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The Relevance of Emergence in Human-centered Design

Muljono, Darwin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468927430

Abstract Details

2016, Master of Fine Arts, Ohio State University, Design.
This thesis proposes and explores a participatory design approach in the development of bottom-up, self-organizing systems. Such systems would have emergent phenomena. The theory of emergence covers a wide range of disciplines, from the study of consciousness, to behavior and ecology. Despite these variances, the theory of emergence follows an underlying principle: a distinct and new high-level property, such as behavior or function, emerges from the self-organizing aggregation and interaction of the lower-level components. This research explores the theory of emergence using actors that are not artificial agents, namely human beings. As the design disciplines have gone through different permutations over the past three decades from “designing for people to designing with people,” there is an opportunity for the theory of emergence to intersect with design when the focus shifts to designing “by people” (Sanders and Stappers, 2014). This thesis covers different exploratory studies from observational research to participatory design sessions, which eventually led to the main case study. The main case study focused on generative co-design research sessions that consisted of five groups of three participants. The participants of each group collaborated to build a system from the bottom-up by coming up with specific rules for an ideal experience. Then, the participants negotiated the specificity of those rules and the relationships of those rules to eventually emerge into a complex system. The discussions and negotiations of the participants acted as the catalyst for the interactions of the low-level components (the rules) that self-organized into a high-level system. This thesis makes a distinction between user-centeredness which focuses on the external behaviors of people, and human-centeredness which focuses on the internal aspects of people (otherwise recognized as the distinction between human factors and human agents). By looking at the internal aspects of people, such as intentions and creativity, this research attempts to study the fundamental conditions that allow not only a system to emerge from the group interactions of the individuals, but also allows the flexibility for the people to negotiate with each other in the open and incomplete systems.
Paul Nini (Advisor)
Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders (Committee Member)
Marianna Klochko (Committee Member)
Michael Kellner (Committee Member)
263 p.
Design; Sociology
emergence; complex; systems; participatory; design; co-design; human-centered; bottom-up;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Muljono, D. (2016). The Relevance of Emergence in Human-centered Design [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468927430

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Muljono, Darwin. The Relevance of Emergence in Human-centered Design. 2016. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468927430.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Muljono, Darwin. "The Relevance of Emergence in Human-centered Design." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468927430

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1468927430
795
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.