PAIN CONSULT
Concept design workshop
Peter Jones, OCAD UniversityISSS 2012 San Jose
The Language/Action Perspective
Concepts, History, & Applications
WHAT IS A CONVERSATION?
Communication
Colin Cherry defined “communication” as the exchange of normatively defined meanings and creating understanding between purposeful social participants.
WHAT IS A CONVERSATION?
Communication act …That creates understanding between purposeful social participants.
A particular exchange takes place between at least 2 people, representing individual interests or intentions, or collective interests represented by individuals.
TWO DIVERGING VIEWS …
Shannon-Weaver Communication TheorySignal expressed from a Source to Destination.Transmitter-receiver (Very AT&T)Feedback repairs breakdowns.
ConstructivistAgents co-create conversation based on mutual meaning (background). Intentions are interpreted, actions coordinated.Emergence & novelty are possible.Sensemaking repairs breakdowns.
5
WHICH FIT WHERE IN SYSTEMS LINEAGE?
History of key ideas …
Unfinished timeline by Hugh Dubberly, 2009
2006Christakis & Bausch publish How people harness their collective wisdom to create the future in colaboratories of democracy
7
Rittel Argumentation (IBIS)
Pask Conversation Theory (Interaction of Actors)
Winograd Language-Action Perspective& Flores
Christakis Dialogic Design& Warfield Science of Generic Design
CONVERSATIONAL SYSTEMS
Ontological Design, a phenomenological approach to conversations that invent
new modes of being & co-create action.
8
1969 1986 2006
PIVOTAL PUBLICATIONS
9
Language-Action Roots in 3 movements (1980’s)
UC Berkeley Dreyfus, Flores critique of AIWinograd joined from StanfordUnderstanding Computers & Cognition (1986)
Electronic Workplace Flores’ PhD & vision of paperless office (1980)“Management & Communication in the Office of the Future”
Coordination Theory Movement toward CSCW & workflow based on commitment governanceThe Coordinator email system (1987)Action Workflow
CONTEXT & BACKGROUND
10
MATURANA & Living Systems
Is conversation a structural coupling of cognitive agents?
Autopoesis Humans are self-producing, self-organizing
Structural coupling Complementary interaction with environment – Largely in a social medium
Cognitive system Domain of interactions with environment to act with relevance
Languaging Arises as coordinating actions forcoordinating action.
Recursion to create a consensual linguistic domain.
SOFTWARE EMBODIMENTS
11
The Coordinator – 1986
Orchestrator Mail - 2010
SOFTWARE EMBODIMENTS
12
Action Works – Coordinator & Action Workflow
SERVICE SYSTEMS MODEL
13
David Ing, 2008: Offerings as Commitments and Context: Service Systems from a Language Action Perspective
September 1, 2008, at UKSS 2008, Oxford, UK
SERVICE SYSTEMS MODEL
14
David Ing, 2008: Offerings as Commitments and Context: Service Systems from a Language Action Perspective
Protocol for coordination of commitment to deliverables, process, relationship.
TYPES OF CONVERSATIONS
Conversations for …Orientation Interpersonal Purposeful
Conversations for Possibility
Conversations for Action
Austin & Searle: Speech Acts theory of speech behavior
Social facts “two or more agents with collective intentionality”
Institutional facts: Social facts that become public, established events (e.g., money, organizations, systems)
Conversations for Acknowledgemen
t
Conversations for Clarification
Phatic Conversations
How was your weekend?
Too much yard work. Yours?
Conversation for Possibility
What if we were to allow patients to post personal reflections in the medical records system?
What would that do for us? How might we do that?
Conversation for Action
(Offer) Let’s write a proposal to the IT board for a research project on this idea.
I’m in. (Accepted) We need a position paper. Can you write a draft by next week? (Request)
Conversation for Possibility
17
Diagram by Hugh Dubberly, from Jones (2009) The Language/Action Model of Conversation: Can conversation perform acts of design?
Interpersonal queries, inquiries, & propositions that open a context. Common ground (background), including prior intent & continuing conversations.
No “goals” in conversations for possibility, but rather co-creation of understanding and novelty.
Conversation for Action
18
Purposeful communications that coordinate actions between individuals. Initiation of requests, agreement on conditions, accounting for promises.
5 BASIC PERFORMATIVE SPEECH ACTS
19
Assertives commit a speaker to the truth of an expression.
Directives (requests, commands, & advice) cause the listener to follow a requested action.
Commissives (promises & oaths) commit the speaker to future actions.
Declarations establish accord with a proposition (e.g., pronounce a couple as married).
Expressives convey a speaker’s attitudes or emotions about a proposition (e.g., praise, gratitude).
From Searle / Austin’s Illocutionary Points
Conversations for Action
20
21
What is an organization were conceived as a network of conversations? Inside & Out?
What if – fundamentally –unit level operations were commissives & directives?
DESIGN METHODS & THEORIES
22
Design and business are conversation systems.
Products & services are networks of conversations for action.
Designing acts are performed & recognized by language.
Geometry of Languaging
Christakis (2006) extends Conversation in Dialogic Design Science – based on principles established in Warfield’s Domain of Science Model
Geometries of language action shape intent / outcome
Dyad Smallest social systemTriad Introduces witness & offset perspectiveQuartet Balanced pairs structure5-7 Collaboration required12-20 Dialogue required20-50 Listening required
23
Syntegrity Model
24
Group dialogue geometry to triangulate perspectives on a topic
Mapping to Design Action
25
Orientation Possibility Action
DISCOVERY ENVISIONINGDESIGN
& DELIVER
The declarative act is generative, literally creative. A state is created where there was nothing preceding it.
26
Conversation is not a tool for outcomes; rather, language uses us, shaping & constraining our work & experience.
Riding our intentions, language both opens & limits collective experiences.
Top Related