Computational Design

Usually when you think of computation you think of this:

Which is fine, because this could compute:

pretty much anything

But there's more to computation than that.

p(x) = 2x^2 - 3x + 2

Which way is south

Computational Thinking

Computational Thinking (reduced)

  1. Determine a pattern.
  2. Put processes in place to handle that pattern.
  3. Check that latest data conforms to the pattern.
  4. Repeat 3 or Repeat 1

We're surrounded by computation, but the story of what that computation is doesn't get told.

A few examples off the top of my head

  1. What information we see online
  3. Stock Market behavior
  5. Whether we get a loan
  7. Whether we get health insurance

The more we're surrounded by computation, the more important it becomes to us.

The more it becomes a part of how we understand the world and communicate about the world

Which means it can be well designed, or poorly designed.

Whether we know it or not, we design for these entities:

Humans Businesses
Locations Cities
Nations Services
Algorithms Institutions
Robots Hybrids of all the above

And all of them are aware of each other.

So it behooves us to understand how they:
inter-relate
communicate
preceive one another

Note: I don't mean programming.

"If we don't learn to program, we risk being programmed ourselves...program or be programmed." - D. Rushkoff

Programming != computation.

Couldn't program

Didn't program

Right now computation is generally just seen as:

stuff we can't understand

stuff we don't want to do

cute stuff

Data thinking is everywhere:

They're pretty. They're interesting. They're well-designed. And...

they're fundamentally Data Thinking

Computation is everywhere, but computational thinking isn't well-communicated.

"Computability" = "legibility"

I don't know the answers, but I know some of the problems:

What are you doing and how are you doing it?

How do we talk about computation?

How do we tell computational stories?

How do we design for computation?

I've been struggling with this:

You will make computational things and people will need to:

Computational Design

We will need to understand computation as a way to:

Data Viz allows us to think beautifully/meaningfully about data

So how will we design when we need to think beautifully/meaningfully about computation?

Thanks for listening

@factoryfactory