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Designing for solitude

February 8, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Ben Fullerton, Designing for Solitude, Interaction 10, Johnny Holland Magazine | Leave a comment

I really resonated to Johnny Holland magazine’s summary of Ben Fullerton’s talk, Designing for Solitude, at Interaction 10, which ended yesterday. The summary was written by Niklas Wolkert & Brad Nunnally.

“In the past, the devices we used in our everyday life only had a single mode to them. Products of the present are becoming more and more multi modal, providing more unique types of interaction all at the same time. To combat this certain products are going back to this single mode of interaction . . . Allowing yourself to get away from everything, or disconnect, is Ben’s big call to action. There is nothing wrong with BEING connected, just allow yourself the freedom to disconnect too.” Read more

Conceptual Graph Structures Visio stencil

February 4, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Andrew Rice, causal networks, Conceptual Graph Structure Viso Stencil, Conceptual Graph Structures, Dr. Arthur Graesser, goal heirarchies, Sallie Gordon-Becker, Scott Confer, spatial relationships, taxonomies | Leave a comment

You’re itching to draw a Conceptual Graph Structure.

But perhaps you just haven’t memorized the six nodes and 18 arcs and their legal combinations.

Maybe you just don’t want to!

Relax. Just download this Conceptual Graph Structure Visio stencil developed by myself, Scott Confer and Andrew Rice.

You’ll be making CGS diagrams of goal heirarchies, causal networks, taxonomies and spatial relationships in a jiffy!

Previous posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures:

http://onemind.com/2010/01/27/conceptual-graph-structures-part-1/

http://onemind.com/2010/01/28/conceptual-graph-structures-part-2/

http://onemind.com/2010/01/29/conceptual-graph-structures-part-3/

http://onemind.com/2010/02/03/conceptual-graph-structures-part-4/

Sallie Gordon-Becker, working with colleagues, developed the Conceptual Graph Structures (CGS) process. The arc structure is drawn from Arthur Graesser’s research into how people tell stories. The CGS guides, templates and instructions for the use of Conceptual Graph Structures were developed by myself and my colleague Scott Confer. The Visio stencil was developed by myself, Scott Confer and Andrew Rice.

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 4

February 3, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Agile, Learning Experience Design, learning interaction design, LxD, Conceptual Graph Structures, Dr. Arthur Graesser, Scott Confer, CGS, Andrew Rice, Sallie Gordon-Becker | 4 comments

Hand-drawn Conceptual Graph Structure by Scott Confer

The Secret Sauce

In past posts, I have outlined the components of the type of mental model called Conceptual Graph Structures. There are six kinds of nodes, connected by 18 types of arcs, which indicate semantic relationships between the nodes. I have talked about the basic CGS substructures: taxonomies, goal heirarchies, causal networks, and spatial relationships. I have given you cheat sheets for the “legal combinations” of nodes and arcs for each substructure type.

But let’s say you are on a new project of some kind or another, and all you have to work from is your rough notes from a kickoff meeting, and an sketchy set of project requirements which your project manager dashed off last night between dinner, and his 9 pm appointment to read The Phantom Tollbooth to the kids before bed.

So where do you start?

Take your rough notes and the requirements document and lay them out on the dining room table. Read them both through once, identifying key pieces of information:

who are the learners, or people who are going to use your work?
who are the actors (the people who are going to do the work on this project)?
what is the context?
what transformation is needed?
can you pick out any taxonomies (like a navigation system, or a group of roles, for example)?
does a goal or two jump out at you?
can you see any cause and effect relationships?
are there any spatial relationships described?

Now you’ll need a big, clean piece of paper and a pencil. Sentence by sentence, identify nodes (concepts, states, styles, events, goals, and goal-actions) and how they could be connected, using any of the 18 types of arcs. Draw these nodes and arcs on the piece of paper. You’ll wind up with something that looks sort of like the drawing above.

My colleague Scott Confer (who drew the CGS above) calls this method the “secret sauce” of making Conceptual Graph Structures (CGS). It’s a great way to kick-start an Agile project.

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 3

January 29, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Andrew Rice, Conceptual Graph Structures, Dr. Arthur Graesser, Learning Experience Design, learning interaction design, learning systems design, LxD, requirements elicitation, Sallie Gordon-Becker, Scott Confer | 4 comments

The benefits of using the CGS method of concept mapping

A conceptual graph structure, or CGS, is a mental model which can present macro or micro views. A CGS makes information explicit and clear by organizing concepts and procedures. This leads to cognitive breakthroughs, discoveries and innovation. Implicit relationships are revealed.

Types of CGS substructures and how they are built

There are four kinds of conceptual graph substructures, which correspond to four types of knowledge: causal network, goal hierarchy, taxonomy, or spatial relationships.

Within each type of substructure, there are a group of “legal” combinations of nodes and arcs. This grammar is inherently applicable to human endeavors since it is based on the cognitive psychology and story comprehension research by Arthur Graesser.

With spatial relations, the easiest one to remember, concept nodes are connected to other concept nodes, by means of any type of spatial relations arc.

Taxonomies use five types of connectors to connect concepts, events, states, goals and goal-actions.

Causal network and goal hierarchy substructures are more complicated, and that’s why I’ve provided this cheat sheet of how to “legally” connect nodes to arcs:

Download PDF file of legal node/arc combinations when making conceptual graph structures

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 2

January 28, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Agile, learning interaction design, LxD, requirements elicitation, Conceptual Graph Structures, concept graphing, mental models, interaction design, requirements, acceptance criteria, Dr. Arthur Graesser, Scott Confer, Andrew Rice, Sallie Gordon-Becker | 4 comments

You can jumpstart Agile IxD processes with concept graphing

As an Agile interaction designer, you need to be able to quickly represent problems.

Using the lightweight concept graphing approach I described in yesterday’s post on Concept Graphing, you can rapidly make mental models. This gives Agile teams a metacognitive scaffolding for user-centric solution design.

Semantic relationships and built-in grammar make Conceptual Graph Structures unique. Nodes and arcs can only be connected in “legal” ways, an approach derived from cognitive task analysis and research in story telling.

As I described yesterday, six types of agency can be linked via eighteen interaction types to indicate relationships (e.g. “event” and “goal” connect via an “initiates” arc). Workflows, taxonomies, domains, goal hierarchies, causal relationships, and more are built by simply snapping arcs to nodes.

At a high level, understand what you’re going to build
You can use the process of building revisits requirements throughout the lifecycle of a project.

It’s not a quick and easy, down and dirty approach. There is rigor to it, a formal process. It requires research with end-users, and analysis using cognitive tools that have to be learned. However, it is collaborative, and it works.

Download a presentation on how concept graphing fits into an overall requirements elicitation process. I delivered this presentation with colleague Scott Confer at the Information Architecture Summit 2007 in Las Vegas, and then again in Barcelona at the EuroIA 2008

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 1

January 27, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: Agile, Andrew Rice, Arthur Graesser, Conceptual Graph Structures, Learning Experience Design, learning interaction design, learning systems design, LxD, requirements elicitation, Sallie Gordon-Becker, Scott Confer, tool | 4 comments

A section of a Conceptual Graph Structure, showing grammar

It’s not easy to figure out how real live people and learning systems interact.

A big challenge is that the human context is generally unstructured and dynamic.

Nonetheless, people tend to interact with each other, and with non-human systems, in ways that can be mapped with amazing precision, using a simple syntactical approaach.

The act of making these maps is sometimes referred to as cognitive task analysis.

Sallie Gordon-Becker, working with colleagues, developed a formal approach to cognitive task analysis, which she described as the building of Conceptual Graph Structures (CGS). CGSs are semantic networks with specific syntax, unlike the many varieties of concept maps which are out there, which don’t have a syntax. CGSs are comprised of nodes, connected by arcs only in certain “legal” ways. Think of the nodes as nouns and the arcs as verbs. I’ve shown a snippet of a CGS, above.

Why build a Conceptual Graph Structure?

Generally, you’ll use this cognitive tool at the beginning of a new program or project, to tease out requirements or acceptance criteria. I like using Conceptual Graph Structures to build mental models, because this method is very helpful in helping me tease out interactive relationships between agents, which I might otherwise overlook using the armchair philosopher method of thinking. You can use the CGS approach to analyze a variety of source material:

documents,
structured and unstructured interviews
video recordings of usability tests
etc., etc.

Here’s your reference material for understanding the six types of nodes:

Conceptual graph structure nodes

Download CGS node reference as a PDF file

There are six kinds of nodes. The nodes can be simple concepts, but they also can be other places and ways of being in space-time and mental space, such as goals, actions, events, states and styles.

Each node is a graphical representations of one piece of declarative knowledge. Declarative knowledge, or propositional knowledge, is expressed in sentences that declare and propose facts about a topic. For example, I am not awake. The coffee is hot. I am awake.

This is different from procedural knowledge, which is a statement of how a goal is reached, or how best to perform a task. For example, researching a trip to Spain, or making coffee are procedural types of knowledge.

A goal node indicates a circumstance, situation, state of affairs, or event desired by a person or an agent (such as a software application). It does not indicate how the goal is accomplished. For example, “stay awake.”

A goal-action node indicates either actions performed by the person or agent to attain a goal, or a mix of both goals and activities of a person or agent, toward a goal. For example, “make coffee”

An event node indicates a transition between one stable state and another stable state. For example, “coffee brews”

A concept node indicates a single entity, idea, or construct, with a single name, which can be a word or phrase. For example, “stimulating drink”

A state node indicates a relatively stable situation, circumstance, manner or condition of being. For example, “hot coffee ready”

A style node indicates a quality of a goal-action, such as duration or speed, or an instrumentality of a goal-action. For example, “home-brewed”

Now, here’s the cheat sheat on arcs:

Conceptual Graph Structure Arcs

Download CGS arc reference as a PDF file

There are 18 types of arcs, each with a specific meaning: reason, means, before, during, after, initiates, has consequences, refers-to, and, or, manner, is-a, equivalent-to, has-instance-of, has-property, has part, implies, and spatial relations.

These arcs are drawn from Arthur Graesser’s research into how people tell stories. As I mentioned above, Sallie Gordon-Becker, working with colleagues, developed the Conceptual Graph Structures (CGS) process. These guides, templates and instructions for the use of Conceptual Graph Structures were developed by myself and my colleague Scott Confer.

What is learning? Part 3

January 22, 2010 in Learning, Learning Experience Design, Relationalism | Tags: Benjamin Lee Whorf, connectivism, George Siemens, Howard Gardner, James Zull, Jon dron, Language, Lev Vygotsky, Paivi Hakkinen, Peter Checkland, Relationalism, Sanna Jarvela, Ted Panitz, Terry Anderson, The Art of Changing the Brain, Thought and Reality | Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I wrote Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, outlining some of my thoughts on the topic, What is Learning?

Here is a wrap-up of people who’ve influenced the development of my learning theory of Relationalism.

Lev Vygotsky described how people use a semiotic process (language and sign systems) to mediate (external) social relationships into (internal) psychological functions. He also had quite a bit to say about the role of play in learning.
Benjamin Lee Whorf described the relationship between language and the rest of the culture of the society which uses the language, in his volume, Language, thought and reality
James Zull, professor of biology and biochemistry at Case Western Reserve, in his book, The Art of Changing the Brain describes how knowledge is situated in growing, evolving network configurations in the brain. Those neural configurations are activated in the future when presented with the same types of experiences, and apparently, they reconfigure and grow some more.
Ted Panitz, for example, suggests that learners create knowledge as they collaboratively and cooperatively work to understand their experiences in nature, in society and culture, growing their own meanings.
In his theory of connectivism, George Siemens situates learning in the creation of network connections. He says, “Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories.”
Howard Gardner describes a cognitive architecture of multiple intelligences.
Cognition itself is now being seen by some as distributed, as described, for example, in James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of the Crowd. These multiple intelligences belong not just to the person, but to the person’s community.
Paivi Hakkinen and Sanna Jarvela have found that social negotiation of meaning in an online forum is dependent on the presence of multiple articulated viewpoints, and may be tied in part to the design of the learning activity
Peter Checkland’s soft systems inquiry focuses strongly on agents and agency.
Terry Anderson has described social learning in terms of user interfaces and technologies for distance learning and online learning. These technologies live on the Internet, World Wide Web and private networks, and are accessed through personal computers and mobile devices.
Jon Dron has described how increasingly complex online user interfaces provide a venue in which individuals can socially construct knowledge, from the bottom up. If the software is well designed, the interactions are organic, self-organizing, evolutionary and stigmergic. Learning experience designers can embed in the user interface the kind of control over the learning trajectory that a teacher role would normally take. Learners can choose whether to control their learning or to delegate that control to the group. In principle, then, social learning appears to offer the best of both worlds, assisting dependent learners through the provision of structure yet enabling autonomy at any point.

How to make a Rich Picture and why

January 16, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: CATWOE, Peter Checkland, requirements definition, requirements elicitation, Rich Picture | Leave a comment

You’re tasked with architecting or designing the user experience for a new project. But what do you do if you don’t have a good set of requirements or acceptance criteria? You can work from raw interview notes, whiteboard sketches and assumptions, and draw a Rich Picture.

Drawing a Rich Picture is a way to find out about any problem situation and express it through cartoon-like diagrams which are a preliminary mental model of the situation. The mnemonic “CATWOE” is used to help people remember the elements of the Rich Picture: customers, actors, transformation, worldview, owner, and environment. The Rich Picture is typically drawn before the analysis phase.

After you’ve drawn your Rich Picture, you can go on to engage in more research and other cognitive calisthenics, in order to create more robust mental models.

Below is an example of a hand-drawn Rich Picture, showing CATWOE elements for the process of making coffee!

Rich Picture - coffee making

Peter Checkland introduced the concept of the Rich Picture in 1981 in his book Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, the textbook on his soft systems approach to creating solutions to human problems. Checkland’s examples are all hand-drawn. But what if you want to revise your drawing? Share it with others? So sometimes I use Visio to draw my Rich Picture. Below is an example of a pretty complex Rich Picture which I drew in Visio a few years ago, for a project to integrate a third party event and meeting registration site with a web site used by corporations for managed business travel.

Example Rich Picture

The Rich Picture depicts:

the structure of actor interactions between the existing software/learning system/etc. and the new feature
the functions of the new feature and how they integrate with existing functions
basic elements of the process flow
environmental factors
“hard” or “soft” information relevant to the project
types of requirements that will have to be elicited
primary activities involved in understanding user needs, technical issues, and business considerations

Learning experience design tools and processes

January 12, 2010 in Learning Experience Design | Tags: elearn, eLearning guild, instructional design, Jonathon Levy, Learning Experience Design, learning systems design, Personal Learning Environments, PLE, Stephen Downes, tool, UX | Leave a comment

Joanna Wiebe speaking at the Information Architecture Summit, 2007, Las Vegas, on UX design tools and processes

In recent elearning forums (elearn magazine’s predictions for 2010, and eLearning Guild discussion about learning design on LinkedIn, for example) there has been much talk about learning experience design. One of my favorite comments is from Jonathon Levy that “I’ve been a broken record on the subject of user-centricity for the past 10 years, but in 2010 the tectonic plates are finally beginning to move. The intelligence of the users—individually and collectively—trumps the intelligence of the designer. Online learning will become much more adaptive and collaborative, more dynamic and less static in design, leveraging and activating the collective intellectual capital of the organization. Semantic technologies, taxonomies and ontologies will become critically important as filters for user-directed learning that bends time and space, allowing the learner to assemble needed knowledge, data, tools and ideas in real time. “Expertise” will extend beyond the individual to the group, from something one has, to something one uses. This shift impacts the design of online solutions more than any time in the past.” This sort of hints at the (very challenging) design of that beast which Stephen Downes and others call Personal Learning Environments (PLE).

From reading about one hundred comments about instructional design/learning experience design in the past couple of weeks, I deduce that there is not a clear understanding of the scope of cognitive tools and processes that are at our disposal. So I thought I’d offer a quick outline that merges some UX tools that we can use in designing user interfaces and entire systems for truly learner-centric learning, with some pedagogical tools and processes.

This outline below is drawn from the guides, tools, templates and checklists I personally use in web site and applications design, in my position as an information architect at a public international e-commerce company, my studies at Athabasca University’s Center for Distance Education (CDE), where I obtained my degree in distance education, and my experience as an instructional designer in both the corporate and academic worlds. This list is not comprehensive, but it touches almost everything I’ve ever used.

Other areas which I haven’t addressed specifically in this list include methodologies for designing the best technological solutions, for managing ethical considerations, and for ensuring that business and institutional goals are met.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE DESIGN COGNITIVE TOOLS AND PROCESSES

Project Management

Project start checklist
LxD practitioner’s task timeline
Folder naming structure

Research and analysis

Research plan
User research and reports (surveys, focus groups, ethnographic field research, statistical data, etc.)
Usability testing and reports
Competitive analysis and reports
Heuristic evaluation and reports
Task analysis and reports
Card sorting
Gap analysis and reports
Persona development
User stories/scenarios
Process flows
Concept graphing for user goal heirarchies
Concept graphing for causal networks in agent interactions
Taxonomy development
Rich Picture
Design pattern development

Solution Exploration

Brainstorming
Early concepting
Content inventory
Content outline
Course measurement plan
Lesson plans
Curriculum plans
Site maps
Low fidelity concepts
Concept wireframes
Functional descriptions

Solution Definition

High fidelity concepts
High fidelity prototypes

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OneMind

Designing for solitude

Conceptual Graph Structures Visio stencil

Previous posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures:

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 4

Other posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 3

Other posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 2

Other posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures

Conceptual Graph Structures: Part 1

Other posts on the topic of Conceptual Graph Structures

What is learning? Part 3

How to make a Rich Picture and why

You’re tasked with architecting or designing the user experience for a new project. But what do you do if you don’t have a good set of requirements or acceptance criteria? You can work from raw interview notes, whiteboard sketches and assumptions, and draw a Rich Picture.

Learning experience design tools and processes

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