eventually be captured in computer-based systems.

1.5.      Tacit and Explicit Knowledge in Design

Heidegger’s analysis of interpretation must be applied to the realm of design before it can be used as the basis for a theory of computer support of design. Three general problems must be considered:

*    First, although his philosophy is presented in a very general way, Heidegger’s examples come primarily from people’s relations to physical things in the world, rather than to imagined artifacts that they are designing.

*    Second, he stresses that things are always understood on the basis of preunderstandings we already have, which makes it hard to say how innovative design ideas are understood.

*    Third, of course, Heidegger (writing in the mid-1920’s) did not address the issue of computer representations as a form of explicit knowledge.

Chapter 5 accomplishes the application of Heidegger’s analysis to design in three steps.

*    First, it shows that Heidegger’s philosophy can be extended naturally to design.

*    Second, it discusses the problem of application, which addresses the issue of how previously captured knowledge can be adapted to innovative new designs.

*    Third, it spells out a taxonomy of transformations of tacit understanding to explicit knowledge adequate for providing a basis for computer representations of normally tacit design knowledge.

Heidegger’s concept of the situation transfers well to design. As the network of relationships in the understood world, the situation corresponds closely to the set of constraints and adjacencies that are of concern in design and that are sometimes even represented explicitly in design documents. Heidegger’s definition of interpretation as the explication of tacit understanding, involving discoveries, is also applicable to the process of design, in which relationships are explored and discoveries made. Consideration of interpretation in the design context clarifies how breakdowns in action require repair to the tacit underlying understanding of the situation. Although Heidegger’s examples focus on the individual, his recognition of the social dimension and the importance of shared understanding allows his analysis to be extended to design, which is largely collaborative.

Heidegger’s philosophy occupies an important position in the twentieth century recognition that reality is socially constructed. People have access to their world (intentionality) because the world is in many ways a human, social creation. Of course, reality also has an immanence which can contradict our expectations and present surprises, just as we can make discoveries in designs of our own creating. The point is that an understanding of the world or of innovative designs requires the situated interpretation of a person: it cannot be reduced to a set of rules or a computer algorithm. The same goes for knowledge, which encapsulates understanding. To apply knowledge from past cases to a new design, one must apply it within a situated, perspectival, linguistic understanding. That means that computer software for designing should be people-centered and should support the situated, perspectival, linguistic character of human understanding.

Chapter 5 defines tacit as being expressed without words or speech, and explicit as being fully revealed or verbally expressed. It defines a taxonomy of forms of information along the continuum between these extremes and describes the transformations from one form to the next based on Heidegger’s analysis. These transformations are summarized in Figure 1-1. Each transformation involves a reinterpretation of the informational content in a new medium. With that comes a gain in precision balanced by a loss of grounding. As a result of the increased clarity and the change of form, new discoveries are made about the content of the information.

Figure 1-1. Transformations of tacit to explicit information.

The left-hand column lists consecutive forms of information. The right-hand column names the transformation processes from one form to another.

Heidegger uses the term discourse for the fundamental shift to putting one’s understanding into words, even if the words are not yet asserted in speech to be shared with someone. After tacit preunderstanding is articulated in discourse as explicit understanding, this understanding can then be asserted and externalized in spoken or written language (such as documented design rationale). Such knowledge can be further codified in accordance with formal procedures (e.g., scientific methods). These are important transformations for creating widely shared knowledge. The movement from externalized to codified information can go from informal to formal (i.e., capable of being processed by computer). Shipman (1993) discusses this stage of formalization and methods for supporting it within computer-based design environments. This is relevant to the further stages of articulation, which involve computers: capture of the information in computer representations and modification of these representations to adapt them to new requirements. The theory of computer support for design proposed in Chapter 6 suggests that all stages of information articulation can take advantage of computer support. If designing takes place within a computer-based design environment, then designers can use and modify computer representations to support the design process from the start. As Reeves (1993) recommends, the design environment can serve as a medium of communication to support collaboration. In the process, design information can be captured automatically without becoming a burdensome task to be done in retrospect.

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