rudowicz & Hui, 1997), and that individualistic
culture outperforms collectivistic culture in cultivating creative talents (e.g., Goncalo
& Staw, 2006), and so on.
On the positive side, there is an emerging effort to resolve the tension between the
East and the West. Amongst others, Averill et al. (2001) propose the notion of
emotional creativity to incorporate the East Asian perspective of situated experience
into the Western model of creativity. There is an emerging consensus in management
research that researchers should adopt an interdisciplinary and multiperspective
approach in general (see Suddaby et al., 2011 for a review). We urge creativity
research across cultures to employ a beginner mindset on what creativity really
means and entails for different cultural contexts.
On the practical end, the booming “creative economy” (Florida, 2002) continues
to evolve without critical reflection on the current evaluation of people’s creative
processes and performance. Creativity should be one of the inclusive educational
and managerial targets. Schools such as Harvey Mudd College (Cheryan & Markus,
2020) have started launching programs to increase the belongingness and cultural fit
for underrepresented individuals and groups. This is not enough, as long as our
evaluation of students’ or employees’ creative performance is still narrowly defined
by the WEIRD (Henrich et al., 2010). We should not leave underrepresented
members with the default option to struggle and adapt to the dominant cultural
values (Choi, 2010) or drop out (Felder & Brent, 2005). Embracing diverse cultural
ideas and practices is a grand challenge. The independence-based educational and
organizational settings, as well as the ideas, policies, norms, practices, and products
within such settings, all need to be re-imagined, in such a way that people of all
backgrounds are truly equally welcomed.
The current paper’s title is named as an allusion to Dym and colleagues’ iconic
design education paper (Dym et al., 2005), and the discussion here indeed is to
extend their efforts to broaden design thinking (from rational to inclusive), design
language (from math to multimodal), design behavior (from individual genius to
group effort), and design participation (from male dominance to diversity and
The Cultural Construction of Creative Problem-Solving: A. . . 315
inclusion, e.g., Agogino’s work, cited in Dym et al., 2005). Importantly, Dym et al.
(2005) criticize the teaching practice of equating divergent thinking to creativity and
urge a critical reflection on “what defines creativity.” We build upon their work by
providing a critical cultural perspective. Specifically, we argue that what defines
creativity is culture.
Culture and global context are part of the fundamentals of design. This is reflected
in the multicultural student composition of globalized design classrooms (Fruchter &
Townsend, 2003; Daniels et al., 2010; Carleton & Leifer, 2009). We also see an
increasing exchange of best practices, especially one-directionally from the USA to
the rest of the world. For instance, creative learning process and methods stemming
from the best practices of the Stanford d.school and Design Group, IDEO, SAP, and
MIT D-lab, to name a few, have influenced educational practices and organizational
management in many places around the world (e.g., Misaki et al., 2020; Ge &
Maisch, 2016; Drain et al., 2017). For decades, MIT Creative Capacity Building
program at D-Lab has provided creativity training for rural communities around the
world (Drain et al., 2017). However, for educators and creativity training ambassa-
dors, the consequences of holding false assumptions that certain types of people lack
creativity based on certain selected beliefs in the USA, are dire. International
students may get culturally biased grades and undergo psychologically difficult
times. For instance, in the popular Stanford class ME310—Global Design Innova-
tion, Japanese and Chinese students coming for a co-final presentation with their
U.S. student partners may be poorly evaluated for insufficiently explaining how their
ideas break the status quo, which is considered desirable in the USA but not so in
East Asia. The situation is problematic given that student evaluation is based less on
traditional exams of fundamental science knowledge, and increasingly more subject
to culturally shaped subjective opinions. A critical next step is to fight against the
long-term stigma about the creative ability of certain student groups.
A good design teacher today should have a nuanced understanding of the various
cultural values and norms that shape designers’ creative behaviors. The current paper
has offered a comprehensive analysis with promising study outcomes to potentially
expand the understanding of creativity among design educators. An open mind to
understanding creative diversity is critical to addressing the remaining question of
how to truly fulfill the cultural needs of students of all backgrounds in creative
problem-solving.
By conceptualizing designers as culturally shaped shapers, we call for
design educators and practitioners to explicitly incorporate cultural values into
their design processes. We hope to stimulate reflections on principles and practices
of design thinking that are widely applicable, as well as to uncover assumptions
about design that are culturally specific.
316 X. Ge et al.
We have shared initial findings from several directions of our ongoing empirical
efforts. Potential issues of reliability and validity may exist in the current four
exploratory directions. For instance, in the study of culturally varying perceptions
of the context’s agency, although clear definitions and instructions are given, we
mostly use a one-item, 7-point Likert-scale question—where do you think change
(or good ideas) come from? In a more recent version, we start examining human-like
tendencies with multiple-item questions, which have reached good internal
consistency.
In the study of motivations underpinning creative problem-solving, we have
framed the problem-solving question as “Come up with a new idea for. . .”. In
reflection, we recognize the use of the word “new” resonates with and possibly
elicits independent ideas of creativity for both American and East Asian participants.
We have adopted “good” instead of “new” or “novel” in later versions of our survey
exploration. Additionally, we have learned to adopt neutral-to-positive words. For
instance, “sustain” and “connect” may be better words than “preserve,” the latter of
which could have a negative connotation among some U.S. participants.
In parallel to the survey study, we have explored other empirical approaches. For
example, how to take advantage of naturally-occurring materials designed to moti-
vate people to solve problems? In this regard, we are considering leveraging the
IDEO Open Innovation—a platform that encourages people worldwide to collabo-
rate and build on each other’s capabilities and ideas.
Our plan is to extract texts of various problem descriptions from the online
archives of IDEO Open Innovation and a comparable web platform in East Asia to
discover the extent to which descriptions of problems reflect culturally relevant
values of creativity. For example, one current problem in IDEO Open Innovation
is framed as “Agents of change: Atopic Dermatitis challenge.” The purpose of the
task is described in the following way: “Let’s work together to increase the under-
standing of atopic dermatitis (AD), help break social stigma, and put a stop to the
bullying faced by those with AD.” We see this example as representing a problem
that is framed mainly in terms of changing and breaking the status quo. We suppose
that if the same task were to be framed to reflect an East Asian value, it would read:
“Preserving the dignity: Atopic Dermatitis challenge.” Accordingly, the purpose of
the task would be described as “Let’s work together to help people with atopic
dermatitis (AD) to continue leading their normal lives, support public understanding
of AD, and keep the sympathy towards those with AD.”
The difficulty with this method is to find a counterpart of IDEO Open Innovation
Platform in East Asian Contexts, such as in Japan or China. We have collected some
design prompt course materials in Japan. However, the materials are limited and not
ideal for text analysis. In parallel, we have been looking for appropriate social media
data, website archives, and newspaper articles that are comparable to one another in
East Asian and American societies.
Another source of data are the archives of popular TV shows in which entrepre-
neurs pitch new ideas to a panel of potential investors. Based on our initial obser-
vation about the winners of funding from the two shows, it would be fruitful to
compare the popular Japanese TV show “Dragon’s Den” with the American TV
show “Shark Tank.” We are still seeking proper analytical tools to examine this
archival data.
We also plan to examine cultural variations in theories of creativity through field
experiments. Online competitions, for instance, would be a good avenue to
crowdsource ideas for solving real-world problems. The outbreak of the global
COVID-19 pandemic has made health and well-being a central issue around the
world. In this case, both participants in the USA and in East Asia would be recruited
to take part in our competition to solve real-world problems related to health and
well-being.
Multimodal data of body movement, speech, and text could be collected and
utilized to distill different cultural signals in participant responses.
318 X. Ge et al.
6 Conclusion
Does creativity have to be associated with changing, breaking, and seeking freedom?
We argue that it does not. We take the perspective that creativity is constructed by
culture. In other words, culture underpins creativity, and therefore, the processes of
creative problem-solving can vary across cultures. We have conducted a systematic
analysis of how historically derived ideas, norms, practices, and psychological
tendencies around creative problem-solving are shaped in American and East
Asian cultural contexts, using the culture cycle framework. We also share prelimi-
nary findings from a few pilot studies. For design thinking to benefit people across
the globe, it is crucial to consider the role of culture. We construe designers as
culturally shaped shapers who are motivated by ideas that are resonant with their
cultural values. Ultimately, our goal is to ground theories and practices of creativity
and design thinking in cultural contexts around the world, encourage an empathetic
understanding of designers from all backgrounds, and discover and promote cultur-
ally resonant creative practices for solving problems.
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Design Thinking as a Catalyst and Support
for Sustainability Solutions
N. M. Ardoin (*)
Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
A. W. Bowers · V. Lin · I. Phukan
Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 325
C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09297-8_16
326 N. M. Ardoin et al.
1 Introduction
This use of and interest in design thinking—and our belief, in particular, in its
efficacy for sustainability challenges—spurred our desire to explore the ways in
which the research literature describes the union of design thinking and sustainabil-
ity. In this chapter, we present a synthesis of and reflection on that exploratory
review of research. We examine the processes and insight-driven aspects of design
thinking, considering how such an approach enhances the translational impact of
sustainability work.
2 Background
solve “tame” scientific problems. Indeed, by the very social and collective nature of
sustainability issues, we enter into a discussion of a “public good,” thus departing
from definitive solution sets governed by clear-cut guidelines. Instead, socio-
environmental issues, such as sustainability, call for solutions that must be qualified,
are often partial, might only work for certain scenarios and populations, and are
subjective by nature. In short, sustainability problems are the ultimate definition of
the now-common descriptor “wicked” (Balint et al., 2011), or those that are “social
system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing,
where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and
where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing” (Churchman,
1967, p. B-141). Wahl (2006, p. 294) postulates that “sustainability is the wicked
problem of design in the twenty-first century.”
To address the wicked nature of sustainability problems, design researchers and
practitioners have acknowledged the need for alternative problem-solving
approaches (Gould et al., 2019; Maher et al., 2018; Shapira et al., 2017). Dewberry
and Sherwin (2002, p. 135) write about a new way of thinking in design to “capture
the imagination, hearts and minds of people” and suggest a shift “away from issues
of sustainable production and technology that characterize the supply side alone
towards a ‘softer’ more human-focused approach that addresses notions of desire
and consumption.” Earle and Leyva-de la Hiz (2021, p. 583) call for “holistic and
creative problem-solving that integrates a variety of stakeholders, traverses tradi-
tional disciplinary boundaries, considers extended time horizons, and adopts a
system-level perspective (Bansal & DesJardine, 2014; Romme, 2003; Shapira
et al., 2017; Shrivastava, 2010).” Design thinking has thus emerged as a promising
approach to imagining and implementing sustainability solutions (Bermejo-Martín
& Rodríguez-Monroy, 2020; Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Erzurumlu & Erzurumlu, 2015;
Greenberg & Karak, 2020), with researchers making an explicit link between design
thinking and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Clark et al., 2020;
Maher et al., 2018). Many researchers and practitioners alike call out the natural fit
between design thinking and addressing wicked problems (Buchanan, 1992; Buhl
et al., 2019; Clune & Lockrey, 2014; Earle & Leyva-de la Hiz, 2021; Jobst &
Meinel, 2014; Kagan et al., 2020; von Thienen et al., 2014). In the subsequent
section, we explore the design thinking characteristics that have emerged from our
literature review, and which underlie this premise.
sustainability challenges. In our review of the research, rather than adopting one
definition of design thinking, we view design thinking broadly as a creative approach
to solving real-world problems (Royalty et al., 2021). In its many instantiations,
design thinking centers on several core principles, including that it inspires creativ-
ity; is participatory and people-focused; encourages and inspires diversity in thought
and action; adopts a holistic, systems-thinking mindset; and offers a streamlined,
action-oriented process (Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Buhl et al., 2019; Clark et al., 2020;
Earle & Leyva-de la Hiz, 2021; Fischer, 2015). These primary characteristics
support a coming together of individual knowledge, dispositions, and skills that
combine to create an ecosystem of shared experiences built on a foundation of
collaboration, trust, and synergistic action. We discuss each of the characteristics
below and then focus on how they support collective action.
Sustainability issues require innovative solutions that are most likely to emerge from
new ways of thinking about and looking at data, context, and problems (Clark et al.,
2020; Greenberg & Karak, 2020; Sandri, 2013; Stables, 2009; Westley et al., 2011).
Additionally, when working with sustainability issues, people need to be able to
envision alternative futures (Kagan et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2014), a task compli-
cated by feelings of hopelessness that can accompany the realization of the serious-
ness and urgency of sustainability challenges (Ojala, 2012; Wals, 2020; Hes & du
Plessis, 2014). To achieve workable sustainability solutions therefore requires cre-
ativity, alongside rational hope that derives from imagining and taking action toward
a better—more just, equitable, peaceful, and biodiverse—world.
Design thinking concurrently inspires and requires creativity, strengthening cre-
ative confidence while engaging in problem-solving by drawing on both convergent
and divergent thinking (Clark et al., 2020; Geissdoerfer et al., 2016; Jobst et al.,
2012; Kagan et al., 2020; Shapira et al., 2017). Core design thinking processes, such
as visioning, brainstorming, ideating, experimenting, testing, and learning from
initial failures, contribute to generating novel solutions by facilitating a mindset
focused on creativity, innovation, and growth. These processes encourage imagina-
tion around a range of possibilities and support a hopeful and positive attitude about
the future, all of which are critical to sustainability problem-solving (Buhl et al.,
2019; Wahl & Baxter, 2008). Design thinking’s creative confidence mindset and
iterative nature encourage participants to engage in solution options without fear of
failure or judgment. When discussing design thinking and wicked problems,
Buchanan suggests that “what many people call ‘impossible’ may actually only be
a limitation of imagination that can be overcome by better design thinking” (1992,
p. 21). He goes on to say that design thinking does more than result in quick fixes;
rather, it leads to “new integrations of signs, things, actions, and environment that
address the concrete needs and values of human beings in diverse circumstances”
(Buchanan, 1992, p. 21).
330 N. M. Ardoin et al.
Although the phrase “Save the Earth” may be a popular T-shirt and bumper-sticker
slogan, scholars and activists alike increasingly question its wisdom. Many empha-
size that the planet itself does not need saving; rather, human society is in trouble
and, along with harming ourselves, we are causing irreparable damage to the life-
support systems of other living creatures and their ecosystems. Within this frame, we
can discuss people as both the cause of and solution to sustainability issues—and,
moreover, as those who must take action (Clayton & Brook, 2005; Schultz, 2011).
Addressing sustainability challenges requires participation from all, including but
not limited to policymakers, corporate entities, nonprofits, academics, and everyday
citizens (Fischer, 2000; Schmidt et al., 2020; Lang et al., 2012; Ardoin & Heimlich,
2021). Sustainability science researchers have called for knowledge co-production
that includes collaboration among scientists and the range of impacted stakeholders
(Blackstock et al., 2007; Miller et al., 2014; Moallemi et al., 2021). Relatedly, from
the outset, design thinking’s participatory approach involves end users in the
solution generation process and encourages active participation by all those
involved, regardless of levels of prior formal knowledge or academic/policy exper-
tise, recognizing that firsthand experience is key to solution generation and success
(Kagan et al., 2020).
Another key aspect of design thinking is the low barrier to entry: all abilities and
knowledge sets are valued (Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Fischer, 2015). A range of
stakeholders are sought out and invited to contribute, with the process’s ethos
emphasizing the message: “we are all in this together” (Clune & Lockrey, 2014;
Shapira et al., 2017). Frequently described as user-centric, design thinking honors its
business roots in product development. When employed to address sustainability
issues—where the desired end-product is often a solution to a sustainability chal-
lenge—the “users” may include a broad swath of stakeholders (individuals, as well
as organizations) given the inescapable impact of sustainability-related concerns.
For example, as everyone breathes air, drinks water, experiences the climate, and
requires nutritious food, a healthy and well-functioning, sustainable ecosystem
benefits everyone (Buhl et al., 2019). Designers describe design thinking as
human-centered, in both process and product, as it draws on human emotions,
ingenuity, intuition, and imagination (Bermejo-Martín & Rodríguez-Monroy,
2020; Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Meinel & Leifer, 2015). Thus, design thinking
processes have been demonstrated to be effective in engaging communities in
sustainability issues (Erzurumlu & Erzurumlu, 2015) and generating high levels of
user involvement (Alexandrakis, 2021).
Design Thinking as a Catalyst and Support for Sustainability Solutions 331
Addressing sustainability issues often presents a tension: their critical and pressing
nature, combined with their vast temporal and spatial scales, means time is of the
essence. Thus, any problem-solving approach that results in rapid, effective, large-
scale action is advantageous (Abou Chakra et al., 2018; IPCC, 2021; Lang & Wiek,
2021). At the same time, the scientifically grounded, culturally responsive, and
particularistic nature of sustainability issues means that they require care, deep
understanding, and intensive study to address. Design thinking can help address
this tension by tapping into people’s creativity and supporting systems thinking as
part of exploring alternative futures (Dewberry & Sherwin, 2002; Kagan et al., 2020;
Pruneau et al., 2014).
With its inherent solutions focus, inclusive nature, and ability to rapidly onboard
stakeholders with a range of backgrounds, design thinking can spur people into
action, quickly and effectively (Greenberg, 2021). The streamlined nature of design
thinking processes, combined with the inherent implementability of the design
approach, makes it particularly effective in connecting research with actionable
solutions. Moreover, design outcomes are built on a foundation of breadth as well
as a depth of expertise, providing avenues for people from different disciplinary and
professional backgrounds to work together with empathy, understanding, and curi-
osity. In this way, much of design thinking’s efficiency comes from its accessibility.
One does not have to be a designer or a content expert to contribute valuable insights
(Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Erzurumlu & Erzurumlu, 2015; Shapira et al., 2017),
although given the complexity of sustainability issues, experts with specialized
knowledge need to be part of the process (Fischer, 2015; Kagan et al., 2020).
Supported by ideas of co-design and participatory design (Bjögvinsson et al.,
2012; Steen, 2013; Sutoris, 2021), dedication to including those affected by the
Design Thinking as a Catalyst and Support for Sustainability Solutions 333
design work facilitates gathering a group of people not only to envision solutions but
also to take action on them. In such a scenario, everyday citizens are just as
legitimately part of the visioning and implementation process, as are scholars,
nonprofit professionals, and government officials (Fischer, 2015; Ardoin &
Heimlich, 2021).
Additionally, design thinking is structured in a way that facilitates and values
efficient design, streamlining the process of innovation through to real-world impact.
As such, participants are encouraged to fail early and often through processes such as
rapid prototyping and multiple iterations pilot-tested in on-the-ground settings
(Thakur et al., 2020; Wölbling et al., 2012). Such aspects of design thinking can
empower people to take action and improve their self-efficacy and sense of agency
(Greenberg & Karak, 2020; Kramsky, 2017; Maher et al., 2018; Young, 2010).
Finally, researchers note design thinking’s power to shift cultural practices and ways
of thinking through inclusive engagement and iterative action (Buchanan, 1992;
Earle & Leyva-de la Hiz, 2021). Such societal transformations are essential if we are
to achieve sustainability goals in a timely manner.
Across the literature, evidence surfaces that design thinking characteristics that lend
themselves to developing sustainability solutions also center on principles of col-
lective action (Ardoin et al., 2022). A topic of scholarly interest for decades,
collective action has grown in interest more recently as socio-environmental
issues—such as climate change, invasive species, and COVID-19, among others—
have emphasized the need for societal movements to attend to challenges in ways
that surpass individual efforts (Harring et al., 2021; Jagers et al., 2020. Perhaps most
famously described by Hardin in his (1968) Tragedy of the Commons and in
Ostrom’s (2000) rebuttal, describing the potential for sustainability among
common-pool resources, many scholars in the environment, natural resource, and
sustainability arenas have worked to reframe collective action as more than the
compilation of individual actions (Agrawal, 2003; Ferraro & Agrawal, 2021).
They emphasize that collective action—a distinct phenomenon arising out of, and
sustained by, social processes and structures—is a phenomenon that may be culti-
vated and nurtured, and that numerous potential pathways exist for motivating
individual and collective behaviors to address complex sustainability problems
(Agrawal, 2003; Cleaver, 2007; Lukacs & Ardoin, 2014; Niemiec et al., 2016).
Table 1 provides a summary of the five design thinking characteristics addressed
in this review and their connection to sustainability solutions. Design thinking has
been defined, explained, and theorized in multiple ways and the five characteristics
detailed here are those that emerge as most salient from our literature review of
research and discussion on the relationship between design thinking and
334 N. M. Ardoin et al.
Through our exploratory literature review and the resulting synthesis, we emphasize
the ways in which the design thinking process supports and encourages sustainabil-
ity solutions to move from ideation to action. Making these literature-based connec-
tions helps ground what we see in design thinking practice to theoretical
underpinnings and also illuminates areas in the academic literature where we can
expand our thinking around design thinking and sustainability. Theory building and
testing and generating ideas within the specific content area of sustainability and
climate design, for example, offer an opportunity to further push this work ahead in
terms of scholarship and practice. In this short chapter, we have barely scratched the
surface of the robust bodies of inter- and transdisciplinary literatures that might
inform the work going forward in this and related domains.
5 Conclusion
Although there is some initial discussion on the suitability of design thinking for
addressing sustainability challenges (e.g., Clark et al., 2020; Young, 2010), we push
further to suggest that design thinking approaches are vital and necessary to include
in the toolbox for addressing today’s urgent sustainability issues. We have under-
taken this exploratory review to identify research in support of this idea. Our hope is
that by illuminating research-based connections between design thinking and sus-
tainability, more researchers and practitioners will become aware of the powerful
intersections between these two fields. Thanks to the flexibility, innovation, and
inclusive nature inherent in design thinking approaches, they prove particularly well-
suited to address the wicked nature of sustainability problems as well as the need for
collective action to produce, iterate on, and apply innovative solutions. We thus
invite colleagues to join us in this ongoing conversational space as we refine our
work in design/sustainability theory and practice and continue to pursue sustainabil-
ity solutions with the requisite care, urgency, and creativity that such issues
necessitate.
336 N. M. Ardoin et al.
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