Crowdsourcing: Innovative Medium for Design

Transcription

1 Crowdsourcing: Innovative Medium for Design Rivka Oxman*, Ning Gu** * Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion Israel, rivkao@gmail.com ** School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle, Australia, ning.gu@newcastle.edu.au Abstract: The following research work explores how to realize and adapt the culture of collective intelligence in social networking as a medium for design. The work explores the potential of crowdsourcing to function as an innovative medium in design. We first introduce and present seminal concepts and issues that are related to crowdsourcing. Next we define the conceptual differences between crowdsourcing design and collaborative design. Finally we present concepts that are guiding our research on exploring and developing a theoretical framework to support the usage of crowdsourcing as an innovative medium for design. Key words: crowdsourcing design, innovative design, design scenarios 1. Introduction In our work we have explored the significance of the concept of crowd sourcing in design. This new concept has conceptual foundations in the evolution of concepts of collective intelligence as well as in the theory and development of design collaboration. While psychological studies of collective intelligence were based on observations of human behaviour, other studies have been inspired by evolutionary processes in nature. In the latter, shared intelligence is based on biological drives of survival and reproduction. Significant among emerging models are those inspired by the behaviour of societies in nature. The development of computational models and systems classified as swarm computing has been influenced by such instinctive biological behaviour [1]. Crowd sourcing is a new concept for breaking the traditional hierarchical model of collaborative intelligence. This new model has potential for solving scientific problems as well as sourcing new ideas for innovative domains such as creative arts, music and photography. Today, despite of the immense interest in adopting crowd sourcing in design, there is a current lack of adequate conceptual background, formal guidelines, and dedicated supportive techniques that can effectively facilitate the potential of crowdsourcing and its use as a media in design. In the following sections major concepts will be introduced and various technological frameworks and approaches to crowd sourcing design such as open-source social networks; open source modelling; and parametric scripting will be discussed. These will be analysed and considered in relation to the presentation and demonstration of different design scenarios. 2. Concepts and Issues Collective intelligence is one of the seminal foundational concepts in this emerging field. It has been described as universally distributed intelligence and as the universality of intelligence [1]. According to Lévy [1] collective intelligence can be characterized by the following three concepts: universal distribution of intelligence, constant enhancement, and coordination in real-time for effective mobilization of skill. Due to the development of 1

2 Web and information technologies, the Internet today provides a media environment that accommodates these principles. Autonomous individuals in a scale-free decentralized environment can freely communicate and interact. The effect of the wisdom of the crowd has started to be realized and supported by interactive communications media within the Internet. Among early examples of the exploitation of Internet media to mine crowd wisdom was the study of statistical phenomena in areas such as stock markets and political elections [2]. With the development of Web communication in providing means for information exchange of both textual and graphical information, the crowd-model has emerged as an efficient model for use in decentralized business models. Through this model web-based commercial companies could interact with the total body of consumers rather than with specific group members. This phenomenon is termed crowdsourcing. The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that the task or the problem to be solved can be openly distributed to a body of unknown potential contributors rather than to specific collaborators. As compared with common hierarchical models of collaborative intelligence in design, Crowdsourcing is a new concept for breaking the traditional accepted hierarchies. Crowdsourcing, or decentralized participation, has become an emerging model for online, distributed problem-solving and production [3]. The model has potential for solving scientific problems as well as sourcing new ideas for creative arts such as music and photography. It has also been applied to e-business exploiting a massive crowd of online users For example, in Threadless consumers propose creative new ideas for T-shirt design ( in istockphoto photographers contribute photographed images for an on-line library of photos ( InnoCentive connects research organizations with a global community of potential scientific advisors in order to support innovation ( and TopCoder organizes competitions to encourage creative software development ( ). Crowdsourcing Design [4] has also recently been proposed as a medium for design. It has potential to be further developed as an innovative medium to support design by making an attempt to define formal guidelines and explore technologies and techniques [4]. These will allow us to formulate a conceptual framework for further experimentation and exploration of a medium that supports various modes of crowdsourcing design. 3. From Collaborative Design to Crowdsourcing Design Collaborative design is relatively well understood in design research, and is characterized by small-scale, carefully structured, professional design teams. However, while designer teams are generally conducting reflective practices on their own, the complexity of the design projects and the influence of a global economy have created demands to find solutions for extended needs and changed scales and modes of design. This is expected to lead towards the adoption of new models of global practices. Lahti et al. [5] define design collaboration as a process where designers dynamically communicate and work together, aiming to collectively establish design goals, search through design problem spaces, determine design constraints, and construct a design solution. While individual designers can creatively contribute to the development of designs, collaborative design implies well-organized teamwork and negotiation. In fact, design collaboration depends on collaboration with designers within the discipline as well as design experts across the discipline. Teamwork and negotiation processes are based on shared domain knowledge and disciplinary expertise. 2

3 Open-source online environments are already a recognized platform for group intelligence and creativity that emerges from collaboration and competition among large numbers of individuals. For example, collective intelligence games have demonstrated the capacity of collective intelligence to solve complex problems [6]. Redirecting such collective intelligence principles in order to accommodate innovation in design is one way of approaching a particular behavioral model of crowdsourcing in design environments. Beyond small-scale collaborative design scenarios, crowdsourcing design has the potential to enable large-scale, interdisciplinary participation, representing different levels of expertise, in addressing increasingly complex and challenging design creativity. To summarize, crowdsourcing technology, based on social media technology, may support the contributions of individuals in a decentralized digital environment to share innovative and creative ideas. Thus the design of such environments is among the enabling factors to support collective intelligence, innovation and creativity. In comparison to collaborative design, crowdsourcing can attract a large number of unknown potential participants representing different levels of domain-specific knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge and expertise who may be interested and motivated to contribute in design. 4. Crowdsourcing: Innovative Medium for Design Understanding the impact of emerging technologies on novel perspectives of design innovation research in a period of cultural change [7, 8] is critical for research and development of an innovative media for crowdsourcing design. The understanding and formulation of such complex operative and institutional issues related to crowdsourcing design such as authorship are central in any research on crowdsourcing design. However at this stage before formulating a theoretical basis for innovation and creativity it is essential to begin to understand and provide a theoretical and developmental foundation for crowdsourcing design media. Among other things, what is required is the clear definition of the principles of operative and technological requirements of online environments that can support a complex design activity. Only through the establishment of such enabling conditions will we be able to exploit crowd wisdom in design. While decision-making and problem solving process in crowdsourcing can be guided by statistical results, design as a cognitive activity is characterized as unique thinking processes [9]. Furthermore, in contradiction to the statistical or optimal outcome that can be associated with the non-hierarchical collective social intelligence of crowds, design is a task domain that focuses on unique and specific representational and operative skill. As such it requires specific knowledge and skill-media that are based on accepted representational methods and processes as well as unique bodies of disciplinary knowledge. The following three issues and questions were found critical for the development of a theoretical and implementation framework for a crowdsourcing media environment for design: communication, representation, crowd structure and dynamics. Among seminal issues are the following: 3

4 Communication modes: What are the types of communication modes that can support crowdsourcing design? What are the alternatives? How can they be evaluated and implemented? Representational media: Generative processes are key characteristics in design. What kinds of representational media support generative processes in crowdsourcing design? How can generative processes be implemented in a crowdsourcing environment? Crowd structure and dynamics: Who is the crowd, and how to formulate their dynamics in crowdsourcing design? What type of organizational strategies, structure and control can support dynamics of crowdsourcing design? How can disparate and distributed individuals share a language and format that enables them to act collectively in design to propose, develop, evaluate and refine design solutions? Following the above issues and questions, a critical analysis of the conceptual, technical and operative requirements of crowdsourcing in design is presented and discussed. In the following section, we present the potential of certain environments and scenarios for the development of crowdsourcing media environments for design. While other aspects of design such as the business plan and user motivation are also of paramount importance, our focus here is upon the design principles of crowdsourcing environments that may enhance and support design. 5. Environments and Design Scenarios In order to explore the foundational issues of crowdsourcing design we proposed and considered three selected scenarios: open-source social networking; open-source modeling; and open-source generic prototyping. These are described below. 5.1 Open-source social networking A social network is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations called nodes, which are connected by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. Open-source design scenarios explore the use of common social networking technologies (i.e. Blogging, Facebook, Wiki, Twitter, etc.) for supporting crowdsourcing design. Departing from those more socially oriented, Wikipedia ( is a web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Information on Wikipedia is represented in the form of referenced text articles, which can be accompanied by relevant images and links to other sources of information. A WikiProject is a place for a group of editors to coordinate work on a specific topic. The discussion pages attached to a project are often used to coordinate changes that take place across articles. Similar approaches for innovative crowdsourcing of design might be considered to provide an open collagelike approach to design in the visual sense. It would probably be possible to adapt a similar approach to integrated performative evaluation, e.g. as in various performance indicators in architectural design. The great developmental challenge is the successful toggling together of various media in support of important and highly characteristic design processes and tasks. 4

5 5.2 Open-source modeling The open-source modeling scenario focuses on 3D design through modeling in web-based online environments. As a task-specific scenario it should enable a shared manipulation of design. This approach is suitable to conceptual and brainstorming design through user-generated 3D models. In addition to these technologies, usergenerated content may also employ a combination of open source, free software, and flexible licensing or related agreements to further reduce the barriers to content and skill discovery, building and sharing. User-generated 3D models the user-generated content through 3D modeling in web-based online environments differs from general user-generated content such as Wikipedia entries by directly enabling shared manipulation of the design either synchronously or asynchronously. The concept of online design collaboration and participation using virtual worlds has been explored by Studio Wikitecture ( Studio Wikitecture is an open design group, composed of a diverse range of individuals from varying disciplines, interested in exploring the application of an open-source paradigm to the design and production of both real and virtual architecture and urban planning. Using 3D virtual world platforms such as Second Life, Opensim ( RealXtend ( and the group has been conducting Wikitecture projects to explore the protocols and procedures necessary to harness a group s collective intelligence in designing architecture. In other words, in much the same way as Wikipedia enables a loose, self-organizing network of contributors to collaborate on textual and graphical content creation, the Studio Wikitecture group has been using these projects to develop and experiment with the manner by which a group of geographical disperse individuals can come together to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and to determine the effectiveness of proposed design iterations. 5.3 Open-source generic prototyping The open coding and scripting of generic design prototypes can be developed as an environment for supporting innovative crowdsourcing design. Similar to Arduino ( an open-source electronics prototyping platform for creating interactive objects or environments, generic prototyping platforms for design can be developed. Generic prototyping is suggested as a new way to support experimentation and creation of generic design solutions for adaptation and change in design fields such as performance and sustainable design. Parametric design technology is one example that can support this approach. It is a design concept that can support generic prototyping. Parametric design focuses on the representation and control of the relationships between objects. It supports the creation of complex parametric models of design [9]. Using parametric design tools these can be adapted and modified to different situations by performative models of design [10]. In parametric design systems, design representations can be shared and communicated through both scripting and modeling. Parametric scripting has been proposed to support collaborative design through modules [11]. For professional architects, designing with parametric design technology requires them to master new knowledge and skill sets beyond the original design disciplines. In parametric design, computational algorithms play an important role in generating, manipulating and evolving the design solutions, while architects are still responsible for the design intention and decisions regarding the parametric process to achieve the design intention [12]. As a result, in parametric design architects communicate between two worlds, one entirely abstract with mathematical expressions governed by parameters, while the other is real and alive and directly interacts with the 5

6 needs of people, communities and cities [13]. Therefore, in a typical parametric design process, there are two types of design spaces: the design knowledge space and the rule algorithm space. During parametric design designers always progress by applying design knowledge, in some parts, namely in the rule algorithm space. They apply design knowledge indirectly by defining rules and their logical relationships through scripting, and this is known as parameterization. It is this rule algorithm space that makes parametric design technology an important potential medium for supporting crowdsourcing in innovative architectural design. Within the community of script-capable parametric designers including both professionally trained designers and non-professional designers this would appeal those familiar with this new design medium. 6. Theoretical and Implementation Framework Following the questions raised in section 3 and the potential of types of media and scenarios presented in section 4, we further develop and compare the following types of media: communication media; representation media; crowd structure and dynamics can potentially support crowdsourcing design. 6.1 Communication media The main communication mode in both the open-source social networking scenarios and the open-source generic prototyping scenarios is asynchronous communication. The open-source social modeling scenario on the other hand can support either synchronous or asynchronous communication. Crowdsourcing currently is a process that relies mainly on crowd members to independently develop and submit their solutions competing with others. Design development in the crowdsourcing context is currently through sequential or recursive selection and integration of large number of individual ideas. The wisdom of a crowd in complex design will require the development and implementation of suitable communication protocols and tools for enabling more dynamic and flexible design ideation and its communication among the crowd. 6.2 Representation media The open-source social networking scenario provides textual and image-based design representational media that can also include sound and video. The open-source social modeling scenario supplies 3D digital models as the main representational media, while the representation media in the open-source generic prototyping scenario are richer, including both the 3D geometric (through parametric modelling) and the algorithmic rule-based formulation (through parametric scripting). Saddler [15] describes this process as follows: conduit from idea-in-the-head to idea-in-the-world. Although supported by a rich set of representational media, current crowdsourcing media do not effectively support shared manipulation and modification of the representational content. In crowdsourcing design, the final design outcome is accepted as the shared product of the crowd. In most cases, it is shared because the outcome is selected and adapted by many individual crowd members of the crowd. However, it seems that shared manipulation and modification of representational media is a fundamental element for crowdsourcing design, allowing designers to interact directly with one other and be fully engaged in the design process. Facilitating effective shared representations will be an important and challenging issue in crowdsourcing design. From a cognitive perspective, the use of different design media environments can have different impact on designers. Yu, Gero and Gu report on open-source generic prototyping [16] in which protocol analysis in a pilot study represents significant differences between parametric design systems and traditional 6

7 geometric modeling systems. The results indicate that parametric design systems affect the designer s behavior at different design stages. The use of the rule-based algorithm in the systems affects designers cognitive behavior. In crowdsourcing design such cognitive issues are more complex. They require further investigation in order to identify and integrate suitable design media environments for effective crowdsourcing and design activities to occur. 6.3 Crowd structure and dynamics The structure and dynamics of a collaborative design team is a complex issue. It is dependent essentially on the success of the collaborative process. In crowdsourcing design, the level of complexity is enhanced due to the sheer number of the crowd, and the unpredictability of the background, knowledge and motivation of the individuals. The understanding and control mechanisms to enable effective crowd performance need exploration and require study. 7. Summary and Conclusions We have explored how to realize and adapt the culture of collective intelligence in social networking as a medium for design. It would appear that the powerful democratic and socializing forces of communications media will eventually have an impact on the design discipline and the development of crowdsourcing media for design, design innovation and creativity. We have proposed that one way in which social communication environments may be adapted to social intelligence in design is by the creation of media that can support open, collective, distributed innovative design processes. We have raised basic issues and questions related to the following consideration about media and structure: communication media; representational media; crowd structure and dynamics. Following these issues we have proposed and discussed certain environments and scenarios that demonstrate concepts and principles for the construction of an innovative medium for crowdsourcing design. These were demonstrated by prior work on crowdsourcing design; collaborative 3D virtual worlds; and parametric design. 8. References [1] Lévy, P. (1997) Collective Intelligence: Mankind s Emerging World in Cyberspace, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA. [2] Surowiecki J. (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Dew and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, Doubleday Anchor, New York. [3] Brabham, D. C. (2008) Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: an Introduction and Cases, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 14, pp [4] Oxman Rivka, Gu N. (2012) Crowdsourcing: Theoretical Framework, Computational Environments and Design Scenarios Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (ECAADE 2012) on Digital Physicality Physical Digitality, Prague, Czech Republic [5] Lahti, H., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. and Hakkarainen, K. (2004) Collaboration Patterns in Computer Supported Collaborative Designing, Design Studies, vol. 25, no. 4, pp [6] Maher, M. L., Paulini, M. and Murty, P. (2010) Scaling Up: from Individual Design to Collaborative Design to Collective Design, In Proceedings of DCC 10, Stuttgart, Germany, pp

8 [7] Oxman Rivka (2013) Perspectives on design innovation research in a period of cultural change: technologydriven informed design innovation, invited contribution as part of the inaugural issue of the editorial board of IJDCI on Perspectives on design creativity and innovation research vol. 1, no. 1, pp 16 [8] Oxman, R. (2006) Theory and Design in the First Digital Age, Design Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, pp [9] Cross, N. (2011) Design thinking: Understanding how designers think and work. Berg Publishers. [10] Woodbury, R, Aish, R and Kilian, A. (2007) Some Patterns for Parametric Modeling, In Proceedings of ACADIA 2007, Halifax, Canada. [11] Oxman, R. (2009) Performative Design - a Performance-model of Digital Architectural Design, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, vol. 36, no. 6, pp [12] Davis, D., Burry, J. and Burry, M. (2011) Understanding Visual Scripts: Improving Collaboration through Modular Programming, International Journal of Architectural Computing, vol. 9, no. 4, pp [13] Ottchen, C. (2009) The Future of Information Modelling and the End of Theory: Less is limited, More is Different, Architectural Design, vol. 79, no. 2, pp [14] Aranda, B. and Lasch, C. (2008) What Is Parametric to Us, In T. Sakamoto, A. Ferré and M. Kubo (Eds.), From Control to Design: Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture, Actar, Barcelona; New York. [15] Saddler, H. (2001) Understanding Design Representations, Interactions, vol. 8, no. 4, pp [16] Yu, R., Gero. J. and Gu, N. (2013) Impact of Using Rule Algorithms on Designers Behavior in a Parametric Design Environment: Preliminary Result from a Pilot Study, In Proceedings of CAAD Futures 2013, Shanghai, China (to appear). 8