Learning from reverse engineering

In product design, reverse engineering is to unearth certain components that can be repurposed for different application. Theft occurs in certain cases where the entire set of components that make up a product is appropriated and for which reason patents and copyright were created . More often, however, reverse engineering, both literally and figuratively is a legitimate way to establish what is going on in a specific field, practice or occupation. In these cases, reversed engineering is a form of dependent creation as evidenced in how original and valuable creations were built on the knowledge, experience, and copying of elements of what came before. Indeed, it is how we learn as humans, from an early age - we copy, then extend. That is, there is always some level of copying in accumulating knowledge directed to discovery and learning. Learning from reverse engineering, "reverse ideation" would mean keeping track of one's own ideation process, say, through sketches - what the architect Michael Graves would call "the referential sketch", or through a record of "swiped ideas" or inspirations from the the web. The recorded ideation process could then be reflected upon, and analysed for links and influences and in so doing becoming a learning experience.

Agency of freehand drawing

The arguments for and against drawing, or rather thinking with pen and paper versus with an electronic device, such as a digital tablet have been going on for years. Yet no firm conclusion has been reached either way. Yes, drawing on digital devices, and facilitated by software is generally considered to be easier and faster. And sharing digital work is much faster than sharing paper sketches. Also, improving, deleting, scaling or copying is more convenient on a digital device than on paper. Yet drawing on paper is a grounding experience - the friction of the pencil on paper guided by the hand has a different feel to it compared with using a stylus on a screen assisted by software. But when creative deadlines are tight, paper drawing can be seen as a time-consuming luxury. But, as practitioners of drawing on paper would argue, this is a luxury needed to allow designers to work independently, transparently and honestly in the early stages of designing. That is, the freehand drawing, in contrast to the "black box" of computing, is capable of expressing thoughts and feelings that complete the original quality of the design idea. Although it is for individual designers to decide what tool(s) they find most beneficial for their ideation practice, the aim of the workshop is to raise awareness of ideation through engagement with a range of ideation tools.

The exchange value of ideas

What happens to an idea's innate value when replaced by exchange value? Let's start with the ideation-workshop. The workshop's defining quality, as learning outcome, is for participants to explore ideation tools of their choice in order to raise their awareness of the ideation process. In this, there is no external assessment only participants' own perception or judgement to determine the criteria for most favoured ideation tool or tools. The workshop activities, then, are driven by curiosity and the value of the tool or tools can’t be arrived at through an outside, top-down measure. That is, participants can assess the value only by individually and carefully attending to what the value the tools or tools contain and, on their own, concluding their merit. Yet the end point for the ideator, or working designer is to create a product or service for sale. That is, the idea going to market. Once the product or service enters the market, the intrinsic value of the idea behind the product or service is emptied out, compacted by the market’s logic of ranking, until there’s only relational worth, or exchange value. That is, the idea has no longer interior worth. Instead, the personal, or intrinsic value of the idea is for the market to decide. And so, the workshop is evidence of the liberating fact that ideas, and ideation have intrinsic value not be measured, or processed as market productivity, or captured as market value. Now, what happens to the idea in the digital culture where everything seems dogged by digital tracking, where any online activity is capturable by artificial intelligence and transmuted into data? In this digital scenario, the ideator is a data worker which suggests that the ideator must engage in authorly self-promotion to replace the innate value of the idea with exchange value. In other words, the ideator must monetise their ideas in order to make a living from their ideas. That is, Gen AI, as data collection technology, hollows out authenticity and authorship which means the ideator is faced with crumpling self-worth as creator. This blog was inspired by Thea Lim, The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age (2024).

ideas in things

Age-old analogue ideation tools and methods, such as sketching and physical modelling, may have taken a back seat in the digital culture when content-creating tools like ChatGPT or Copilot have become mainstream. So, what then the future of traditional ideation tools such as pen and paper? Nesta (2019) found that organisations are becoming less experimental and more risk-averse in their approach to digital technologies - they prefer to let others experiment and then adopt the ideas that work best. Arguably, then, at least at individual level, analogue tools remain useful to designers to stimulate and capture the flow of ideas. And so, the pencil could be seen as a tool performing a role similar to that of a craftsman's tool - a tool that reflects a hands-on approach to design that connects with the idea of making things. That is, applying hand and mind to ideation, as in "thinking with a pencil" reflects the concept of the thing as idea. Or in the words of the poet William Carlos Williams: 'Say it, no ideas but in things'. That is, to focus on objects rather than mere concepts, on actual things rather than abstract characteristics of things. That is, concrete rather than abstract ideas ('idea' understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete or abstract)..Considering the concept of the thing as idea, Dough Stows, author of The Wisdom of Our Hands (2022) writes: 'The mention of any object creates a visualised idea in our minds - we form an idea of the thing. Moreover, metaphors provide the basis of all human creativity, and those metaphors must of necessity be drawn from real tools, real processes, real understanding of concrete phenomenon, for the ideas that have merit are drawn from reality, from the experience of things.' This may suggest that designers overall favour concrete or visual ideas, or both over abstract ones. If so, this may resonate with a central feature of design activity where designers rely on 'generating fairly quickly a satisfactory solution rather than a prolonged analysis of the problem' (Nigel Cross, 1982)

AI-driven workshop

The intention of the workshop is that of full sensory engagement in the ideation process using both analogue and digital tools. With the rapid advancement of generative AI, however, and its impact on design, both in the profession and academia, this may suggest a fully AI-driven workshop. Already AI algorithms have proved to be a useful and efficient assistant augmenting, or streamlining the design process, notably in visualising ideas producing images to a quality that compares with the best in photography or rendering, and in a matter of seconds. And so, the workshop's focus would be ideation through text-to-image prompting techniques. Such focusing would be in line with the long-term development of designers' relationships with technology, that is, both with and through machines, as manifested by the personal computer, the internet and virtual reality. Indeed designers are at once driver of, and driven by technology. Yet would designers like to be so dependent on AI models that the human dimension of design would take a backseat? And so, what happens to intellectual and emotional challenges of the design brief, to personal satisfaction of problem-solving and innovation, or to the playfulness of human imagination? In short, what is it to be a human designer in the age of AI? But, and here lies a paradox: generative AI stimulates and augments imagination blurring the boundaries between reality and representation, between the real and the artificial. In other words, an AI idea generator can be seen as a form of hyperreality and simulacrum (Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 1981), or representations without real-world originals.

Ideation workshop facilitates design thinking

The designed life is about possibilities: What if? And so, new ideas are born out of curiosity. Design ideation, then, captures creative energy and fuels optimism about what is possible: Change! Ideation, moreover, inspires collaboration and nurtures healthy competition. From first thought, the great idea develops through questioning, experimentation, and trial and error. Ideation acknowledges human intuition and common sense and rejects reducing complex problem-solving to a computational process. Ideation invites reflection and encourages designers to spend more time thinking, to focus on improving quality in their ideas. Indeed more digital devices leave less time to concentrate and to think without interruptions. And while digital communications technologies, AI included can substantially speed up the design process, they are also squeezing out individual thinking time. To meet this challenge, the ideation workshop, a liminal space encourages lateral thinking, that is, participants move from one known idea to creating new ideas using both quantifiable (fixed or universal) data and qualitative (descriptive or conceptual) data.

Human-centred ideation

Distinction between the conceptual and manual aspects of design production emerged in the modern period when growing professionalisation resulted in the separation of science from art, of engineering from architecture and of the designer as "thinker" (direction) from that of "maker" (execution). In the digital age, however, the old distinction is less accurate or relevant as the design process, as a collaborative activity sits at the intersection between conception and execution, and facilitated by digital tools. That is to say, conception is enhanced by generative artificial intelligence (AI), and execution optimised by computer-aided-design (CAD), computer-aided-engineering (CAE) and computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM). Indeed the design process is, for all practical purposes supported if not driven by computer soft- and hardware, such as Building Information Modelling, BIM. It is against this development that the ideation workshop faces a challenge - learning how to ideate in ways that do not lose the human perspective and user influence on the design process. For this reason, the workshop is built around participatory, hands-on studio activity recognising that while AI and digital tools are effective they cannot fully resemble complex human cognition.