Invention in HCI:
Focus Groups, Theory or the Kid in the Garage?

(Originally appeared in the CHI-Atlanta Bulletin, Feb 98, vol 1 num 1)
by: Donald E. Rickert, Ph.D.
©1998 D.E. Rickert
User-Centered Design

A Story

I'm going to tell you about a defining moment in my life. I didn't know it at the time. In fact, I didn't even consciously realize its notability until I sat down to write this article. A few years ago, I was sitting in a room in San Francisco with 30 or 40 market managers, human factors engineers, usability specialists, and designers of every conceivable variety- graphic designers, broadcast designers, interaction designers, industrial designers, and sound designers. There were also creative directors, producers, film directors, creative agents, software engineers, computer scientists, RBOCfast-trackers, and people whose function I never understood. For those with a true taste for irony, this meeting actually took place in Scott Adams's old stomping grounds, the SF Bay area. Looking back, the thought that this meeting might have been the inspiration for a Dilbert cartoon now causes me to chuckle. Despite this possibility, our ostensible purpose was to invent the new Interactive Television, ITV.

Those Kids in the Garage

Actually, we had a lot of meetings like the one I described. Invention was supposed to be a long-term process. At this particular meeting, expert after expert took the floor to tell the rest of us his or her view, theory, model, statistics, focus group results, and so on. The corporate term of art at the time was "ideation." After about a day of ideation, the guy attempting to run the meeting said something that really made me angry at the time. He seemed to question the worth of human-computer interaction as a profession; ergo, my self worth! I was too steamed to remember his exact words, but the basic message was this- we could talk about our focus group findings, participatory design sessions, theories, methods, statistics, designs (user-centered or otherwise) until either a) the end of time or b) the money ran out. While we were doing our thing, some kids in a garage would invent the NEXT BIG THING right under our noses.

I now know that he was right, at least figuratively. Of course, many great things are ACTUALLY invented by kids in garages, the Jobs and Wozniaks of the world. But inventions also come from old people in their basements, which are often warmer than garages, and middle-aged scientists working for big companies like 3M, undoubtedly working on the next Post-Its(r), and mild-mannered folk in university research labs. They come from people who didn't graduate from high school, like Edison, as well as people with Ph.D.s like Dr. Douglas Englebart (the mouse) and Dr. Erno Rubik (Rubik's Cube). The fact that many successful inventors have Ph.D.s demonstrates there just may be some worth to the degree. College dropouts are also well represented in the inventors' ranks-Bill Gates, Edwin Land (the Polaroid camera) and Buckminster Fuller (the Geodesic dome) are prominent members of this group.

What Gives Inventors the Ability to Invent?

What gives inventors the ability to invent? It doesn't seem to be extraordinary intelligence. Some have reported that inventiveness, or creativity, is not related to high IQ (Levy, 1995). This is good news for all of us non-Mensa types. A theme recurrent in many writings on invention is that inventors are in many ways like children-like kids (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Petroski, 1994; Levy, 1995). Dr. George Margolin, writing on this topic, cites Edison, who said, "If you never grow up you'll never grow old." Margolin goes on to state:

"...The mind of an inventor is that of a curious child, always exploring the world around him [or her]. It is a world of wonder and wondering, asking what makes things work and why they are the way they are and do the things they do. It's a world of looking at things in a 'different' way than 'normal' people look at things." Furthermore, the "...inventor never grows up. Seeing the world with 'new eyes' is the way an inventor creates new things-often from old things. Remember every child is an inventor. Every inventor is a child (Margolin, 1997)"

In a similar vein, Richard Levy, a prolific contemporary inventor and author (1995), states that children invent because they don't realize that they can't.

Inventive People-Not Methods

The key theme seems to be that inventions come from inventive individuals, not from any particular method, and certainly not from focus groups or marathon "ideation" sessions. I am not suggesting soliciting users' views or collaboration with colleagues is unimportant; however, they may be overrated as invention contributors. Nor am I suggesting that science and theory are not important, quite the contrary. In his seminal work, Creativity(1996), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, stresses that inventive individuals must first master the "symbolic systems" of their fields. The symbolic system may be grammar and style, mathematics, music theory, engineering fundamentals or theories of human-computer interaction. Picasso first mastered conventional techniques before inventing his own revolutionary style. Likewise, mathematical breakthroughs generally require a very sophisticated understanding of fundamental principals. Inventions are new ways of doing things. If one is to create a new way, he or she has to be familiar with the old way, or the dominant paradigm.

Theory Does Not Cause Invention

Theory, as important it is, does not cause invention, rather, inventors cause invention. What seems to be more important is, in the words of Margolin-

"A real inventor is not afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes may bother the hell out of him, embarrass him, and they may cost him money, jobs or friends. But he (substitute she, wherever you like) is LESS afraid of making mistakes than doing nothing important enough, difficult enough or worthwhile enough to cause mistakes (Margolin, 1997)."

One should keep in mind Sturgeon's Law, which states that "94% of everything is crap." One interpretation is that an inventor is someone who will deal with 94 failures in order to get to that one success. When the inventor succeeds, theories must often change in order to explain the invention. So, while it may be true that theories don't cause inventions, inventions do inspire theories.

Theory Follows Invention?

Interesting notion, that invention precedes theory. Can this be true? The notion flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that inventions are developed from methodical application of scientific theories. Many who have studied the history of invention and innovation have questioned the conventional wisdom. In his book, The Evolution of Technology (1988), George Basalla concludes that inventions take place in gradual steps of small improvements over previous inventions. Scientific theory, while often playing a significant role in the education of the inventor, plays a minor role in the actual invention process. In their analysis of the history of technology, John Carroll, Wendy Kellogg and Mary Beth Rossen conclude that:

"Design and development proceed chiefly by emulation of prior art; deduction from scientific principles has always played a minor role. Moreover, details of both the design and its context are critical determinants of viability. A 'major' innovation typically depends on a variety of more modest innovations, craft techniques, and even happenstance. Finally, design is an iterative process (Carroll, Kellogg and Rosson, 1991, p. 75)."

Carroll and his colleagues illustrate the history of the invention of the steam engine. Their analysis shows that, contrary to folklore, the "invention" of the steam engine took place over a period of time that exceeded 60 years (Carroll, Kellogg and Rosson, 1991). Basalla concludes that the only contribution of scientific theory to the evolution of the steam engine was the notion of vacuum (Basalla, 1988, cited in Carroll, Kellogg and Rossen, 1991). The rest proceeded through many iterations of trial and error.

This seems to be particularly true in the field of human-computer interaction. Carroll, Kellogg, Rosson, as well as Barnard, (Carroll, Kellog and Rosson, 1991; Barnard, 1991) observed that innovations in the design of user interface artifacts have almost always preceded theory, rather than the other way around, e.g. the case of direct manipulation. In other words, designers design solutions to things they perceive as problems. Some of these attempted solutions (i.e. inventions) eventually become recognized as useful and/or usable, then Psychology steps in to explain them. The explanations evolve into theory, which becomes part of the dominant paradigm within which future generations of HCI professionals learn their art (or science, if you prefer). This process can be viewed as an evolutionary spiral, where successive generations learn from the explanations of previous generations' inventions.

Conclusion

Just keep in mind that you may come up with the next direct manipulation paradigm, hypertext, the WorldWide Web, Netscape, the mouse, GUI, PC, PalmPilot, universal remote control, paper clip, Velcro, Post-It Notes, modern flushing toilet, or whatever. Pay attention to the things that people use that can be made better, listen to and observe regular people, know your field, but most of all, start acting like a kid.

References

1. Barnard, P. (1991). Bridging between basic theories and the artifacts of human-computer interaction. In J. Carroll (Ed.), Designing interaction: Psychology at the human-computer interface (pp. 103-127). New York: Cambridge University Press.
2. Basalla, G. (1988). The evolution of technology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
3. Carroll, J. M., Kellogg, W. A. (1989). Artifact as theory-nexus: hermeneutics meets theory-based design. In CHI '89 Conference Proceedings: Human Factors in Computing Systems, (pp. 7-14), New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
4. Carroll, J., Kellogg, W. and Rosson, M. (1991). The task-artifact cyle. In J. Carroll (Ed.), Designing interaction: Psychology at the human-computer interface (pp. 74-102). New York: Cambridge University Press.
5. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper Collins.
6. Levy, R. (1995). The inventor's desktop companion. Visible Ink Press. Washington, D.C.
7. Margolin, G. (December 1997). An inventor never grows up. America's Inventor Online Edition http://www.inventionconvention.com/americasinventor.
8. Petroski, H. (1994). The evolution of useful things. New York: Vintage Books.