DTRS7

Notes from Meeting at Central Saint Martins 18th October

2006-10-26T09:04:00.000Z

Present: Janet, Rachael, Peter
Apologies: Fraser

1. Progress Since Last Meeting

We now have 39 people who have expressed an interest in participating after invitation, 28 of which have provided a statement of interest. Janet has received inquiries from 5 other research groups. As we have a limited number of slots (~25) at the workshop it is important to keep a balance of presentations, it was thought that some groups would fall by the wayside through the project so we do anticipate some space for new participants. It was decided to ask these research groups for more about their research areas and publications, with a final decision being made on inclusion at the end of November. Janet will manage this process. Peter produced a prototype of the DVD that will be sent out to participants, with a multi camera view as well as full screen capability. Both Peter and Rachael attended the Design Research Society AGM in which DTRS7 was referred to as one of the upcoming events. This was questioned at the meeting, and has now been removed from DRS events.

2. Data Collection

There has been no movement on the CIVIC project where progress cannot be made until a lease is signed. Rachael is keeping up with developments. Peter contacted a number of companies - IDEO, Total Alloy, and The Design Council. Only IDEO have written back, but were not interested in participating. An earlier contact, The Technology Partnership, have however expressed interest. Peter met with their product manager Rob Day on 11th October. Rob was enthusiastic about the project and detailed a number of projects that might be suitable. We agreed to film a new product development project on a digital pen. This has the advantage that a client is not involved as TTP are looking to license the product. Dates are now set for the first two meetings of the project on Friday 10th and Monday 13th November. Janet is to try and make contact with Arup one more time.

3. The Event

Janet circulated the current costings for the event. We are budgeting around £300 per person, which includes a copy of the published book and allows around £50 for the conference dinner. Some items were missing from the costings, and a comprehensive costing is needed for the next meeting.

4. The Website

The website is currently up to date regarding participants. Janet would like people not yet committed to the project to be removed. There are several items on the dowloads page that need adressing, particularly the contact with Mangold who have agreed to give a time limited version of their Interact software. The details of this have not yet been decided and Peter will contact Mangold to negotiate a final agreement. The idea of a discussion list related to the website was discussed. Peter suggested that a closed JISC mail list along the lines of the DRS lists might be a good idea. This would have the added advantage of sending out regular emails to all participants - a gentle reminder that the research process is underway. Peter will investigate the options here.

5. Timetable

We are basically on course with the timetable on the DTRS7 website, with data collection, transcription, and DVD production all due to take place before the end of the year. Of slight concern was the time it might take to transcribe and check through all material before it is sent out.

6. DVD Production

It was discussed how to segment the data into DVD 'chapters' for more convenient analysis. Janet thought that the word 'chapter' implied too much of a narrative, although whether this is configurable on a DVD is unknown. We agreed to basically have equal sections through the course of the DVD, without any thematic classification. So, for example, a new chapter every 15 minutes. It is also important to cross reference timings from the DVD to the transcription to allow quick and accurate location of material. A sample transcription, and consistent referencing scheme to refer to individual projects, meetings, and segments, should be produced at the next meeting. We also need to address any issues of censorship before sending out the DVD. It should in principle be possible to mute anything deemed as sensitive.

7. Publisher

Janet circulated the agreement from Taylor and Francis. This was read through and seemed reasonable to everyone. Janet will sign the final agreement.

8. AOB

Concern was expressed about Fraser's contribution to the project. Peter will phone him to discuss how he would like to proceed.

9. Date of Next Meeting

Thursday 23rd November, location yet to be determined but probably Central Saint Martins.

Actions Arising

Janet: Produce comprehensive costing for the event, with break even costs.

Janet: Contact Arup

Janet: Manage enquiries and ask groups enquiring about participating for track record.

Peter: Collect data at TTP.

Peter: Contact Mangold to negotiate details of software deal.

Peter: Investigate the options for a JISC mail discussion list and/or password protected area of the website.

Peter or Fraser?: Produce sample transcription along referenced to DVD and check for items to be censored.

Rachael: Keep contact with CIVIC

Notes from Meeting at Central Saint Martins 1st September

2006-09-04T15:31:00.000Z

Present: Janet, Rachael, Peter
Apologies: Fraser

1. Progress Since Last Meeting

The list of actions outstanding from the last meeting was reviewed. All had been completed apart from Peter following up organisations to participate through the RSA. Fraser had made a valliant attempt to collaborate with Spinnaker International but this had not been successful for reasons of confidentiality. Peter had not heard back from the product design organisation he had contacted. Rachael has arranged data collection with CIVIC, while Peter had collected data from the second meeting for the Milton Keynes Crematorium project. Janet had distributed the Taylor-Francis book contract but only Nigel had responded with any comments. Peter has invited around 12 people to participate with very positive responses so far.

2. Data Collection

Peter has collected data from a further meeting in the design of the MK Crematorium and commented on the consent approval process. He had asked for signed consent at the start of the meeting, to which all participants had agreed. Rachael said that data collection at CIVIC looks extremely promising, looking at the re-development of the old Arsenal football ground. A week for a meeting that we can film has been set. Rachael will keep contact and ensure that there is someone there to film it.

It looks increasingly unlikely that we will be able to get an engineering company to participate, the overall feeling was that this would not necessarily be a bad thing, as it might lead to too much data being produced and invitees referring to their own data for comparisons along discipline lines might prove more beneficial. We will endeavour to try to film more design meetings, however, up to the deadline of December. Peter will contact the Design Council to see if any possibilities lie in that direction.

3. The Event
Peter and Janet had met a week previously to look at the Central Saint Martins venue for the event. Janet has booked the main room for the four days during and surrounding the event. The room looks highly suitable, with a 'workshoppy' feel to it, AV equipment, and flexible space. There is also a clear line of movement to what will be the different spaces at the workshop (entrance, reception, eating, presentation). Janet had followed up the possibility of the workshop dinner being at the British Library Reading Room which is close by to the workshop (walking distance). Janet had produced a likely breakdown of costs and it looks like the final conference fee will be around £300. This includes everything, refreshments, lunches, the workshop dinner, pre-prints, and a copy of the book when it is published. All agreed to put any profit back into the workshop. Janet will work out the break even point for the workshop based on these figures, and look into how we can use PayPal for registrations.

4. The Website (http://design.open.ac.uk/dtrs7/)
Peter has produced a website for the workshop which is now ready for launch. Peter and Janet had discussed final changes the week previously. The list of participants will slowly be updated as people say that they want to be involved. Two aspects to the site have yet to added. These are a discussion forum to talk about and possibly classify the data, and an online registration and payment system. These will be up and running by the time data is distributed to participants at the end of December / beginning of next year.

5. Timetable
The timetable has been slightly revised and is now on the website. There is also a description of what the individual phases leading to the workshop will require in terms of inputs and outputs. All in all the timetable seems relatively straightforward.

6. Date of Next Meeting
18th October 10.30am at Reading University

Actions Arising

Janet: Follow up the possibility of publishing with Afterall

Rachael, Janet, Fraser: Contact remaining people to invite them to participate

Peter: Forward email inviting people to participate to Janet, Fraser, and Rachael

Peter: Contact the Design Council to explore possible projects to film

Janet: Work out the break even costs of the event

Rachael: Get DRS to take DTRS7 off their list of sponsored events

Peter: Look at DVD distribution issues

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 16th June

2006-06-23T10:11:00.000Z

Present: Peter, Janet, Rachael, Fraser

Peter announced that following a positive review the AHRC have funded the project as a network grant (£24,000)

1. Filming Designers

Rachael, Janet, and Fraser had met with the architectural firm Civic to discuss possible projects to film. Overall Civic were enthusiastic about being involved. There are at present three options: 1) Development for the old Arsenal ground at Highbury, an urban renewal project. 2) A community facility in Milton Keynes and Bedfordshire. 3) A £12million civic centre in Wiltshire. The option to film a participatory design exercise with children had also been discussed but this was thought not to be suitable. It was pointed out to Civic that the project filmed does not have to go to completion. The timing for filming is really dependent on when approval is given for any of the three projects to go ahead. Rachael will take the lead in keeping in contact with Civic.

2. Contacting Organisations

Janet has contacted Arup via their inhouse intranet and received several positive responses. A novel technology project involving a media interface for a powerstation has been discussed. Janet has also had contact with an Arup bridge designer called Angus Lowe, who is interested in our research ideas. There is nothing concrete as yet, but there is hope.

Peter has drafted a generic letter to send to organisations inviting them to participate. He will circulate electronic copies to the others. Fraser mentioned that Phil Culverhouse at Plymouth might have some useful Engineering contacts. He will explore this further. Peter mentioned some companies he has worked with previously and also that contacting peope via the RSA might prove fruitful. He will explore both these options.

Janet also mentioned that CSM are re-locating to the Kings Cross area and that AMA Space Consultants are involved in the master plan for the project. Rachael has some knowledge of AMA. Janet will follow up the lead.

3. The Book

Janet has received a new contract from Taylor-Francis which now includes everyone. We are obliged to buy 100 copies of the book at a discount price of £32.50. We will receive 8 free books. This is based on a book of around 250 pages. There will be a 5% royalty fee for future copies sold. Publication is expected in October 2008. The possibility of including a DVD containing all or some of the data was discussed although this might prove problematic from a copyright and data protection point of view. Taylor Francis require a camera-ready copy of the book. The positive of this is that we retain full creative control, the negative is that it will be hard work. Janet will circulate the contract for final approval by all.

4. The AHRC Proposal

Peter circulated copies of the letter and reviews received from the AHRC. It was noted that they require an annual letter to report progress. Rachael mentioned it would be worth looking at other funded network grants to see if there were any useful contacts to be made.

5. Timeplan

Although the original timeplan has slipped a bit over the past few months we are still on course. It is important now to get a website up and running. Fraser mentioned that his son had useful experience that could be used in this respect. Peter will think out a website strategy and follow up. A letter inviting participation to the conference also needs to be sent out to interested researchers. This should detail roughtly what will be involved and the amount of effort required.

We again discussed the reviewing procedure agreeing that, having received the data, research groups would have a short period of time (2-4 weeks) to respond in the form of an abstract detailing what they planned to do. This abstract would be reviewed. We would then allow 3 months for further research and submission. The final paper would not be reviewed. It is also important to point out that presentation at the conference will not necessarily result in inclusion in the book.

The abstract should contain: An outline of the intended research, a rough idea about what sections of the data would be used (cross referencing the data was discussed in terms of meeting number and hour number, so 2.1 would be the first hour of meeting 2), a track record of publications indicating how past research would be carried on with the data.

An up-to-date list of invitees who have expressed an interest in participating will be kept on the website to allow others to see who will be involved.

6. The Event

The event will be self-funded and include the price of the book. Preprints will be produced as cheaply as possible to provide a working document for the conference. The event will take place at Central St Martins in London who will not charge for the space used. The exact venue is yet to be determined. All expresssed a desire to keep the conference organisation as simple as possible. A list of hotels will be provided and the conference dinner will be at a London restaurant. Peter pointed out that payment can be done simply using the PayPal system.

7. Data Collection

Peter has almost completed the transcription of the pilot data which currently stands at 60 pages for a two and a half hour meeting. Given that one of the stated objectives of the project is to produce 9 meetings worth of data this could lead to a huge amount of data which might defeat the overall point of the conference to focus on common data. The review process discussed in item 5 would alleviate this somewhat, and would allow some direction from the conference organisers, but producing too much data does remain a concern. The possibilty of selecting only one meeting from the three filmed in each company might be an option to reduce data.

The idea that the main output of the project is a book, and that the conference is really a staging post on the way to producing the book, was also talked about. In this sense the conference is an opportunity to discuss, criticise, and find commonalities with other conference papers before submitting a final piece for the book. The conference, then, is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Actions Arising

Rachael: Keep in contact with Civic

Peter: Circulate electronic copies of Invitation to Participate, Information Sheet about the Project, Consent Form, and filming set-up.

Fraser: Talk to Phil Culverhouse regarding contacting an engineering design organisation.

Janet: Follow up on CSM Kings Cross development

Janet: Circulate the Taylor Francis contract

Peter: Contact organisations via the RSA

Peter: Work out a website strategy

Peter: Maintain contact with MK architects

Janet: Circulate list of invitees

Peter: Re-confirm with Mangold their input into the project

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 24th March

2006-03-28T09:05:00.000Z

Present: Peter, Rachael, Janet
Apologies: Fraser

Ethical Consent and Grant Application

Peter received ethical consent forms from Rachael and also had to go through Open University ethical clearance for human participants in submitting the DTRS grant proposal to the AHRC. The grant application has now been submitted for a start date of 3rd July. Letters of recommendation from the project partners were overlooked and now need to be submitted. Janet and Rachael both gave a letter, Fraser's is yet to materialise.

Plan B

Peter suggested that we might think of a plan B in case of not being able to secure a dataset for distribution - possibly in the form of a mini-symposium before the conference.

Milton Keynes Data

Following the previous meeting Peter had filmed a further meeting with the Milton Keynes architects which focussed on the design of a new crematorium. Peter had transcribed and distributed this data on DVD for discussion. Janet and Rachael were positive about the usefulness of the data and looked forward to further data from the project. Peter will meet with MK architects to discuss how this might take place. Janet and Rachael cautioned against interfering with the process too much (for example carrying out interviews before meetings).

In the afternoon we had an extended discussion about the film and transcription. There were many interesting angles to follow (as expected. Rachael commented that the transcription, although reasonably accurate, had not gone as far as transcribing overlapping words so missing things like the affirmation ('yes', 'yes') that went on when someone was talking about an idea.

Other Sources of Data

At the previous meeting Peter had suggested having a list of all possible companies to approach but all agreed that this would probably be too time consuming. Peter commented that, in the light of the MK data, that there was a real possibility of providing too much data, leading to an unfocussed symposium discussion. All agreed to follow up obvious contacts.

Book

Janet has been in touch with Taylor and Francis and has an outline agreement to produce 100 hardback copies of 300 pages at a price of £35. Subsequent copies will sell for £55. Any sales after the first 100 will receive a royalty of 5%. Janet showed a copy of a recent book by Taylor and Francis imprint the Sponpress titled 'Architecture and Participation' which seemed to be pretty close to the idea we had about the book. The nice thing was a soft cover and this is entirely due to the volume the publisher expect to sell. The two column layout, with references at the side of the text was also thought useful for the DTRS book. Janet will liase further.

Pre-prints

Janet showed a hardbound conference proceedings produced cheaply by Greenwich University and suggested something similar for DTRS. Peter commented that he liked 'rough and ready' proceedings - formatted but loosely bound A4 - that gave the impression of a work in progress.

Website

Peter thought that it might be good to start on the website with outline details of the symposium. He will think of some concepts for the next meeting.

Date of Next Meeting

Depending on Fraser's preference 19 / 20 / 21 June.

Actions Arising:

Fraser: write and send letter of recommendation

Peter: follow up MK crematorium project

All: follow up obvious contacts for design organisations

Janet: negotiate a soft cover!

Peter: Start on the website design

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 13th January

2006-01-17T12:23:00.000Z

Present: Peter, Janet, Rachael, Fraser

Reviewing Video of the Pilot Study

The meeting started by looking the film that Peter had collected the day before. The general feeling was that this was very good quality film, and the four cameras gave a very good sense of what was going on. The audio quality wad disappointing and it was agreed that a separate audio tape would need to be collected in order to transcribe the discussion. With a transcription it was felt that audio quality wasn't quite such a key issue (although that does depend on the transcription being relatively complete).

The issue of permission, ethics, and confidentiality was discussed. This project is unique in that the data will be distributed widely and so there can be no promise of it never being shown externally. Participants need to be aware of how the data will be used, and should sign a release form indicating both that they understand the nature of the research project and that they give permission to be filmed. There are a number of clearances that need to be obtained. Clearance from the respective university ethics committees, clearance from the collaborating organisation / project, and clearance from the individuals concerned. Rachael has already encountered these problems to some extent and will forward information and sample material. Rachael also reminded us to re-read the opening chapter of the original Delft Protocols workshop to get a feel for the type of decisions that were made for selecting data.

Response to the Book Proposal

Janet had received a positive reaction from Taylor Francis about the publication of the book. T&F sent the figures that would make the book economically viable for them. They would require us to purchase 100 copies of any book. The cost of a 300 page book with a two colour hard cover would work out at £35. All agreed that this was a good price. Peter remarked that T&F seemed to be treating the book as a conference proceedings - basically charging us to produce the book. He would like to see more commitment from the publisher (possibly in the form of royalties) and to explain to them that this book, though based on a conference, will definitely *not* be a conference proceedings. Janet will liase further with the Taylor & Francis.

Project Proposal

After the protracted process of obtaining full economic costs Peter has still not sent the proposal to the AHRB. It is now near its final form and a draft was circulated for final comments which were given. The timetable has been squeezed a bit, but still looks realistic. The costs will not stretch to cover an administrative assistant, so activities like web development, DVD production, and transcription have been allocated to 'Other Costs'.

Administrative Assistant

Peter has spoken to Judith Jansch who was recommended by Petra Badke-Shaub and is currently completing a PhD in behavioural science at Darmstadt University. Having read about the project she is interested in coming over to London for a few months this Spring/Summer to help out with the conference organisation. There was a brief discussion about what she could do but All agreed this was a good idea. Peter will contact Judith again and ask her to come over to London to discuss possibilities.

Letters

The next few months are crucial to the project with various parties needing to be approached (prospective participants in the research and prospective participants for the conference). To help this proposal it will be helpful to have the outline text of letters to send. Draft texts of letters will be discussed at the next meeting in March.

Date of Next Meeting

24th March at Reading University

Actions arising:

Rachael: Forward confidentiality and permission forms to all

Janet: Liase with Taylor and Francis about the book

Peter: Complete project proposal and send in to AHRB

Peter: Contact Judith Jansch re: coming to London this Spring / Summer

All: Make a list of contacts and organizations for potential collaboration and send to Peter. Peter will maintain a central list.

All: Search for participants.

?: Outline text of a letter for potential collaborating organisations

?: Outline text of a letter for potential collaborating researchers

First Filming of Architects

2006-01-17T11:49:00.000Z

12th January. After following the Hazely school project over the course of a few meetings I was finally allowed to film a meeting in progress. The cameras we had ordered had arrived 10 days before, hard disk recording JVC Everio cameras, so this was the first opportunity to test the cameras in situ.

The meeting was to discuss how the Phase 2 development of the school could get a 'good' assessment by fulfilling a certain number of criteria laid down by BREEAM (not too sure what the acronym means). This involved basically going through a checklist to work out what was already included in the plan, what could be included relatively easily, and what wasn't included. The consultant with the checklist, guidelines and spreadsheet was a guy called Daniel Lash from Exeter University. With the two architects, the external consultant, mechanical services representative, electrical services representative, and accounting person the meeting was larger than I'd expected with six people, but proved useful all the same.

The room was a purpose-designed meeting room about 10 metres by 4 metres. It was largely wood panelled but had plenty of glass around to position the cameras with suckers. I basically put a camera high in each corner of the room and zoomed one camera so we had a view of what was on the table. It took me about 20 minutes to set everything up and get the cameras recording. The Cameras ended up being quite a long way away from the table - good for the lack of intrusion, but not so good for audio quality.

With the cameras recording, the meeting basically went ahead as normal. There were some comments about people giving permission for being filmed, but no major protest. Initially I think people were aware of the cameras, but after a while most seemed to relax. After I'd stopped the cameras the general feeling was that they hadn't really noticed after the first 10 minutes.

These were the thoughts that occurred to me as I was sitting observing the meeting (at the end of the table, slightly removed from the 'action').
• All meeting participants should sign a permission form before the meeting takes place (for ethical reasons, for possible legal reasons, and for good research practice).
• Get people to take their shoes off to make them feel more comfortable?
• Cushions to protect the cameras in case they come unstuck (one did, but luckily survived the tumble)
• Show the tape counter on screen for playback and synchronisation purposes
• Get still images or copies of all documents discussed or present. This might be difficult as people have personal notebooks, and there was a computer with documents on. How important is it to get every peice of documentation as opposed to having a general feeling for where the focus of attention is at any one point.
• Should I be in the room or not? It seemed to me that I was a constant reminder of the filming taking place. So even if people had forgotten about the cameras, one look at me meant that they were suddenly reminded. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean people are keeping a check on what they are saying. If I wasn't there 'forgetting' the cameras might mean that the discussion might be a bit freer, but by the same token are we taking advantage of people's 'forgetting'?

Back at the office I transferred the film onto my computer which took about 10 minutes per camera. (At the highest quality setting the camera uses about 4GB per hour of filming.) The basic quality was good. It is possible to make out the drawings, and see roughly what is being attended to. The four separate camera angles also give a very complete picture of the meeting.

In terms of the meeting content, it wasn't as boring as I'd expected. Without a transcription it is difficult to say but there was plenty of interest for analysis.

Pilot number 1: The First Design Meeting

2005-11-01T16:21:00.000Z

Today I attended a design meeting with Milton Keynes Design and Development at a place called Hazely School. This is a new school in Milton Keynes. Phase 1 is completed, with the teachers and kids moving in from Septemberr, but Phase 2 and phase 3 are yet to be built. So although the school feels brand new, it also feels unfinished. Some bits open, some bits closed off. Anyway it's a nice modern, spacious school, with a great view of the city from the roof.

The meeting was to decide, given the the experiences of phase 1, how best to go forward with phases 2 and 3. There were 11 people at the meeting, five from the council architect offices, three from the school (including the head and deputy head) and three from the local education authority. It took place in a small temporary music classroom around an oval table.

The architects had arrived at a number of options in a morning meeting, but didn't want to discuss these as they were all too expensive. Instead the focus of the meeting was on "priority setting". There were familiar discussions. The school felt the corridors had too many nooks and cranies for the kids to hide in. 'Policing' was mentioned quite often. CCTV was mentioned, but the school didn't want it to "feel like a prison". The narrow corridors had caused circulation problems so the corridors needed to be wider in the phase 2 development. This in turn would be more space, which would be more cost, which would have to be taken off elsewhere. A quick calculation of the extra width was £350,000. Another problem was the lack of space for the children to go when it was raining and it was thought an 'atrium' solution for the new corridor would be useful, the corridor opening up into a 'funnel' shape. Another solution proposed were outside 'tensile structures' which were cheap. Locker space was also an issue, on the one hand almost every student should have a locker, but at the same time the lockers shouldn't encrouch on existing space.

So the meeting lasted about an hour and a half discussing these kinds of mainly practical things. I was struck by the different languages being spoken. The langauge of the here and now, of practical problems and niggly issues. And the langauge of phase 2 and phase 3, of how the future could fit in with the present. And lurking in the background are the cost implications, the 'spending profiles' of the education authority.

After the meeting the architects showed me around the school, and in many ways the meeting continued. The architects didn't like the colours that the deputy head had chosen (a pale 'hospital' green). The contractors for phase 1 had not done a good job and would not be doing phases 2 and 3.

I wondered how much there was to analyse in the meeting itself, but now I'm writing these notes, I realise there was quite a bit. There were also absences, there was not much reference to other buildings or other schools. And there wasn't much uncritical consideration of possibilities. I thought that words like 'funnel' or 'atrium' might be explored a bit but they weren't. There was very much an if..then structure to the discussion; 'if you do that, then this will happen'. But schools are a good topic for the layresearcher. There wasn't too much jargon, and the issues discussed, being mainly practical, were done so in a very straightforward language.

The room would have been difficult to film in. We walked into the room with half the people already there, so there would have been no setting up time. There was hardly any space around the backs of chairs, and the ceiling was quite low. So mounting cameras might have been difficult. But four cameras would have captured a fair proportion of the meeting. And without a lot of questioning I came away with a pretty good understanding of the individuals involved. There was generally one person speaking at a time, and only a couple of times did a simultaneous conversations break out, but I had the feeling that the formality of 11 people meant that the discussion didn't flow as easily as it could have. 11 people was really too many. Our agreed limit of 7 would have been fine.

Most people had their own notebooks with them, with no computers in sight. The architects had drawings rolled up, and distributed a rough sketch of an outline solution. Everyone stayed seated throughout. And there was lovely carrot cake!

Sponsorship

2005-10-19T13:46:00.000Z

For those that don't know, Mangold Interact is a powerful video analysis package that allows you to code and analyse your data (for an overview see http://www.mangold.de/english/). It is ideally suited to looking at Design protocols. For this reason I asked the head of the company - Pascal Mangold - whether he'd be interested in sponsoring DTRS7 and I got an extremely enthusiastic reply:

"This sounds wonderful!!

"Especially because yesterday we had a big meeting about our own conference which is about "Methods in behavioral research". I came up with this idea 2 years ago because we - as vendor of systems for behavioral research - see lots of people "re-inventing the wheel" again and again because they don't know that others already have worked out good methods for this and that. The idea of this conference is mainly to provide 'interdisciplinary knowledge about methods in behavioral research'.

"If I understood your intention correctly, your conference fits ideally (in a certain angle) into our ideas.

"That's why I would be happy to sponsor the technical basis for this contest! Thus everyone would be able to start at the same level and the data would be easily comparable. This is highly exciting... and I'm very curious about the outcome!"

I asked if he'd give a discount or a free trial period for participants to DTRS7 who don't (yet) have the software, and also if he'd like to give a talk or workshop on using the software / analysing the data at the symposium itself. I didn't get a concrete reply here but will follow this up.

I think by giving the option of using similar software for analysis the discussion could be even more focussed at the event.

Book Titles

2005-10-10T10:41:00.000Z

Following on from the last meeting at Reading Peter and Janet came up with the following suggestions for book titles:

(a) Re : Design - What goes on in Design Meetings

(b) Talking of Design - What goes on in Design Meetings

(c) The Design Agenda - What goes on in Design Meetings

(d) About Design - What goes on in Design Meetings

We were pretty happy with the subtitle, hence the lack of an alternative. (a) and (d) were both plays on the subject of an actual meeting.

The alternatives were circulated on email and the following comments were made.

Rachael: A personal preference for title (b) Talking of Design as this reflects the verbal aspects of designing (and the conversation analysis method in particular), though the other titles have a broader appeal.

Nigel: 'Re: design' suggests 're-design' which might give wrong idea of what's going on? 'Talking of design' implies an emphasis on the talking part - which may not turn out to be what some find significant. 'The design agenda' is already a title of a management book by Rachel Cooper & Mike Press.
So that leaves 'About design', which is OK with me, but might be modified to 'About designing'?

Fraser: my vote would have gone with the 'Design Agenda' title, had that not been bagged already. I also agree that 'Talking of Design' could give too narrow an interpretation, and the problems over the 'Re:' in 'Re: Design'. So my vote goes to 'About Design'.

Peter: I'm happy with 'about design' but like the way that the colon emphasises a sort of agenda. I also like the look of the colon on the page. I think Nigel's adding the 'ing' suggestion is good as it means there is a double play. The meeting agenda idea, but also all the things that are about (i.e. around or round about) designing, so things that you might not normally consider to be designing.

So my conclusion would be:

About : Designing - What Goes on in Design Meetings

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 22nd September

2005-09-23T08:42:00.000Z

The project is beginning to take shape. We now have a good idea of budgets and deadlines. This meeting ranged from talking about publishing deals, to looking at the level of technology we'd need to film design meetings. Present were Peter Lloyd, Janet McDonnell, and Rachael Luck. Fraser Reid and Nigel Cross sent their apologies.

Proposal
Peter now has a draft proposal in reasonable shape, having worked in initial reactions to the proposal. After speaking to the AHRB it looks like the best source of funding will be their Workshops & Networks scheme. These have a maximum of £30,000 (full economic costs) and will allow us limited support during the project - hopefully in form of web-design, data-collection. The proposal is currently in a generic format and Peter will fill out the AHRB forms and case support and circulate for another round of commentary before final submission. Turnaround time is reasonably quick and if successful we should be able to begin after four months. Hopefully next March.

Funding
Rachael has asked the DRS to sponsor the event and has received positive noises. It was mentioned that the DRS like their costs to be fully specified so we agreed that if we could arrange £1500 for printing the proceedings and student bursaries combined that would be nice. Rachael will fill out the appropriate forms and submit them at the next DRS meeting in November.

Janet gave an overview of the conference costs which came to £8500 (approx). We briefly discussed arrangements such as dinners, accommodation, etc.. We agreed on a registration fee of around £250 (a total of £15,000 with 60 participants). Peter expressed worry that the event might prove too successful attracting many more people than planned, 60 being considered ideal. We also discussed what we would do with any profit considering a number of options; plough it back in to the conference itself (champagne reception!?), use it to develop the book after the conference, or split the money somehow. We agreed thatinstitutionation underwriting the conference against loss should receive any profit it generates.

So in summary we are looking at three streams of funding. The AHRB to fund data-collection and web-development. The DRS to fund the proceedings and provide student bursaries. Registration fees to pay for the conference itself with any profit being used in the subsequent book production. Funding is also being provided in kind by our universities for our time on the project (and also by any collaborating organisations for their time).

Timeplan
Peter has produced a revised timeplan in the light of RAE publishing requirements. The conference is now due to take place in September 2007. We are currently on course. The next phase of the project is pilot studies, which is due to end next April.

Collaborating Organisations
Peter reported his discussion with Milton Keynes council (see earlier post). He will resume communication when he returns from holiday at the beginning of October. He has also had some contact with the Design Council, and suggestions for suitable organisations to work with, The Technology Partnership in Cambridge being one. Janet will also contact the estates division of Greenwich University and the school of Architecture for any further leads. Janet identified getting the data as critical for the success of the project. Peter commented that the higher up the foodchain we could go the better. Getting to film a design meeting at Ove Arup being preferable to filming at John Smith & Partners round the corner. We discussed the different disciplines we might film. Architecture and Product Design seem logical. Computer system development was discussed but considered 'a different kind of process'. Engineering companies like Arup or Rolls Royce would also be suitable.

Publishers
Janet has had some contact with Taylor-Francis on the recommendation of Steve Scrivener. They need a detailed overview of the book along with potential markets. Peter mentioned playing up the business school angle and also possible development of an OU course. We talked about a number of publishers and the differences between publishing conference proceedings (which you pay for) and books (which you don't). Janet will complete a generic book proposal form that we can then send to prospective publishers.

Titles
We talked about possible titles for the book. 'Describing Designing:' with something after the colon was thought to be good, although quite wide ranging. The words 'in action' to appear somewhere in the title were also considered good. Peter mentioned the idea of a 'how' title:How Designers Communicate in Design Meetings for example, or How Problems get Solved in Design Meetings. Again playing up the business school angle and implying that the answer lies in the book. Peter commented that the book should be significantly different from the conference proceedings with maybe considerable re-writes required from authors to fit a number of themes.

Equipment
Peter had talked with a project officer (PO) at the OU about the whole camera setup. Previously we had agreed upon obtaining high quality data, but the PO questioned this strategy suggesting instead the use of webcams which have the benefit of being 'better quality that you think', cheap, unobtrusive, and easy to record to hard disk. As an illustration the meeting was filmed using a webcam and generally considered to be of good enough quality although the sound quality needed improving. The PO will specify a system for further discussion.

Actions arising

Peter:
Fill out AHRB forms and circulate
Contact possible collaborators - MK council, The Design Council, The Technology Partnership
Assess different solutions for the equipment setup
Contact Mangold about sponsorship of the event

Janet:
Complete a book proposal and circulate
Contact possible collaborators at Greenwich

Rachael:
Fill out DRS forms and submit to the next DRS meeting

Fraser:
Contact any potential collaborators

Meeting with Milton Keynes Council

2005-09-09T09:16:00.000Z

Yesterday (Thursday 8th September) I had a meeting with Andrew Armes, head of design and development at Milton Keynes council, to discuss filming design meetings. He heads a department of 65 people with around 20 architects as well as urban planners, and landscape architects.

He was positive about the idea of filming (I had expected that I would have to do a bit more explanation) and thought external observation generally a good thing. He told me about a number of projects going on - from individual schools to urban regeneration programmes and offered a number of different types of meeting to attend.

In the short term would be a large creative meeting, facilitated by Oxford Brookes university, discussing the development of an area of road into a 'boulevard'. This sounded like a large project, although interesting. Other projects seemed better suited to our purposes. He told me about an office 'happy hour', during which architects would discuss each others schemes they were working on. This had lapsed, however, due to increased workload. There was also what he termed 'the voluntary sector', which I understood was a sort of local consultation that were meeting once a month to discuss how to change a 'civic centre' into a 'community hub'.

So a few different options. My preference would be to try and sit-in at a happy hour, and then try and follow up a design somehow once communication and trust had been established.

We agreed to keep in touch, and I asked him to keep me in mind should any meetings come up that he thought suitable. We agreed a strategy of sitting in and observing first, and filming only when comfortable. I told him I'd get back to him about attending the creative workshop as I couldn't myself attend, but maybe someone else from the project team might be able to do so.

In summary, an interesting contact, and potential I think.

Thinking Big

2005-07-28T11:15:00.000Z

I don't know how big this thing can go but Leverhulme are offering £250,000 for a symposium to take place in 2007. Deadline is September 2nd. Maybe it's worth a punt simply to get some feedback?
http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/#symposium_2007

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 27th July

2005-07-28T10:53:00.000Z

Thoughts since the last meeting centred around the idea of how we could use a public design organisation in the project (Janet suggested The Highgate Society as a possibility, Peter said he'd heard Milton Keynes council were keen to work with the OU). Rachael, more experienced in these matters commented that there were alot of project around under the 'New Deal' banner (urban regeneration), and that public design meetings often had complicated politics.

Timetable
The date for the conference is more or less agreed for late summer 2007 (early September is looking good). The current timetable needs to be squeezed slightly We need to publicise our conference so that other organisers are aware of when we are holding it. ICED will take place in 2007, as will an international DRS conference.

September 2007 also ties in with the UK RAE (census date is end October, with final publication date end December). Various possibilities were discussed to meet the deadline. The journal special issues could be planned up front. The conference proceedings will also be published. It was thought that a book of sufficient quality would not be realisable before the end of 2007. One final point was how important the UK RAE would be given the international make-up of participants. There was a feeling that the type of people that will be invited to participate won't be dependent on the symposium for their RAE.

Publication Strategy
In the light of this a publication strategy is needed, outlining who, how, when, and where, the content of the symposium will be published. A good job for Nigel (we all agreed). In particular the content of the book was felt to be important. The possibility of adding the DVD of data was discussed, and also having the book themed (methods, disciplines, etc.) making it significantly different from the conference proceedings.

Budget
The current budget for the project is around 50K but needs working out accurately. A number of activities can be considered as funding in kind from respective institutions (location costs at Greenwhich, video set up and recording costs at OU, and transcription costs at Plymouth) and that would strengthen a bid to funding council.

Proposal for Funding
Peter provided an outline proposal with an eye on the AHRCs network scheme, where a maximum of £30,000 (full economic costs) can be applied for. Other funding councils were also discussed, particularly as any employment costs will not be provided by the AHRC scheme. An EPSRC or ESRC Case award for a co-ordinator/phd student is a possibility here.

Conference Organisation
Peter suggested it might be an idea to hold a pre-screening afternoon before the conference proper to allow people attending the conference without having been involved in the analysis to get up to speed with the set-up. The pre-screening could end in a welcome party for all delegates.

Blogg, Net Conferencing, Wikis
Everybody seems to be keeping up to date with the Blogg, but Fraser and Rachael (and Nigel) do not yet have editing rights. Peter also suggested the Flash meeting pages provided by the OU for remote conferencing, all that is required is a webcam and a browser. (see http://cnm.open.ac.uk/projects/flashmeeting/ ).

The idea of using an editable website (Wiki) for a website supporting the DVD data was discussed. This would allow researchers involved to develop definitions, ask questions about the data, and add pages in an organic way. See Wikipedia for a definition of Wikis (and an example of what Wiki's can become).
There are vatious Wiki hosting services. Basic services are available free, further features (password security, data back-up and protection) are charged in a monthly fee. Seedwiki is an example of a wiki hosting service.

Date of Next Meeting
Was agreed for 10:00 on Thursday September 22nd at Reading University.

Actions Arising
Peter:
Contact Milton Keynes council
Contact AHRC for clarification
Circulate AHRC Research programme description pdfs
Contact OU press
Circulate Gero conference description
Experiment with Flash Meeting (Peter and Janet)
Resend Blogg invite to Fraser, Rachael, and Nigel (Peter or Janet)
Contact Mangold re: possible group discounts for Interact software

Janet:
Contact publishers re: proceedings
Find out the cost of holding the conference
Experiment with Flash Meeting (Peter and Janet)
Resend Blogg invite to Fraser, Rachael, and Nigel (Peter or Janet)

Fraser:
Find out about ESRC studentships/awards

Rachael:
Contact DRS and Bob Young

Nigel:
Formulate publication strategy

Public Design Organisations

2005-06-16T11:09:00.000Z

A friend of a friend works for a local planning department specialising in road layout. It got me thinking that maybe we should be looking to involve public design organisations interested in making their processes more transparent and accountable. There would be less of a confidentiality barrier then, although I'm not sure how clients originate and are dealt with. There was an interesting TV series a few years ago called 'Public Property' which involved well known architects and designers on small public projects.

Using a Wiki

2005-06-15T09:36:00.000Z

Just a thought on how we might manage the data once it is with research groups. I suggested some sort of research website whereby people can ask for background material relating to the data and answers get posted for all to see (some kind of blogg in actual fact). What might also be possible is to set up a Wiki, an editable website, structured around the data and allowing people to add their commentary / analyses. For a good example see the editable encyclopediea Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. It might help to develop definitions arising from the data (or from other sources) and could continue after the conference.

Notes from Meeting at Reading University 27th May

2005-06-07T15:46:00.000Z

Present were: Janet McDonnell, Peter Lloyd, Fraser Reid, and Rachael Luck

Form of data collection
The overall ideas behing the project were discussed. Two options for data collection were discussed. The first option was collecting data from a sequence of (3?) design meetings within one (or a number) of design organisations. Second option was to record just one meeting from a larger number (3?) of design organisations. The first option was more popular.

Website
PL noted that the difference between this workshop and the previous Delft protocols workshop was the advent of the internet. This might be used to support the data set, for example by researchers able to ask questions about the data, or obtain background material of participants. The data collected should not depend on such information, however.

Date for workshop
Initial thoughts (September 2004) were for late summer 2007, but the RAE might interfere with this with publications required to be in the public domain by July 31st 2007. With international participation that would only be a problem for UK based researchers, but it would be nice for publications arising from the workshop to count. June 2007 was also discussed.
A detailed plan needs to be produced with realistic targets.

Funding
One option is to apply for a research grant to cover the whole symposium. The other is to fund it 'bit by bit', with possible contributions from collaborators, universities, participants, the DRS, and software suppliers. A proposal should in any case be written to clarify all the goals and processes of the project.

Data
Rachael's architecture data was looked at to gain insight into how we might collect our own data. Quite a bit can be obtained using just one camera, but problems with lighting (contrast and type), space (narrow camera angle), audio, and large numbers of meeting participants were noted. Fraser showed similar data. Peter showed an excerpt from Design as filmed for television and all were pleased to note that this was not much of an improvement! Peter mentioned high quality equipment might soon be available from the OU, although too much equipment might provide unecessary intrusion. Ideally betwen 4-6 people would be appropriate to film.

Transcription
How complete does the transcription need to be? It was thought that a too detailed transcription might (a) take too long and (b) pre-judge some of the data. A skeleton transcription was agreed upon simply providing a text of words spoken and timings. The transcription should also help to quickly locate researchers in the data.

Conference Review Process
The nature of the symposium means that researchers would be commiting quite a bit of time towards producing a paper. It was though that rejection at a late stage might be upsetting. Several options were discussed. (1) participation by invitation only and no review at all, simply all papers accepted. (2) a formal review process drawn from an advisory board - often required by people travelling to conferences overseas. (3) a review of track record prior to acceptance of participation followed by acceptance of all papers.

Publisher
The Delft protocols workshop was published by Wiley. Open University Press was suggested. A special issue of Design Studies would be practically guaranteed.

To do:
1. Think about stuff
2. List all major activities required with an estimate of associated costs
3. Produce an outline timetable

Design Competitions

2005-06-07T15:25:00.000Z

Just some thoughts on how to involve design organisations. Many design consultancies put together entries for design competitions and might be more amenable to having a meeting discussing a competition entry filmed then a 'real' project. The plus is that we get a 'pure' form of conceptual designing (effectively without a client although that might depend on the competition). Minus is that we lose something of the 'realness' of designing. Architecture competitions are well known, I'm not sure about product design competitions, would have to check.

News from Stanford

2005-05-26T12:53:00.000Z

News from Larry Liefer and Stanford via Nigel Cross is that the Stanford proposal to hold a DTRS there has been withdrawn, this means DTRS8 is likely to be DTRS7. Onward!

Design Organisations

2005-05-26T09:54:00.000Z

One of the major hurdles is going to be getting access to design organisations. For such an international research project it would be nice to get international design organisations involved, along the lines of: IDEO, Philips Design, Fosters partners, Ove Arup... Maybe too big, and also too secret? Would there be any benefit in keeping to smaller local organisations? Maybe we should make a 'long list' of organisations (organisations we've worked with in the past, those that we wish we could work with, local organisations, etc.).

Also we need to be clear about the benefits of the project to the organisations involved. Off the top of my head:

* Free marketing in the resulting publications, especially if the data becomes standard (albeit to a limited community). Also the possibility that good collaboration might lead to OU television programmes.
* The worlds best minds concentrated on your organisation and design process (I say without irony)
* Simply an interesting thing to do (the Hawthorne 'watching decorators increases productivity' argument) which you'd be foolish to miss.

Would it be worth asking organisations to put up some money for the project to promote a feeling of exclusivity and commitment?

New Members

2005-05-16T16:04:00.000Z

I've asked Fraser Reid if he would be interested in joining the project and he has said yes. I think his psychology background will look good in the mix, and he's recently been filming architects in meetings. So maybe that is more data we can discuss. I've also asked Nigel Cross to be involved and he's happy to do that as well. So we're building up a nicely composed core team for the project. Currently:

Janet McDonnell
Peter Lloyd
Rachel Luck
Fraser Reid
Nigel Cross

Should we have titles?

More Pilot Data

2005-05-06T18:09:00.000Z

Rachael has supplied some more pilot data. This is a series of two meetings between an architect and a single client who is proposing an extension to her home. There are very interesting changes in the interactions between the two from the first meeting to the second. Between times they have spoken by telephone and exchanged material by email, however there is plenty of interest in the two recorded sessions and 'filling in' looks feasible.

PRACTICALITIES:

(1) Control of noise (here washing machine!) as well as light, again difficult to predict what will come up 'in vivo' but need to intervene during event(s) as little as possible. The setting is also quite constrained (a small house) through which the participants move to discuss requirements, clarify constraints, explain things to each other, etc., etc., pursued by camera...

(2) Use of laptop (here by architect) to show material - camera doesn't capture what is on the screen, and here it is the dynamics (interactions) that illuminate the architect's proposals for the client - i.e. static screen shots are not what communicates, it's the 'animation'.

General Planning

2005-04-21T18:13:00.000Z

Meeting at Greenwich with Peter Lloyd. To move the specification of data requirements on we agree to meet at Reading to view some of Rachael Luck's pilot data together in a small group to explore possibilities, snags and practical requirements. Blog to be opened to small team to support preparation for DTRS8.

Types of data collected

2005-02-23T11:28:00.000Z

A meeting with Rachael Luck and Peter Medway, Peter favours ethnographic approaches - we will need to be clear about what the possible values will be of what we propose to collect and provide - since tho' it will be 'in vivo' data it will be nothing like a longitudinal study.

Pilot Data

2005-02-10T10:24:00.000Z

Some pilot data has been collected by Rachael Luck. The data is DV from a meeting about the Weir Project – the redevelopment of a derelict building for community use. The meeting isn’t the first but is a review meeting with about 8 people present including county planner, architect, and some building user stake-holders including a local resident. Looking at the data as an outsider is useful for showing up some obvious issues:

PRACTICALITIES:

For meetings where several people are round the table several cameras would be needed if we are to capture all the gestures and expressions of participants – yet we need to try to remian unintrusive - there was some interesting body language in this footage for example. Some other fairly obvious points -
(1) Good even lighting is needed throughout (this meeting is late p.m. and the lighting level and direction changes as the meeting progresses).
(2) The quality of the sound from the camera microphone is good enough without recourse to the audio file– we will need to keep the material supplied to researchers as simple as possible to make the possibility of participation as inclusive as we can (keeping technology requirements modest or supply what is needed).
(3) Camera/other means needs to capture documents that are shared and pointed at to level where gestural references are clear.
(4) Profiles of meeting participants needs to be supplied – who is there and their interests in the project - practical implications may mean numbers should be small.

ETHICS :

Distribution of the data we collect : ethics approval at point of distribution/none needed/or what?

Preliminary outline / ideas

2004-10-29T15:59:00.000Z

Following a few meetings in September to discuss initial ideas here's a skeleton of the plan :

The sort of data to collect - one model would be snapshots (video records of some key meetings) on a longitudinal study of a single design project, the other would be to have a small cross-section of meetings from different design disciplines. In both cases the 'data' would be video recodings of meetings (of a small group) in the wild - i.e professional/real activity not in the 'zoo'/formulated experiment.
I prefer the longitudinal one : my view is that from a research methods standpoint we know fairly clearly what we can and can't get (and claim) from a case study approach - the longitudinal 'snap-shot' study would be a case study. Whereas collecting (say) two hours of video of meetings (say) of the concept formulation stage across disciplines might only lead researchers analysing it to be able to say rather superficial things by way of comparison - e.g. the textile designers spend less time than the aircraft wing designers on talking about x. I feel - at the moment that the cross-discipline study would be more difficult to engineer to be useful data - I am influenced by what my own interests would be - I would be interested in tracking decisions/looking at rationale/explanations for the relationship between the final product of design effort and the conceptualisation of the task at the outset.
AND : From a pragmatic point of view I think getting cooperation from some professional designers isn't going to be easy - for the single project study there would only be one design practice to persuade - for the other - several.

PRACTICALITIES:

The data dished out would be provided on a DVD.
It would consist of video recordings of about 3 meetings each of about 2 hours duration. There a big question about editing material here - and if any - how it might interfere with the 'raw' data - i.e. impose a viewpoint.
There would also be footage of the designers' reflection on the design activity - with the benefit of hindsight - i.e. after project completion maybe their reflections would be prompted by viewing for themselves the video of the conceptualisation meeting (this might be a 'selling' point for getting access to the design team).
There would need to be some supporting material about context, etc, drawings, background and stakeholdings of any meeting participants, etc. ....
Anyone who wants to take part in the workshop can choose how to make use of the materials - using whatever bits are useful for their purposes.
Participants might show edited collections of the video material to support their contribution(s).

TIMESCALES:

roughly like this:
now -> end of summer 2005 pilot this idea to find snags sort out how to fund w/shop, materials' collection and distribution
~oct/nov/dec 2005 data collection begins - followed by producing materials to distribute
end of summer 2006 distribute material (dvd)
~ early summer 2006 those who've managed to do something register for w/s - sending something
~ sept 2006 hold w/s - probably 3 days , rough pre-prints of contributions available
after w/s book & journal quality papers.

RELATIONSHIP TO (any) DTRS7 :

There's also the question of timing vis a vis any sign of DTRS7 but I am thinking that a pilot would be quite useful/interesting anyway regardless of a DTRS8 workshop so I can go ahead with the 'timetable' above without settling on a date for 8 before 7 is settled.

FUNDING:

Some way of funding the expenses will need to be sorted out before the main study data collection takes place. Costs won't be much in the grand scheme of things (i.e. relative to 'research grants')- especially considering the value of the output if a successful w/s takes place, however there would be some.

Opening Posting

2004-10-08T15:21:00.000Z

The blog has been set up to make it easy for everyone with an interest in DTRS8 to contribute to, and keep in touch with, developments.