Suguru Ishizakis Improvisational Design Continuous...

Suguru Ishizakis Improvisational Design: Continuous Responsive Digital Communication Digital communication is interactive, dynamic and continuous. People working with digital communication (visual designers, human-computer interaction professionals, and software engineers) need a unique set of communicative methods that equal this dynamic flow of digital communication expressions. Ishizaki explores the development of a theoretical framework of an iterative process that meets this need and suggests how designers might use the framework. The concept Ishizaki terms improvisational design is illustrated with five brief case studies in this slim nine-chapter book. Ishizaki, a Senior Staff Engineer at QUALCOMM Incorporated, became†¦show more content†¦The adjustments take into consideration the inherent qualities of the medium, the audience to which it is played, and the ever-changing nature and flow of the communication. Rather than proposing a normative design solution or a positive theory of design, this volume introduces an analytical tool as an ice breaker to provoke discussion among designers that may lead to good design processes and certainly, improvisational design extends our thinking about expressive digital communication. Drawing upon the literature in performing arts and visual design, observations of traditional design constraints, and models of cooperative-situated agents (Hickman and Shiels, 1991) and Singhs model of group ability (1991, 1994), Ishizaki discovers that the complex temporal forms are required in the production of improvisational designs. The notion of temporal form can be expressed in the design through visual, auditory, or other components. It can change over time. The news story that is current today may be prominent in auditory and visual signals, but then recede in prominence over time and do so through the actions of design agents interacting with other dynamic design agents. These agents remain under the full control of the designer, although Ishizaki does propose that computerized tools could be developed to assist the designer. The designer remains in full control of the birth of the agents and their termination. To illustrate the potential of this