Sciences of the Artificial

Design Thinking: New Innovative Thinking for New Problems

Unit I Understanding the Natural & Artificial Worlds:
Understanding the natural and artificial worlds, Artifacts, The environment as mold, The Artifact as
Interface, Functional Explanation & Synthesis, Role of Simulation
Unit II Mechanism of Mind: Training the brain:
How the brain functions, Synaptogenesis, Four basic types of thinking: natural thinking, logical thinking,
mathematical thinking, and lateral thinking, Introduction to de Bono‟s creative thinking techniques
Unit III Science of Design & Design Thinking:
Creating the Artificial, Design Thinking Methods, Logic of Design: Finding Alternatives and choosing the
best alternative, Age of Experience Economy, Examples of Design
Unit IV Lateral Thinking Techniques
Alternatives: How to use concepts as a breeding ground for new ideas. Sometimes we do not look beyond
the obvious alternatives.
Focus: When and how to change the focus of your thinking. You will learn the discipline of defining your
focus and sticking to it.
Challenge: Breaking free from the limits of traditional thinking. With challenges, we act as though the
present way of doing things is not necessarily the best.
Random Entry: Using unconnected input to open up new lines of thinking.
Provocation and Movement: Generating provocative statements and using them to build new ideas.
Harvesting: Capturing your creative output.
Treatment of Ideas: How to develop ideas and shape them to fit an organization or situation
Unit V Designing for the Internet of Things:
Review of IoT and IoT Technologies (Devices, Protocols, Platforms), Thinking from the Things perspective,
Using stories for design, Applying machine learning to create value, Emerging communication technologies
and selection of right technology for the target applications
Unit VI Design Thinking Applications and Case studies:
Overview of Digital Economy, Application of Design Thinking Techniques for Smart City Solutions,
Developing Intelligent Homes, smart buildings, Needs of Experience Economy and Experience design for
various situations
Course Outcome (CO):
1 . Explain foundation that will enable new way of thinking to approach the new challenges.
2 . Describe structure for solving „wicked‟ problems.
3 . Evaluate new patterns and understanding thinking techniques.
4 . Explain cognitive behavior of brain.

Text Books:
1 . Simon, Herbert Alexander, “The Sciences of the Artificial”, MIT Press, 3rd Edition ISBN13:
9780585360102 (Unit I, Unit III)
2 . Edward de Bono, “The mechanism of mind (pelican)”, Penguin Books Ltd (Unit II, Unit IV)
3 . Adrian McEwen, Hakim Cassimally, “ Designing the Internet of Things”, Wiley (Unit V)
4 . Jose Berengueres, “The Brown Book of Design Thinking” UAE University College, Al Ain. ISBN 978-1-
63041-059-9, 1st Edition. November 16, 2013.

References:
1 . Johannesson, Paul, Perjons, Erik, “An Introduction to Design Science”, Springer ISBN:978-3-391-
10631-1
2 . Aline Dresch, Daniel Pacheco Lacerda, Jose Antonio Valle Antunes Jr, “Design Science Research: A
Method for Science and Technology Advancement” Springer
Unit 1: Understanding the Natural & Artificial
Worlds
Understanding the natural and artificial worlds,
Artifacts, The environment as mold, The
Artifact as Interface, Functional Explanation &
Synthesis, Role of Simulation
Understanding the Natural & Artificial Worlds

Sciences of the Artificial

Overview

7
"What is Design Thinking best used for?"
1. Redefining value
2. Human-centred innovation
3. Quality of life
4. Problems affecting diverse groups of people
5. Involves multiple systems
6. Shifting markets and behaviours
7. Coping with rapid social or market changes
8. Issues relating to corporate culture
9. Issues relating to new technology
"What is Design Thinking best used for?"

10. Re-inventing business models

11. Addressing rapid changes in society
12. Complex unsolved societal challenges
13. Scenarios involving multidisciplinary teams
14. Entrepreneurial initiatives
15. Educational advances
16. Medical breakthroughs
17. Inspiration is needed
18. Problems that data can't solve
Understanding the Natural and the Artificial
Worlds
Using imperfect tools, we model and modify our world to understand
and control it.
• Physical science is about things.
• Complexity masks simplicity. Unmasking beautiful complexity can
lead to new beauty.
• Most things that we interact with are man-made “artifacts.” These
artifacts are discussed in terms of their purpose, have distinct
properties, and exist in their environment.
• Artificial, as opposed to but not separate from natural, refers to
things that are man-made.
• Artifacts made to imitate nature are considered synthetic.
• Engineers synthesize (“ought”). Scientists analyze (“are”).

10
Understanding the Natural and the Artificial
Worlds
• Clock example:

Clock Purpose Properties Environment

Sundial Tell time Plate with Sunny, stable
(Arizona) indicators climate

Watch (on Tell time Arrangement Highly variable

ship) of gears

11
Understanding the Natural and the Artificial
Worlds
• An artifact’s adaptability is determined by the
functionality of its properties in its environment.
• Given properties (or incentives), we can often predict
behaviors of individuals. It is often useful to ask “how
would a rationally designed system behave under
these circumstances?”
• Artifacts designed imperfectly will reflect their
purpose in their environment and some of the
components of their properties. The less perfect the
design, the more of their properties will show
through. Ideally, artifacts appear identical to their
non-artificial equivalent from the outside. 12
Understanding the Natural and the Artificial
Worlds
• Simulation is the artificial performance of a process. Modern
examples often involve computers, however, the use of
simulation predates computers.
– A simulation is no better than the assumptions built into it.
– A computer can do only what it is programmed to do.
– New knowledge can be gained by determining unknown
implications.
• Computers are useful for simulation, even though their parts
are not. The organization of their parts makes them
meaningful. This organization is designed to imitate human
behavior and is useful for simulating it.
• Symbols (letters, numbers, expressions) represent
information. Intelligence is the work of symbol systems. 13
 Economic Rationality:
Adaptive Artifice
• Scarcity forces us to allocate resources. Economics aims to
understanding this task of rationing.
• Positive rationality models behavior assuming individuals are
behaving to optimally achieve their goals. Normative
rationality advises individuals on how to optimally achieve
their goals. Risk and uncertainty (which are always present)
complicate this process.
• The process used to discover and implement this type of
decision is procedural rationality. Refining this decision
process to a series of mathematical calculations allows
computers to automate it.
• Perfect real-world optimization is not possible with or without
computers. The use of computers to aid in finding “good
enough” solutions is reasonable. 14
 Economic Rationality:
Adaptive Artifice
• Society uses mechanisms to allocate resources among its
members. One mechanism is the market-based approach;
another is a planned, socialist hierarchy.
• Market-based assumptions for economic research work as a
result of the seemingly automatic pattern of price
optimization with or without a planner.
• Rationality is effectively undefinable when incentives are
opposed. In the prisoner’s dilemma, tit-for-tat tends to be
most effective. Most economies have both cooperative and
competitive components.
• When individuals act as a part of an organization, they
develop loyalty to that organization and make decisions as
though they are that organization.
15
• Cooperation can be, in and of itself, selfish.
 The Psychology of Thinking: Embedding
Artifice in Nature
• An adaptive system may deviate from a direct path if
there are obstacles between it and its objective. With
knowledge about the path, system, and objective, we
may be able to infer information about the obstacles.
• Human behavior is simple. Their environments are
complex.
• Human thought takes longer to repeat calculations
than does a computer, but is capable of developing
ah-hoc heuristics to find solutions that circumvent
the necessity to perform those calculations. Humans
can discover these heuristics, but do not always,
sometimes they must be taught. 16
 Memorization Game

• dfwxowmrxomrhzpafkck

17
 Memorization Game

• bobjillfranksuebety

18
 Memorization Game

• batmicedogcatgiraffe

19
 The Psychology of Thinking: Embedding
Artifice in Nature
• To discover any pattern in nature precisely, we must know all
factors that we need to control for when measuring that pattern.
• Humans deal with information in chunks. Conceptual familiarity
causes larger amounts of information to be “chunked” together.
For example, cat is a chunk, but the nonsense syllable quv is 3
chunks, “q”, “u”, and “v.”
• People can generally remember two things in short-term memory
across interruption. Seven plus or minus two typically only works
without interruption.
• Visual processing and algebraic processing may arrive at the same
conclusion, using different processes.

20
 Remembering and Learning: Memory as
Environment for Thought
• Increasing memory use associated with a thinking task
does not increase the complexity of the thinking
process.
• Both short-term and long-term memory are associative.
• Recognition a relation of associated knowledge takes
time.
• A decade is the usual timeframe for acquiring the
knowledge of an expert in a given field. If sufficient
information cannot be gathered in a decade,
specialization is likely to occur.

21
 Remembering and Learning: Memory as
Environment for Thought
• Both knowledge expansion and compression into
parsimonious theories advance human knowledge.
• Memory can be stored in different forms of differing
efficiency specialization and recalled for processing later.
• To solve a problem about the property of an object, an
individual must be able to calculate the effect of forces on
and properties of relevant objects.
• It is easier to add information to an existing process than it is
to change the process as a result of new information.
• Problem solving generally works backward from a desired
goal.

22
 Science of Design:
Evaluation of Designs
• Theory of evaluation –
• Utility & Statistical Decision Theory – logical
framework for rational choice among
alternatives
– Consider all possible alternatives (“worlds”) that
meet the constraints of the outer environment,
and then find the specific alternative that meets
the constraints of the inner environment and
maximizes the utility (Optimum)

23
 Science of Design:
Evaluation of Design
• Utility Theory Tools
• Computational methods
– Algorithms for choosing optimal alternatives such
as linear programming, control theory, dynamic
programming
– Algorithms and heuristics for choosing satisfactory
alternatives (search)

24
 Science of Design:
Evaluation of Design
• The Formal Logic of Design:
– Imperative Logic
• Design is concerned with how things ought to be
– Declarative Logic
• How things are.
– Reduction to Declarative Logic – Optimization
through constraint of environmental variables
• “We simply ask what values the command variables would have in a
world meeting all these conditions and conclude that these are the
values the command variables should have.”

25
 Science of Design:
The Search For Alternatives
• Heuristic search: factorization and means-end
analysis
• GPS Example
• http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC5CX8drAtU

26
 Science of Design:
The Search For Alternatives
• Allocation of resources for search
– Conservation of scarce resources may be one of
the criteria for satisfactory design
– The design process itself involves management of
the resources of the designer, so that his efforts
will not be dissipated unnecessarily in following
lines of inquiry that prove fruitless
• Optimal vs. Satisfactory Solutions

27
 Science of Design
The search for Alternatives
• Theory of structure and design organization:
hierarchic systems
– Decomposing large problems into semi-
independent components
– Example: Structured Programming

28
 Science of Design
The search for Alternatives
• Representation of design problems
– design should be transparent

O X O 4 9 2
X O X 3 5 7
O X O 8 1 6

29
 Social Planning – Designing the
Evolving Artifact
• Problem Representation
– Representing Qualitative Problems
– Satisficing Outcomes
– Representing structure that permits functional
reasoning

30
Social Planning – Data for Planning
• Importance of data
• Dealing with poor data
• Forecasting – artifacts lies in the future
– Upper and Lower Bounds
• Feedback Control
– Homeostatic Mechanism – Insulated from the
environment
– Retrospective Feedback – Adapt to the environment

31
Social Planning – Design without final goals

• Social design may not have defined long-term

goals
• Evolution Theory – Small continual changes

32
 The Architecture of Complexity: Hierarchic
Systems
• Complex System – One made up of a large
number of parts that have many interactions

• Hierarchic System – Composed of interrelated

sub-systems

• Complex systems can be better understood by

decomposing into hierarchic systems

33
 The Architecture of Complexity:
Time of Development
• Evolutionary Perspective
– Time depends on the number of intermediate
stable forms
– Watch Maker Example

34
 The Architecture of Complexity:
Decomposition
• Efficiency of one component does not depend
on other components
• Near decomposability
– Short-term sell sufficient
– Long-term – weak links with other components
• These are the links between components and the hierarchy

35
The Architecture of Complexity: Descriptions

• State Description – Characterizes the world as is

(pictures, blueprints, etc.)

• Process Description – Characterizes the world

as acted upon (recipes, differential equations,
etc.)

• Problem solving uses process descriptions to

lead to a desired state description
36
Questions?

37