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pattern language for interaction design
``` [On this topic, I also recommend C. Thomas Mitchell's book "Redefining Designing: From Form to Experience", which provides some intellectual and historical context for the work of my absolute favorite architect, Christopher Alexander, and for an eminent RRE subscriber, the visionary designer John Chris Jones. With them I say, down with the formalist mind-games of both modernist and postmodernist architecture. Despite all the awards those people have given one another through the years, they are nothing but the aestheticized equivalent of the command-and- control design that has fouled up the lives of so many computer users. Without social critique and participatory process, all architectures -- whether buildings or computers -- inevitably reflect and reinforce the hierarchical social relationships that surround them. We can try bringing the hierarchical presuppositions of our architectures and design practices into consciousness, and the best place to start is with sustained qualitative interaction with the real lives of the people who must live with the consequences of our work. That's why I circulated that reading list on ethnographic studies of information systems a while back, and why I have posted the Participatory Design conference announcements. I think that the connection between the liberatory traditions of both kinds of architectural work -- computer design and building design -- are worth developing further. William Mitchell's book "City of Bits" describes the increasing convergence between computers and buildings; the next step, it seems to me, is to reform each of the convergent design practices. Both kinds of design have too long presuppose that they're working for the power -- i.e., for whoever has enough power to implement whatever designs they come up with. We can help those sorts of command-and-control relationships break down by gaining consciousness of the complicity of our design methods with them, and by inventing new design methods that might be consistent with different kinds of relationships.]
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Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 19:18:43 -0800
From: Tom Erickson
Thought you might find the following workshop of interest re the issue of communication for design. If you think this would be of interest to the RRE community, you're welcome to circulate it.
Finally, you might find my recent paper on "Virtual Community as Participatory Genre" of interest (http://www.atg.apple.com/personal/Tom_Erickson/VC_as_Genre.html).
regards, --Tom Erickson
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CHI 97 Workshop: A Pattern Language for Interaction Design.
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
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Workshop: Sat-Sun, March 23-24, 1997, Atlanta GA USA Submission Deadline: Friday, Feb. 7, 1997
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1.DESCRIPTION The effort to design computing systems is being undertaken by an increasingly broad community of designers who share little in the way of a core discipline, practice, or theoretical basis. This workshop explores the use of Pattern Languages in interaction design. Pattern Languages -- an approach drawn from architecture and urban design-- focus on the interaction between the physical and social worlds, and represent those interactions as a lattice of patterns expressed as concrete prototypes.
We believe that Pattern Languages have two important advantages for interaction design. First, due to their concrete nature, they offer the potential for functioning as a lingua franca among the multiple disciplines involved in design, and between designers and domain experts (i.e. end users). Second, because patterns embrace both physical and social worlds, they offer a tool for representing and reflecting on the sociotechnical systems that pervade the workplace.
This workshop will explore ways of applying Pattern Languages to interaction design problems. The approaches we're interested in include (but are not necessarily limited to):- HCI Guidelines: Embodying HCI Guidelines as patterns- Organization Design: Using patterns to design organizational structures and practices (cf Coplien)- Transposing Alexandrian Patterns: Adapting existing patterns documented in "A Pattern Language" to new situations (e.g. cyberspace)- Patterns as an Organizational Practice: The process of establishing pattern-making and use as part of a development organization's practices- Workplace Description: Using patterns to clearly and succinctly describe particular workplaces, in order to understand possible impacts of new technologies.
See http://www.research.apple.com/personal/Tom Erickson/PatternsWorkshop.html for a longer version of this description.
2. SUBMISSIONS This workshop will be small and intense, limited to 12 people. Participants will be selected by the organizers on the basis of a bio and a short (2-3 pages) position paper. In the position paper, tell us about your interest in and experience with Pattern Languages, and expand upon any of the above approaches that are relevant to your own work. Optional: We would like the workshop to be more than a series of presentations interspersed with discussions, and would thus be interested in hearing proposals for pattern-making, -applying, -using projects that might serve as foci for workshop activity.
When submitting your materials, please include full contact information (e-mail, snail mail, business phone, fax, and URL's if any). Send your material to the organizers below by e-mail, snail mail or fax. Email is the preferred mode of submission, unless you have figures or other non-ascii representational requirements.
FAX OR EMAIL ONLY: Thomas Erickson Apple Computer/Remote Office Email: thomas@apple.com (preferred) Vmail: (408) 974-3767 Fax: (612) 823-1576
PHYSICAL MAIL, FAX, OR EMAIL John C. Thomas NYNEX Science and Technology 500 Westchester Avenue White Plains, NY 10604 (914)-644-2143 F: (914) - 644 -2107 e-mail: thomas@nynexst.com
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday, February 7, 1997
3. PARTICIPATION
3.1 PREPARATION Participants will be expected to spend time preparing for the workshop, so that we have a common ground for discussion. Participants are expected to be familiar with Christopher Alexander's work: At a minimum, participants should read "A Pattern Language," pp. ix- xliv and Patterns 14, 18, 30, 43, 88, 90, 125, 137, 150, 165, and 243 and examine the paper by Erickson at http://www.research.apple.com/personal/Tom_Erickson/Patterns.html. We will also circulate the position papers of accepted participants.
3.2 WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES We would like the workshop to be more than a series of presentations interspersed with discussions. We encourage prospective participants to suggest activities suitable for either the workshop, or smaller groups within the workshop. Examples might include exploring how to transpose "Street Cafe" [pattern #88] into cyberspace, or doing some fieldwork (e.g. observing, collecting, and generating patterns that describe Hotel Lobby interactions).
3.3 WORKSHOP FOLLOW UP The output of the workshop will be a summary report to be published in the SIGCHI bulletin and perhaps other venues, and a poster for the CHI 97 poster session. Participants will be asked to assist in preparation of the workshop report, and invited to attend the poster presentation. We will also discuss the desirability and logistics of starting a mailing list, web-based discussion area, etc. (or participating in existing pattern language fora).
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Tom Erickson, Discourse Architecture Lab, Apple Research Laboratories thomas@apple.com; http://www.research.apple.com/personal/Tom_Erickson/ Cupertino office: voice: (408) 974-3767 fax: (408) 974-5505 Minneapolis office: voice: (612) 823-3663 fax: (612) 823-1576 ```
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