4.3 Jumpstarting Design With Research Base

When we shifted our focus to exploring design seeds, an explicit step in our
methodology was to cull ideas of what might be useful design strategies from
available resources in order to jumpstart our ideation of design seeds. Although
we discussed possible design concepts right from the first meeting of the project,
it was at this point that we explicitly surveyed, expanded, and synthesized what
we could use as a foundation. We drew on research bases6 and our own past
experience in designing visualizations in other domains, particularly in space
shuttle mission control, nuclear power plant control rooms, and critical care
medicine.

Based on this research base on how to design useful systems, we focused our
efforts such that:

1. we identified two observable, interacting frames of reference (time in "report
space" and time in "theme space") as the base structure for the main display,

2. we coordinated the elements of the workspace to function as a unit in ways
that could be viewed from multiple perspectives,

3. we made the interface observable and directable,

4. we designed a series of "longshots" from which to view large-grained
patterns in the spaces and reduce the navigation burdens,

5. we considered how to use the machine to critique the activities of the human
partner, and

6. we circumscribed the active machine intelligence such that the system is not
dependent on the machine processing always being correct.

6 Although we feel that we drew on research bases about design concepts, we are unable to
reference archival publications that explicitly describe this research base. Traditional publication
outlets generally do not accept descriptions of explorations and descriptions of useful design
concepts as worthy of publication in their own right. Traditional design guidelines often do not
emphasize the level of how to design systems to be useful. Therefore, we feel that much of this
information is learned via apprenticeship or in informal discussions with members of research
and design communities.



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