Context Knowledge: Supporting Designers' Information Search in the Early Design Phases

Pełen tekst

(1)Context Knowledge. Supporting Designers’ Information Search in the Early Design Phases. MUHAMMAD IKHWAN JAMBAK.

(2)

(3) Context Knowledge Supporting Designers’ Information Search in the Early Design Phases. Muhammad Ikhwan JAMBAK Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Delft University of Technology.

(4)

(5) Context Knowledge Supporting Designers’ Information Search in the Early Design Phases. Proefschrift. ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. ir. J.T. Fokkema, voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 10 mei 2007 om 15.00 uur door. Muhammad Ikhwan JAMBAK. Master of Engineering (Mechanical) Universiti Teknologi Malaysia geboren te Palembang, Indonesië.

(6) Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor: Prof. dr. P. Badke-Schaub Toegevoegd promotor: Dr. J.S.M. Vergeest. Samenstelling promotiecommissie: Rector Magnificus Prof. dr. P. Badke-Schaub Dr. J.S.M. Vergeest Prof. dr. H. Jaakkola Prof. Prof. Prof. Prof. Prof.. dr. Y. Kiyoki dr. ir. M. Aksit dr. P.P.M. Hekkert dr. P.J. Stappers ir. D. van Eijk. Context Knowledge:. voorzitter Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Technische Universiteit Delft, toegevoegd promotor Tampere University of Technology, Pori, Finland Keio University, Japan Universiteit Twente Technische Universiteit Delft Technische Universiteit Delft Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid. Supporting Designers’ Information Search in the Early Design Phases. ISBN 978-90-5155-033-7 A PhD dissertation at Delft University of Technology Copyright © 2007 by Muhammad Ikhwan JAMBAK E-mail: m.i.jambak@tudelft.nl ; mikhwanj@yahoo.com. Cover Front:. Back:. ”Castle Mount”, a ”copyleft” fractal image created by and with permission of Dr. Sven Geier (California Institute of Technology/NASA) Each of the ”cells” looks like uniquely independent but they are connected to their neighbours. One who sees these relationships will have an association or interpretation ”Context Knowledge” created using ”Another Matrix” screensaver software and ”Dome of Rock”, Jerusalem, Palestine, photographed by Buyung Agusdinata.

(7) To my mother and the memory of my father, my brothers, my beloved wife and sons. Semoga. amanah. ini. mengumpulkan. kita. di. Jannah....

(8)

(9) Acknowledgements. In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful The author wishes to thank: Prof. Dr. Petra Badke-Schaub for promoting this PhD research work, and for her non-intrusive and constructive comments and critiques. The author almost always has a big smile on his face whenever he leaves Petra’s office. It was not only because of the lively discussion, but also sometimes because of the way Petra gives her critiques; the author was able to accept these easily and laugh at his own stupidity. Vielen Dank ! Dr. Joris S. M. Vergeest, for his daily supervision, encouragement, and personal help. While lifting the scientific standard, he also gave the author a very large space for creativity and freedom to choose. ”It is your research, not mine, and it is your responsibility; I leave it to you!” is such a sentence the author often heard after argumentative talk that ended up with no consensus between him and the author. Hartstikke bedankt! All committee members for their expertise which enriched the quality of this final thesis. Their comments, suggestions, and corrections are invaluable. Dr. Prabhu V. Kandachar, the Design Engineering department head, for his administrative involvement which allowed the author to smoothly work on the project until the end. Dr. ir. Rudi. M. F. Stouffs, the chairman of Design Informatics Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft; Prof. Dr. Riichiro Mizoguchi from the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University; Dr. Rob Dekkers from the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management TU Delft; Prof. Dr. Tetsuo Tomiyama from Mechanical Engineering, TU Delft; and dr. Henry. H. C. M. Christiaans and dr. ir. Regine. W. Vroom for their help in the early stage where the author made the i.

(10) ii. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. foundation of this research. Some of them were also involved during the system evaluation and acted as shadow committee members of the thesis draft. Iraas Korver and Erland Bakkers from Fabrique; Erik Woldring from NewProducts; Edwin van Vianen, Ramon van de Ven, and Michael de Regt from Philips Design; Guus Ranke from Philips Applied Technologies; Jasper van Kuijk from section applied ergonomic and design; and Wilfred van der Vegte, for giving their expertise or allowing their experts to evaluate the CDIRS. Farid Wajdi, Hatami Nugraha, Gea O. F. Parikesit, and Muhammad Reza Akil for their involvement in the design cases development. Special thanks to Hatami for helping the author to process the data from the investigation context from the D1 experiment. Many thanks to Zulfikar Dharmawan who helped the author conceptualize the proposed system. Remko van der Lugt and Froukje Sleeswijk-Visser for the reading material and pictures of ’Contexmapping.’ Credit goes to Dr. Sven Geier, Buyung Agusdinata, Richard Zoontjes and family, and Mrs. Nizmah ’Teteh’ Agustjik for supplying and allowing pictures to be used for this thesis. Mrs. Diane Butterman-Dorey and Mrs. Courtney Dougall for their proofreading on the draft. Their efforts have made this thesis more readable. Miss Kristin K¨ oppe, Dr. Stella B¨ oß, Miss Hilal Taymaz, Mrs. Tanja Jokinen, and Mr. Hitoshi Komoto for translating the summary of this thesis. Colleagues in the Design Engineering (DE) department and Computer Aided Design Engineering (CADE) group for their cooperation. The author is indebted to Jouke Verlinden for his involvement during the implementation of CDIRS. Special thanks to Tjamme Wiegers, who with him, the author did not feel alone in raising his children in a less religious society and enjoyed the inter-faith discussion. Tjamme gave the necessary Desys Project data along with nice discussions, while many other readings were also collected from him. The draft of this thesis was carefully examined by him. Also, a special thanks goes to Dr. Raluca Dumitrescu who, together with the author, faced almost all technical and administrative problems regarding their research and to survive in Holland. The technical and administrative problems themselves would not have been solved easily without the assistance from the computer administrators Marco Bolleboom and Adrie Kooijman, and the department secretaries, Astrid Bijkerk, Marijke Timmerman, and Hanneke Sosef. The help and private communication from former staff members, dr. ir. Peter de Jager and Jeroen Pulles, are very much appreciated. Thanks also go to Evren Akar, Dr. Alexander Shevchenko, Zhishan Wang, and Huaxin Wang for being such nice officemates. Genuine thanks are expressed to prof. dr. Imre Horváth, the head of CADE; although in many respects the author did not agree with him, the author would not neglect his influence in helping the author to reach this current stage..

(11) iii Ir. Aad Bremer, the former Design Engineering department head and Mrs. Agnes de Haan, the P&O advisor to the author’s research group for keeping the author on the track when the working environment was not appropriate to do a good research. Thank you for the trust, and thank you for the encouragement. Without their trust and encouragement, most probably the author already gave up and quit like some other PhD students and staffs. Alvast hartelijk bedankt! Dr. Ery Djunaedy and his family. Without their help, the author never would have gone to Holland. Due to the economic disaster across Southeast Asia, it was almost impossible for the author who was doing his master’s thesis to buy an airline ticket for the interview in Delft. None of his friends or relatives were able or willing to help, or did not trust the author’s ability to pay them back if something went wrong. (Indeed, if something went wrong, the author will never able to pay back the loan with the normal salary in Indonesia for his whole life!). Ery sent a long email of encouragement and called to discuss any possibilities for solving the problem in his office at the National University of Singapore. The author could not find him at his office (he had already left to be with his wife in Bandung, Indonesia, who was expecting their second baby), but the author found a paid ticket with the author’s name on it for the interview. After having presentation and a three days of full Dutch coffee interviews with all ICA group members in Delft, the author was accepted for the PhD position, but sadly also had to accept a clausal: ”no ticket reimbursement if accepted or full reimbursement if rejected.” –Fortunately, no other PhD candidates after the author will have to accept this condition anymore– The Djuenady’s were very happy with this news and never asked about the payback. Months later, the author finished his master’s degree, and was facing the same problem of how to buy a ticket to start his PhD research in Delft. Again, Ery bought a ticket for the author - the one whom he called ’akhi ’ (my dear brother) - with his credit card, while the first one was not paid yet. If God has His Arsy (throne), then the Arsy must be shaken by the Djunaedys’ demonstration of a brotherhood. Jazakallahu khairan katsiran! Dr. Yogi A. Erlangga for being the LATEXguru in this thesis preparation, and for introducing the gentleness and the beauty of the Salafy school. The Raam family, the Nugraha family, Mr. Helman Muhammad and family, the Jacobs family, the Supriyanto family, the Parikesit family, Bang Syamsudin and other Indonesian and Muslim communities in Delft, Rotterdam, Den Haag, and Amsterdam whose names the author cannot include. Para (tidak lagi) bujangan such as Oki, Hatami, Rusdha, Gea, Rizki ’Kiki Gis’, Sanny, Ari ’Pai ’ Nugroho, Ari Nurman, Said (benernya sih: Irfan), Ary ’Datuk ’, Andi, Ican, Nandra (Nganu), and Noval (baca: Nopal ) for being such nice anakanak to the author. The Abdurrahman Kadir family, all other relatives and friends especially Eko Ihsanto, Syamsul Bahri, Santi ’Ode’ Soekanto, Wisnu ’Kadz ’ Pramudya and all their family, who make the settlement of the author’s family in Indonesia goes.

(12) iv. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. smoothly. Mas Bambang I. Soemarwoto and Natalia R. ’Ceu Iya’ Mustafa, the author’s only cousins in Holland, and their daughter Karina ’Ayin’ P. H. Soemarwoto for their hospitality toward author whenever he feels homesick. Marbiah Abubakar-Jambak, the author’s mother, Muhammad Ihsan ’Kak Ican’ Jambak and Muhammad ’Irfan ’Papang’ Jambak, the author’s brothers and their families (’Yuk Mila’ Tirawasni, Dek Nurhasanah Wuri Utami, Inayah, Ikrom, Irham, Balqis, and Nuha) for their love, continuously praying, supporting, and encouraging. At the most, the author and his family is indebted to Kak Ican as he has been the backbone to the Jambaks, especially after the past of the beloved father Ahmad Jambak. The author also hopes Papang will finish his PhD soon and together with the author will be able to payback the sacrifice of Kak Ican, the one who support the author and Papang to reach this stage. Mo kaseh Kak, kalu idak kerno toubouk-tu, kamek beduo dak pacak jadi mak ini. The author hopes this thesis could fulfil the effort of the Jambaks to promote the value of education and knowledge in the riches-oriented society of number 30 of world’s most corrupt countries (source: Transparency International, 2006). The hopes and prays also go to ’Nelly’ Nawal Abdurrahman, the author’s sister in law and her family in Japan, who is struggling to finish her PhD. Ganbatte kudasai ! ’Afifah ’Iffah’ Azzahra’ Abdurrahman, the author’s soulmate and lifelong partner, for being his lovely wife, taking care of his sons –his walking hearts– and for trusting him completely although sometimes this trust was tearful and painful for her. No matter how far and high the author must go to achieve, she is always better than him because of the above reasons. Without her role in all of this, it is inconceivable for the author to believe he could have finished this research. Ahmad Asadillah ’Asad ’ Abdurrahman Hasan, Ahmad Abdurrahiem ’Ahmad ’ Salim Fiddaroini, and Ahmad Abdulhaq ’Abduh’ Mutawakkil –the most beautiful and joyful gifts in the author’s life. They deserve the author’s sincere thanks for, because of them, he refused to give up and fought any and all obstacles. The author hopes this piece of work will be a good foundation and source of encouragement and inspiration for their better life. To conclude this acknowledgement, the author would like to make an apology to his mothers, his brothers, his wife, and his sons for their tears and suffering caused by the commitment of the author to this research work, especially his absence for the last two years. The author wishes to be able to compensate for his absence, either in the future or otherwise, hopefully, this commitment may cause a better reunion in the next life. Muhammad Ikhwan Jambak Delft, 04 April 2007.

(13) Contents. Acknowledgements. i. 1 Introduction: Getting into the Context. 1 1 5. 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4. 1.5 1.6 1.7. Data, Information and Knowledge in Design Process . . . . . . . . Data, Information and Knowledge Handling in Early Design Phases Using State-of-the-Art Search Engines for Supporting the Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problem Statement and Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.1 Knowledge-Generating Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.2 Artifact-Generating Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Approach and Basic Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thesis Context and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2 The Chaos of Context: A meaning reconstruction survey 2.1 2.2 2.3. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in the Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in Various Disciplines and Applications . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Context in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing . . . . . . Context Categorization, Handling and Use in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Context in Information Science, Information Retrieval, Web Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in Information Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in an Information Retrieval and Web Search . . . 2.3.3 Context in Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in Architecture/Building and Urban Design . . . . v. 8 10 10 11 12 12 14 15 15 16 19 19 22 25 26 27 28 29.

(14) vi. CONTENTS. Context in Software Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Context in Consumer Product/Industrial Design . . . Context in Mechanical and Other Engineering Design Shape Context in Product Modeling . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. 31 34 40 42. 2.4. Summarizing Remarks on ”Context” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44. 2.5. Context in this Thesis: Problem Statement Revisited . . . . . . . .. 46. 2.6. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 48. 3 The Study of Context Knowledge in Design Practice1. 49. 3.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 49. 3.2. Introduction to the Desys Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 50. 3.3. The Relevance of the Context Study and D1 Experiment. 51. 3.4. Indicating the Existence of Context in the Design Process . . . . . 3.4.1 Indicating the Existence of Context by the Emergence of New Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f-file Analysis and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Indicating The Existence of The Context By Answering-Time Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 54 54 54 58 58 58. 3.5. The Role of Context in Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terminologies, Definitions, and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 60 60 62. 3.6. Proposed Formalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.1 Design Process Formalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.2 Context Knowledge Formalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64 64 65. 3.7. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 65. . . . . .. 4 System Conceptualization. 53. 67. 4.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 67. 4.2. System Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 70. 4.3. User Validation and Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 72. 4.4. Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 72. 4.5. Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 73. 4.6. Context Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 77. 4.7. Information Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 79. 4.8. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82. 1 adopted. from Jambak and Vergeest [2004].

(15) vii. CONTENTS. 5 The Contextual Design Information Retrieval System 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . User Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . System and Interface Requirements Specification . . . . . . . . Web-based Contextual Design Information Retrieval System . . System Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Profile Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6.1 Login system and User Profile Modules . . . . . . . . . 5.6.2 Project Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Project Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Dialogue Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.1 Search Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Search Engine Utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History and Bookmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . User’s Embedded Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Context Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.1 Context Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.2 Context Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.3 Context Search and Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 Structured modules list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 Modules Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10.1 User Profile, Project Profile and Search Interaction . . 5.10.2 Project Creator, Search and Context Editor Interaction 5.11 Concluding Remark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 83 83 84 84 85 86 88 88 88 88 89 89 90 92 95 98 98 100 103 104 104 106 106 108. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 111 111 111 112 112 116 117 118 119 119 120 121 123. 6 System Life-Cycle Illustration and Evaluation 6.1 6.2. 6.3. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . System Life-Cycle Illustration2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 The Design Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Context Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.3 Context Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . System Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Evaluation Strategies and Methods . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Evaluation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experts’ Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experts’ Opinions on Existing Search Engines Experts’ Opinions on Future Search Engines . Expert Opinions of CDIRS . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2 This illustration is built-up partly from the observation of several participants who volunteered to simulate the same assignments as mentioned in this chapter with and without using CDIRS. Some pictures used in this illustration have already been appeared in chapter 5..

(16) viii. CONTENTS. 6.4. 6.3.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127. 7 Conclusions and Future Work 7.1 7.2. 7.3. 129 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 7.2.1 History: short-term memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 7.2.2 Bookmarking: Long-term memories and design process capturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 7.2.3 File inclusion: Building low-level context . . . . . . . . . . 131 7.2.4 Context Editor: Building and modifying contexts . . . . . 131 7.2.5 Context Visualization: Making explicit context visible . . . 132 7.2.6 Copy Context: Making sharable contexts transferable . . . 132 7.2.7 Search Personalization and Compartmentalization . . . . . 132 7.2.8 Implementable Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.2.9 CDIRS as Knowledge Elicitation and a Transfer Mean . . . 132 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 7.3.1 Limitation of the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 7.3.2 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133. Bibliography. 135. Summary. 145. Samenvatting3. 149. Inhaltsangabe4. 153. Yhteenveto5. 157. Matome6. 161. ¨ 7 Ozet. 163. Ringkasan8. 167. Committee Members’ Profile. 171. Vitae. 173. 3 Summary. in Dutch in German 5 Summary in Finnish 6 Summary in Japanese 7 Summary in Turkish 8 Summary in Indonesian and written in Jawi/old Malay. This ancient Indonesian and Malaysian script was disappeared from Indonesian society during the Nederlandsche Oost-Indische occupation, while it has still been taught and used limitedly in Malaysia nowadays. 4 Summary.

(17) CONTENTS. ix. Appendix A –f-file Session 19. 175. Appendix B – f-file Session 2. 183. Appendix C –CDIRS Documentation. 191. Appendix D –Expert Questionnaire Form. 199. 9 complete. sessions documentation in van Breemen, 1996.

(18)

(19) Chapter 1. Introduction: Getting into the Context. ”The mere formulation of a problem is often far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.” - Albert Einstein. 1.1. Data, Information and Knowledge in Design Process. The design process has been formalized, described and interpreted in many ways [Cross, 1995; French, 1998; Hyde, 1989; Pahl and Beitz, 1995; Roozenburg and Eekels, 1995], and has ended up with different representations of design process diagrams. Furthermore, a comprehensive look at the design process can be found in Braha and Maimon [1997] work. All of these descriptions can be simplified and described as a series of activities including analysis, synthesis, representation/simulation, evaluation, and decision, as shown in Figure 1.1. First, based on need, motivation or the specific design task, the designer(s) researches the problem area and analyzes it. The designer(s) then synthesizes all of the necessary information in order to produce (some alternative) problem solutions candidates. These problem solutions candidates will then be simulated or represented in a CAD system or a simple pencil sketch and will then be evaluated before a decision can be made. Certainly, large amounts of data, information and knowledge are involved throughout the design process [Court, 1997; Rodgers et al., 2001]. 1.

(20) 2. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. 1.1. Factually, a design process can be seen as an activity designed to transform the available data, information, knowledge and expertise to construct a map from an expressed solution need [Lang et al., 2002].. Figure 1.1: Basic design cycle [Roozenburg and Eekels, 1995]. While the definitions of data, information, knowledge and their relationships remain debatable [see Court, 1997; Eckert et al., 2005; Groff and Jones, 2003; Maier et al., 2005; McMahon et al., 2004; Morroni, 2006; Stenmark, 2002; Tuomi, 1999; Wang and Ariguzo, 2004], traditionally, ”data” is understood as raw facts. For instance, material properties are just a list of a number of physical facts about such materials. Meanwhile, ”information” gives them meaning by connecting these pieces of data to certain topics. In this case, the information about design material might allow the designer to choose which material is suitable for the alternative solution, but will not disclose the separate number that appears in each of the physical properties of the material. ”Knowledge” is created when information is observed by the designer and recorded by his memory through a mental activity. Furthermore, knowledge adds information to the understanding and capability of the owner of that knowledge and places them in a state of knowing that guides actions, whereas data and information simply inform or even confuse. For that reason, designers can be defined as information processing systems in.

(21) 1.1. DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN DESIGN PROCESS. 3. order to solve design problems or to find ideas, as illustrated in Figure 1.2. Therefore, the result of a design project depends very much on the initial know-ledge and expertise of the designer(s) and also on the information obtained during the design process by any means of information retrieval. The initial knowledge or information is referred to as any knowledge or information that a designer has before he starts to retrieve necessary information. Expertise is regarded as the capability of converting a designer’s knowledge into actions in a specific area. These components are interrelated and influence each other. For example, knowledge and expertise do not only differ in their capacity to initiate search terms in an information retrieval process, but they also differ in their capacity to judge and utilize the information search results. Conversely, if the quality of incoming information is higher, it will positively influence the designers’ ability in the design decision-making and problem-solving areas while also reflecting the level of the designer’s expertise.. Figure 1.2: Designer as an information processing system. Adapted from [Wiegeraad, 1999]. Unfortunately, the amount of data, knowledge and information to be handled by designers is often too large, broad and unmanageable to be implemented into a well-structured system. As a result, although data, information and knowledge are abundantly available and surround the designer, getting access to the correct and necessary knowledge or information for a particular design process is not always an easy task [Cave and Noble, 1986; Lang et al., 2002]. The challenge of the above issue does not only come from the size, types and difficulties in utilizing the data, information and knowledge from various locations, domains and disciplines (as shown in Figure 1.3) but also through the ambiguity between connections/relationships, sequences, and keywords. Because.

(22) 4. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. 1.1. of this deficit, in many cases, designers often do not complete a great deal of informational research [Rouse and Cody, 1989], preferring instead to use information they already possess [Court, 1997]. As a result, informal communication with a nearby colleague is often preferred over a systematic search through literature, patent databases and so forth. This situation merely leads to the risk of making wrong decisions and overlooking new possibilities concepts. In addition, this situation also results in many designs being generated without the benefit of existing information in the design environment. In the end, this could degrade the quality of the design and/or unnecessarily lengthen the design process.. (a) Information sources. (b) Information types. Figure 1.3: Information Sources and Types [Wiegeraad, 1999]. For an expert or experienced designer, it is relatively easy to understand the context of such data, information or knowledge to be accessed and applied and to predict the consequences of such actions in each design state. This kind of understanding is defined as knowledge about knowledge and termed by Hori [1997],.

(23) DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE HANDLING IN EARLY DESIGN PHASES. 1.2. 5. Clarkson and Hamilton [2000], as ”meta-knowledge”. For the purpose of this research, meta-knowledge in this thesis is more specified knowledge about context, and therefore is termed as ”context-knowledge” and technically defined in chapter 2. For instance, this includes putting into practice which keywords are to be used to access the internet, which experts need to be contacted and consulted, which drawings needs to be learned, what practices would be best to adopt, etc. The concept of ”context” itself is being explored in many research fields, such as artificial intelligent [Akman and Surav, 1996; Buvaˇc et al., 1995], know-ledge management [Schwotzer, 2002], natural language processing [Brézillon, 1999b], and information seeking [Kari and Savolainen, 2007]. The term ”context” is widely used but does not enjoy a consensus on its meaning. However, generally speaking, it has to do with knowledge or information relationships. Indeed, Schwotzer said that knowledge never stands on its own; it is always embedded in a context. In this thesis, the concept and term ”context” is explored and discussed from many angles. Furthermore, context knowledge terminology is introduced, referring to a subset of all knowledge that identifies the context of specific knowledge or information. There are other reasons to immerse this context knowledge in the design environment besides its important role in design processes, as described in the above case. First of all, a design project is necessarily executed by a group of designers, so it is very important that they have the same goals in mind. Although they could have the same sources, they may not have access to the same data, information or knowledge. Second, the knowledge transfer from experienced designers to novice designers can be speeded up if the context knowledge is visible or easily available. Third, since most knowledge is in the designers’ minds, most design companies frequently suffer from knowledge loss if a designer leaves the company.. 1.2. Data, Information and Knowledge Handling in Early Design Phases. A design process can be described according to its phases and the outcomes of each phase, as shown in Figure 1.4. The process starts with a need or design brief. The first design activity is to analyze the problem or clarify the task. The output of this activity is a statement of the problem or a design specification. In the conceptual design phase, one or more alternative solutions or concepts are developed; one or more of them are selected and taken to the next phase. According to the results obtained in the embodiment phase, necessary feedback is provided in order to re-analyze or rebuild a new concept. After the necessary iterative modifications, a concept is chosen and detailed in the detail design phase, as some output, such as working drawings, production planning, etc., will be produced. The early phases of design refer to the analysis and conceptual phase. Unlike the other phases, these phases are characterized by ill-defined problems. They involve describing the real problem, the possible solutions, and the methods re-.

(24) 6. 1.2. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. Task. Need. Clarification Analysis of Problem. Specification Conceptual design Selected concepts. Statement of Problem. Conceptual Design. Feedback. Embodiment design Preliminary design Detail design. Selected Schemes. Embodiment of the Schemes. Finished design Production planning Product. (a) Product development phases [Pahl and Beitz, 1995]. Detailing. Working Drawings, etc. (b) Conceptual design phases [French, 1998]. Figure 1.4: Two interpretation of design phases. quired to obtain the solution, in many cases, cannot be completely validated. Therefore, design methods suggest to avoid premature commitment to a design problem solution, but rather iteratively and gradually propose design concepts, specifications, functions, and alternative solutions, and evaluate them as soon as possible [Austin et al., 2001; Hatamura, 2006; Jin and Chusilp, 2006; Ozkaya and Akin, 2006; Qin et al., 2003; Segers et al., 2005]. In order to identify the need, to generate or search ideas or concepts, to look up alternative solutions, or to define specifications and functions, designers generally use divergent approaches which involve the suspension of judgments. Meanwhile, designers use convergent approaches to evaluate or select those alternative solutions, which involves the imposition of value judgments [Cross, 1995; Liu and Bligh, 2003; Roozenburg and Eekels, 1995; Thompson, 2005], as illustrated in Figure 1.5. The iterative process and the divergent-convergent approaches mentioned above are also true for the information search process during the design process. Based on personal understanding and knowledge capacity, one can initiate a search that is believed to contain useful information. In the divergent approach, some of this information are seemingly irrelevant but could lead to alternative or new ideas or could trigger a new search term [Jambak et al., 2005; Snoek et al., 1995]. Otherwise, designers must refine the search term that is believed to be closer to his or her design informational needs. When useful information is retrieved, designers.

(25) DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE HANDLING IN EARLY DESIGN PHASES. 1.2. 7. Needs. Divergent. Convergent. Exploration. Specification (requierments). Identification. Concept design. Generation and evaluation ideas. Solution. Level of solution abstraction. (a) adapted from [Liu and Bligh, 2003]. (b) adapted from [Thompson, 2005]. Figure 1.5: Divergent-convergent approaches. might want to complete a convergent approach by detailing the results with a new search, as can be seen in Figure 1.6. During this iterative process, designers gradually structure the connections among the incoming information and build knowledge by setting connections between one query to another. The situation illustrated in Figure 1.6 actually occurs in both human to human and human to non-human interactions. For the first interaction that is human to human, a designer to expert discussion or a brain-storming session in ad design team can be used as an example. A designer can direct a question towards an expert in order to find a solution or a problem based on his personal understanding of the design task or problem. The first question may be vague for the expert, but he or she can answer the question or decide to gain further understanding by further questioning the designer. The more frequently the two parties exchange questions and answers, the faster both of them will reach a state of understanding, where the designer can ask very specific questions and the expert can more easily understand the question and therefore give his expertise to the designer. Obviously, the information search process on the internet can be taken as an example of a human to non-human interaction, illustrated in Figure 1.6. However, a designer reading a book can also be an example of this interaction. Moreover, it can be taken as an example of a divergent approach, where an idea possibly comes to the designer’s mind, although he or she reads a book that did not have a direct link to his or her design project. When this happens, he or she can begin to shape the idea with the convergent approach by finding more specific data in more specific resources, for example, a design handbook, a material properties handbook, etc. A number of remarks can be derived from the above examples. First of all, there are two differences on how the designer and information resources interact with each other. In the case where sources are human, such as an expert or other.

(26) 8. 1.3. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. Yes. Search. Search results. Evaluation. Relevant Yes. No. Refine search term. Inspire new idea. No. Yes New search term No Finish Yes. Detailing. No. Figure 1.6: The information search model. design team members, both parties gradually develop common understanding (a)1 . Therefore, they can share this understanding (b). They can also validate the ”need” for each party (c). For instance, the expert can validate a designer’s question to determine whether it is reflecting his or her informational need or not, and the designer can discuss with the expert whether the answer from him or her is something he or she really needs or not. Meanwhile, the designer has to develop his or her own understanding in human to non-human interactions (d).. 1.3. Using State-of-the-Art Search Engines for Supporting the Design Process. Today, the enormous growth of web sites has opened up opportunities for designers to retrieve a broad variety of design information, such as potential markets, existing competitors, materials, processes, etc. Designers use a search engine in order to retrieve this information from the internet. These search engines do offer not only better algorithms, but also technology advancements that potentially help designers to gain necessary information. These advancements include automatic bookmarking, history, audio and video searches and playback, image searches, e-book searches, and communication means. The automatic bookmarking and history provide services where a user of an internet search engine does not have to bookmark any of the checked search results 1 Although the problems of communication between experts and non-experts are known, see [Eppler, 2004; Stonehouse and Pemberton, 1999], but that is a research field by itself.

(27) USING STATE-OF-THE-ART SEARCH ENGINES FOR SUPPORTING THE DESIGN. 1.3. PROCESS. (a) Automatic bookmarking and history. (b) Audio search and playback. (c) Video search and playback. (d) Image search. (e) e-Book search. (f) Communication means. 9. Figure 1.7: The popular search engines and their features. and can keep them in the historical search. This advancement keeps the search process and the results in one environment. Without this advancement, a user must bookmark a search result using the internet browser. It is also possible.

(28) 10. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. 1.4. to search an audio or video file on the internet and play it inside of the search engine. While some of these multimedia files are restricted by copyright, some of them may be freely downloaded. Images or static pictures may now be searched and downloaded from a search engine. Search engines are able to not only search information that is in different formats (i.e., text, postscript, Microsoft ™ office) or different languages, but are also able to go through an electronic book. Some of these search engines provide various communication services, such as email, messenger, and audio/video conferencing. These advanced features for popular search engines are shown in Figure 1.7. At this moment, the notion of ”relevance” is still at the center of information retrieval research [Baeza-Yates and Ribeiro-Neto, 1999]. Therefore, algorithmic approaches have been fighting to improve search engines. It is fair to say that some of these search engines significantly improve their query methods and techniques, bringing their degree of relevance closer to the actual ”information need”. Their confidence in their search results can be seen by their offers to give only the top web page in their ranking that is returned in a query (For example, the ”I’m feeling lucky” service offered through www.google.com). Despite the increase of users’ (including designers) satisfaction in available search engines, their applicability in the field of design still has room for improvement. Companies are still looking for improved tools to assist the designer in retrieving information where the internet as a source of information is increasingly important.. 1.4. Problem Statement and Research Questions. In order to better articulate the problem statement and research questions of this research work, it is necessary to briefly introduce the philosophical fundamentals of research in design, and the research-design relationship (for more detail and further readings: [Braha and Maimon, 1997; Fallman, 2003; Stappers, 2005]). Although both of research and design share their similarities, and each of them is essential to the other –research is essential to design, and viz versa–, they differ in their aim [Stappers, 2005], and therefore an activity can be subject to one of them based on its orientation. Fallman [2003] simplifies the discourse into two categories: knowledge-generating design-oriented research and artifactgenerating research-oriented design. Both of these categories are used to articulate the problem statement and research questions of this research work.. 1.4.1. Knowledge-Generating Point of View. This research wanted to gain knowledge of how ”context” can give the opportunity to solve problems to gather knowledge, store and represent knowledge, and to manage it, and to reduce the risk of brain drain that often happens when a designer leaves a company. In order to do so, some research questions have emerged including the following:.

(29) 1.4. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 11. • What is the concept of context? • How to use or handle context?. 1.4.2. Artifact-Generating Point of View. The existing search engines assume that a supplied search term is a mature fix, and accurate information is needed. At the early phases of design, the design problem is ill-defined, the concept is vague, and possible solutions are unevaluated; therefore, the most likely informational need is also vague. At this point, designers are actually defining and validating the information need. Consequently, in order to define an accurate ”information need”, designers should complete information searches iteratively while his or her mind evolves from abstract to concrete, from partial understanding to comprehensive understanding of the design task, needs, problems, and possible solutions. On the contrary, most of the search engines treat an information search in a single query process. Subsequently, designers use search engines repeatedly, but the connection between one search term and others, and how they are being grouped into a topic, is only structured in the designer’s mind. Usually, the connection between information or knowledge sources, as illustrated in Figure 1.2 and 1.3(a), are structured implicitly in the designer’s mind. Not many available search engines enable the user to personalize the search process. Google ™ and Yahoo ™ are two that do allow their users to personalize their own search processes, as can be seen in Figure 1.7(a). However, for the design information management purpose, it would be more helpful if could also compartmentalize their search processes based on their design projects, because each design project had its own unique information search. Furthermore, while other search engines are still not concerned about retaining a search history, the features from the two popular search engines mentioned above give users the opportunity to capture the design process and the designer-thinking evolution. However, this feature will come closer to the nature of the design if the users have room to use their judgment instead of automatically storing all search terms supplied or search results clicked. By assuming that every search result is a product of the designer’s thinking, the prospect of capturing the judged search terms will open up possibilities of capturing designers’ thinking paths in each design project. The effort towards knowledge utilization in design practice remains feeble and is still attempting to answer three big questions, namely, how to gather knowledge, how to store and represent knowledge, and how to manage it. The risk of losing knowledge that often happens when a designer leave a company can be reduced if knowledge products, which can be both the process and results of an information search, can be stored..

(30) 12. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. 1.6. From the above statements, some research questions have arisen, including the following: 1. How can search engines better fit the design process enabling designers greater benefit from them? These benefits include: (a) The ability to support the iterative process (b) The ability to allow designers to connect the search process with other designers’ external information or knowledge sources, as well as allow designers the ability to build a context knowledge of each information search process 2. How can search engines create an information connection or context-knowledge that is explicit to the designer’s mind? 3. If it can be made explicit, how can it be visualized? 4. Can this context-knowledge (reflecting the designer’s thinking path, processes and results of an information search) be stored? 5. How can a search engine personalize and compartmentalize the search process?. 1.5. Hypothesis. In order to decompose the problem statement and answer the research question, hypotheses have been created and clarified during this study. They include: • If the search terms of a search process, using an internet search engine, can be connected, then there is the possibility of making an internet search process more towards the nature of the designer. It is then possible to represent the context. • If a search is supported by a representation of the context of the information request, the probability of obtaining the right response is increased. The explicit creation of contexts and their adaptation and extension during the design process is the key to effective information retrieval and managing the available information and knowledge.. 1.6. Research Approach and Basic Definitions. The problem of this research was approached from two angles. Firstly, a literature study to understand the concept of context from various domains and applications. Secondly, an empirical study of a design project. In the empirical study, data from previous investigations on conceptual design tools were studied. From.

(31) 1.6. RESEARCH APPROACH AND BASIC DEFINITIONS. 13. these two approaches, a general formalism on the design process and context were developed. Thereafter, a system to assist context building and manipulation during the information search process within a design process has been conceptualized and implemented. Furthermore, the implemented system has been used as a proof-of-concept of the design practice and has been evaluated by experts. A software system called ”Web-based Contextual Design Information Retrieval System” has been developed and implemented for the purpose of this research. This system aims at helping designers collect information related to their design projects. Thus, the software name must be read as ”contextual designinformation” rather than ”contextual-design information”. ”Contextual design” is a methodology used especially in software design that deals with issues of data gathering, driving and managing the design, team and organization contexts [Beyer and Holtzblatt, 1998]. It is an approach to designing products that comes directly from the designer’s understanding of how the customer works [Beyer and Holtzblatt, 1999]. However, in a broader sense, this system is aimed at helping designers during the execution of a design project to retrieve design-related information, or, in short, ”design information” contextually, regardless of any design methodologies or approaches. It is also necessary to clarify the use of the phrase ”information retrieval system” rather than ”data retrieval system”, although in design processes, both of these types of systems could allow designers to share the same necessitate. According to Baeza-Yates and Ribeiro-Neto [1999], the ”data retrieval system” is aimed at retrieving all items which satisfy clearly defined conditions such as, for instance, a relational algebraic expression that conveys the constraint that must be satisfied by items in the answer set. Furthermore, data retrieval, while providing a solution for the user of a database system, does not solve the problem of retrieving information about a subject or topic. The ”data retrieval system” could be very useful to designers when they are seeking specific engineering data during the design process as a part of the whole design-related information retrieval system. However, not all necessary design information can be specific and constrained into an informational need expression, especially in the early phases of design. In contrast, with an ”information retrieval system” the user’s informational need is translated into a query, which is a set of words which convey the semantics, and then the ”information retrieval system” will ’interpret’ the contents of the information items into a collection and rank them according to their degree of relevance. In many cases, the effectiveness of an information retrieval system is judged according to its precision, or the number of relevant items within the entire number of items retrieved [Saracevic, 1975; Strzalkowski et al., 1997; Xu and Croft, 2000]. In fact, the primary goal of most available information retrieval systems is to retrieve information which is ”relevant” to a user query while retrieving as few ”non-relevant” information items as possible [Baeza-Yates and Ribeiro-Neto, 1999]. However, in design, ”irrelevant” information in a query process may fit or be useful in a certain design context (see Section 1.2). This is the fundamental.

(32) 14. INTRODUCTION: GETTING INTO THE CONTEXT. 1.7. reason why the software title ”contextual” that comes from ”context” is chosen, despite using ”relevance” before the ”design information” phrase. Last, but not least, the term ”web-based” needs to be clarified because, generally speaking, a web-based or internet system is a perfect match as an information retrieval system, since the user of an internet system has to specify his informational need as a search term (keywords, phrases or a combination of them) that will be executed in search engines in order to collect the intended information. In return, the search engine will collect lists of websites and rank them based on their degree of relevance. Considering this fact, one can say that every information search process occurs in an ”information retrieval system”. Nevertheless, the term ”web-based” refers to a more specific source among other informational sources in a design environment which can involve experts, books, drawings, charts, local computer files, notes, etc.. 1.7. Thesis Context and Overview. This thesis is constructed as follows: Chapter 2 (The Chaos of Context) intensively look at the concept of ”context” in various domains and application. At the end, the term ”context” for this thesis is defined, as well as the term of ”context knowledge”. Chapter 3 (Study on Context Knowledge in Design Practice) reports the study on the indication of existential context knowledge during a conceptual design. Chapter 4 (System Conceptualization) introduces the conceptualization and architectural work of an information retrieval system that gains the benefit of context knowledge, based on the findings of chapter 2 and chapter 3. Chapter 5 (The Contextual Design Information Retrieval System) reports the implementation of a user interface that builds on the existing web search technology and operates in conjunction with a common internet search engine. Chapter 6 (System Life-Cycle Illustration and Evaluation) presents the illustration of how the system can assist designers in developing context knowledge during the informational search completed in the early phases of design. Chapter 7 (Conclusions and Future Work ) closes the thesis with a summary and discussion of the presented research topics and hypotheses clarifications, and concludes with some suggestions for future research..

(33) Chapter 2. The Chaos of Context: A meaning reconstruction survey. ”The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” - Edwin Schlossberg. 2.1. Introduction. This chapter aims at clarifying the ”context” terminology that is widely used in many domains and applications. In 1999 alone, an internet search using the keyword ”context” retrieved more than 440.000 documents [Brézillon, 1999b]. At the end of 2006, about 244.000.000 documents were listed in the search results using that same keyword. Since the word is ill-defined and used in many domain specifics with such an ad hoc manner, it somehow creates a chaotic situation that is difficult for those who want to understand it. The strategy of this survey is to start from a dictionary survey, where the root and the common use of the word ”context” can be found. The root and the common understanding are used to draw the meanings from representative specific domains, along with a common concept of those domains. This survey also emphasizes how context has been treated and used in each domain and application. To reconstruct the meaning of ”context”, this survey work not only tries to find a consensus of meaning or concept of ”context”, but also attempts to present the understanding of ”context” from various points of view for domains and applications. Therefore, it can be understood by readers from different domains or applications. At the end of this chapter, three definitions of ”context” and ”context knowledge” for the purpose of this research work are presented. 15.

(34) 16. THE CHAOS OF CONTEXT: A MEANING RECONSTRUCTION SURVEY. 2.2. Context in the Dictionary. 2.2. The Barnhart dictionary of etymology [Barnhart, 1988] suggests that the word ”context” as a noun has been used since before 1425 and is borrowed from the Latin word contextus and the past participle of contexere. However, context, in the sense of surrounding parts of a text, was first recorded around 1568. Furthermore, the Oxford Latin dictionary [Glare, 1982] reveals the meaning of the root ”context” as follows: 1. contex¯ o [CON +- TEXO], as an adjective, has the following meanings: (a) to join weaving or otherwise closely linking (e.q. to make by weaving, joining, etc., together) (b). • to connect, link (word) • to compose, assemble (speech, writing) by linking together. (c) to bring into close association, combine, link ( e.g. to make continuous, join) 2. Contex¯e [CONTEXTVS +- E] is an adverb and means in close combination; in a connected or coherent manner 3. contextim [NEXT +- IM] is an adverb and means in a continuous or uninterrupted manner 4. Contextus [past participle of CONTEXO] as an adjective has the following meanings: (a) closely joined, interwoven (b) connected, coherent (c) continuous, uninterrupted, unbroken 5. Contextus [CONTEXO +- TVS] has several meanings. They include the following: (a) the action of weaving or otherwise joining together (b) the state of being joined, (e.g. logical connection, coherent) (c) an ordered scheme, plan, course (d) the manner in which a thing is made or constructed, structure (e) the state of being uninterrupted, (e.g.,a continuous series or grouping together) (f) a whole made-up numerous part, complex.

(35) 2.2. CONTEXT IN THE DICTIONARY. 17. For the time being, the above explanation for the root of ’context’ will be left as it is, and will again be referred to for the absorption of English or adoption in different fields of research. In order to check the common understanding of the word ’context’, three well-known dictionaries have been chosen for the survey. They include Webster’s New International Dictionary [Gove, 1981], The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition [Murray et al., 1989], and The American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary [DeVinne, 1987]. According to [Gove, 1981], ’context’ is defined as: 1. the weaving together of words in a language 2. the part or parts of a written or spoken passage preceding or following a particular word or group of words and so intimately associated with them as to throw light upon their meaning 3. the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs 4.. • coherent in discourse • = contexture. 5. things or conditions that serve to date or characterize an article(as a primitive artifact): surroundings 6. the fleshy part of the pileus of a mushroom or other pileate fungus as distinguished from hymenium Meanwhile, [Murray et al., 1989] defines ’context’ as: 1. the weaving together of words and sentences; the construction of speech, literary composition 2. the connected structure of a writing or composition; a continuous text or composition with parts duly connected. 3. the connection or coherence between the parts of a discourse 4.. • the whole structure of a connected passage regarding its bearing upon any of the parts which constitute it; the parts which immediately precede or follow any particular passage or ’text’ and determine its meaning •. – transferred (e.g. ”We carry on with us, from day to day, the whole moral context of the day gone by”.) – figured (e.g. ”It is literally impossible, without consulting the context of the building, to say whether the cups have been added.). • in this context: in this connection 5. = contexture.

(36) 18. THE CHAOS OF CONTEXT: A MEANING RECONSTRUCTION SURVEY. 2.2. [DeVinne, 1987] defines context as: 1. the part of a written or spoken statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and can clarify its meaning 2. the circumstances in which something occurs or exists; the background or setting From these three dictionaries, the meaning of context can be combined into the following definitions: 1. the weaving together of words and sentences 2. the part or parts of a written or spoken statement that surround a particular word or passage and can clarify its meaning 3. the connection or coherence between the parts of a discourse 4. in connection with 5. contexture 6. background or setting and interrelated condition in which something exists or occurs 7. the fleshy part of the pileus of a mushroom or other pileate fungus as distinguished from hymenium The item number 1 can be removed because this definition overlaps with the definitions of sentence and paragraph. The item number 7 can also be removed from the list because this definition is not only too isolated from the other definitions, but also has no connection with the Latin root form. Item 2 and item 3 can be combined because a verbal interchange of ideas or discourses certainly involve some spoken statements. Furthermore, although the meaning of item 5 can have the same meaning as context (e.g., This text is lying in this contexture; Is there anything in the intention and contexture of these ten passages to warrant so grave a departure from the common meaning of the words?), it can also have a different meaning which can be categorized into the derivative word of context. Therefore, it is proposed that this item also be removed from the above list. From this dictionary survey, it can be concluded that the use of ”context” includes the following: 1. the part or parts of a written or spoken statement that surround a particular word or passage and can clarify its meaning; it also covers the interconnection and coherence of those parts 2. in connection with.

(37) 2.3. CONTEXT IN VARIOUS DISCIPLINES AND APPLICATIONS. 19. 3. background or setting and interrelated condition in which something exists or occurs For the rest of this chapter, these three definitions are referred as the daily common understanding of context.. 2.3. Context in Various Disciplines and Applications. Context has been exploited in many research domains [Brézillon, 1999a,b; Guha, 1991; Serafini and Giunchiglia, 2002]. However, this word has been extended in many directions and is generally not well-defined. ”Context” then becomes some sort of ”conceptual garbage can” [Akman, 2000], since the word ”context” is used daily and everyone supposedly knows its meaning without a clear definition. Otherwise, one will give an ad hoc definition to delineate the particular meaning from one’s own point of view [Akman and Surav, 1996; Bazire and Brézillon, 2005]. The following subsections will explore the notion of ”context” and how it is used in different discipline. It is a realistic expectation that there is no consensus among the disciplines related to the many aspects of ”context”. In fact, the common meanings found in the dictionary survey have apparently been used in confusing ways or have been extended exclusively towards a particular discipline which ends up creating new meanings. On the contrary, there is still a question as to whether a unified theory of ”context” can be realized [Buvaˇc and Kameyama, 1998]. However, after the dictionary survey, the exploration of various disciplines and applications is the logical departure point in search of the understanding of ”context”.. 2.3.1. Context in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing. The mobile lifestyle is now supported by many types of ubiquitous electronic devices that are present everywhere. Pervasive computing is the new research application moving towards increasing ubiquitous and wireless connected computing devices in an environment. This area of research not only covers existing wireless mobile devices, such as mobile phones or laptop computers, but also any device that can be embedded in an object and can communicate through the interconnected network, creating a completely connected, intuitive, and effortless portable that is constantly available in such environments. Consequently, to reach these goals in this research area, this domain of research must deal with humancomputer interaction problems. The use of context is important in interactive applications, but on the contrary, it has been noticed that human capabilities use implicit situational information (or context) to increase their conversational bandwidth, does not transfer well in human-computer interactions [Dey and Abowd, 1999; Dourish, 2004]..

(38) 20. THE CHAOS OF CONTEXT: A MEANING RECONSTRUCTION SURVEY. 2.3. According to [Dey, 2001] and [Crowley et al., 2002], the definition of ”context” in the field of pervasive computing was first introduced by Schilit and Theimer in 1994. [Schilit and Theimer, 1994] argued that computation no longer occurred at a single location in a single environment. For this reason, the information on a location enabled users to query and use nearby devices, while also enabling software to track a moving object (the changes object over time) and adapt according to the 1) location of use and 2) the collection of people and objects. ”Context”, according to them, refers to a location, people and an object’s identity, as well as the changes in the objects. [Dey, 2001; Dey and Abowd, 1999] and [Crowley et al., 2002] stated that after [Schilit and Theimer, 1994], similar definitions have been proposed with some other elements included, such as time, focus of intent, environmental elements (temperature, season, etc.), and user’s physical, social, and emotional states. Context is also defined as the environment, situations, and subsets of physical and conceptual states of interest for a particular entity. The above definitions are too technical and too domain-specific, since all of them seem too far from the common meaning that can be found in the dictionary. Furthermore, [Dey and Abowd, 1999] and [Dey, 2001] said that the above definitions are either too general or specific. Therefore, they proposed a new definition which seems to be the standard in this domain. According to http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/, these two papers have been cited a total of 132 times since their appearance and have become the central issue for HumanComputer Interaction journal, special issue (volume 16, number 2, 3, & 4, 2001). As they stated, ”context” is defined as: any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and applications themselves. This definition of ”context” (or often confused as ”context information”; see: [Shafer et al., 2001] and [Khedr and Karmouch, 2005]) is converse to the item 3 of the common meaning of ”context”. In the third meaning of ”context” in the dictionary, the ”situation” is used to explain something that interchanges between two subjects. For instance, the information interchanges, by the above definition, the information is used to characterize (explain) the situation. In addition, according to [Winograd, 2001], this definition is still too general, since it uses open-ended phrases, such as ”any information” and ”characterize.” From the facts given above, it is clear that in this domain, the definition of context, and the important elements that are comprised within context, still remain debatable. To implement such concepts of context, researchers face a trade-off between the scope of their context and the possibility of the implementation. It is not easy to include the social and emotional context of the user, but at the same time, if they reduce the scope of context, the system then only partially supports the context and merely turns to a listed-preserved users’ expectations system..

(39) 2.3. CONTEXT IN VARIOUS DISCIPLINES AND APPLICATIONS. Input. Output. (a) Traditional ”black box” application. Explicit Input. 21. Explicit Output. (b) Context-aware application. Figure 2.1: Context is everything but the explicit input and output [Lieberman and Selker, 2000]. This way, the implemented system can become intrusive and annoying when the users’ intentions and expectations are not listed or wrongly defined beforehand by the system designers/developers. Researchers in this domain dispute the definition of context, not only because of their different views on approaches, but also because the nature of the system will support the context. The system could purely used the input and output of the computation system point of view to implement the context. Figure 2.1 shows that Lieberman and Selker [2000] used the shifting of computation point of view from traditional ”black box” application to context-aware application to define context as everything but explicit input and output. The implementation of a context concept in a pocket PC, shown in Figure 2.2 could give two different views of how the context possibly be implemented. First of all, although it is complex, it is quite easy to define the context of loading information that is stored along with a map in the pocket PC. The system will load the connected information, such as a restaurant’s name, nearby gas stations, or public transports that are near the point of location using a global positioning system (GPS). Here, in this system, the contextual information is loaded according to the change of the ”location”. For the second possibility, which is rather difficult, is to define the context that enables one to automatically switch off the user’s home electric equipment using this pocket PC when the user goes to sleep. A simple assumption that the user will go to bed after midnight could turn to disaster if the user is working late to prepare for a very important meeting in the morning. More examples of this kind of ”intelligent” context application are elaborated in [Khedr and Karmouch, 2005]. The above pocket PC application examples show that the ”situation” happening in a ”context”, which is lead the necessity to define the situation in order to understand the context. The first pocket PC application example shows that the.

(40) 22. THE CHAOS OF CONTEXT: A MEANING RECONSTRUCTION SURVEY. 2.3. Figure 2.2: The implementation of context concept in pocket PCs. situational information is loaded according to where the location is situated on the map. In the second example, the context (must) tried to define the situation in which the contextual action must be done. Regarding to their definition, Dey and Abowd [1999] and Dey [2001] include the term ”situation” in their definition, but unfortunately, give less attention to describing the notion of situation. McCullough [2001] defined ”situation” as abilities connected with a setting. If this definition is combined with the third common meaning of ”context”, or ”setting conditions in which something exists or occurs” then it can understood that situations point out the context in which something exists or occurs. Meanwhile, [Greenberg, 2001] noticed that the dynamic nature of context is defined by situated action. However, situated action is easily confused by the institutionalized (and often simplistic) social norms that are often used to predict and prescribe all actions. The example of making the assumption that all people will sleep after midnight is an instance where institutionalized and simplistic social norms can wrongly define a situation. Context Categorization, Handling and Use in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing Looking at the fact that the definition of context is far from reaching a consensus in this domain, viewing how plausibly researchers treat, handle and use the context.

(41) 2.3. CONTEXT IN VARIOUS DISCIPLINES AND APPLICATIONS. 23. will be much more worthy to note. First of all, the dispute can be abstracted to the level of conception rather than a more complex application level. Second, as [Gu et al., 2005] said, by classifying various contexts and knowing their characteristics, it is possible to perform a context reasoning where perhaps a context conflict can be solved. Dourish [2004], made a categorization based on the view of researchers of when they handle context. Based on these categories, he then made a general assumption. Dourish said that the context representations were inspired by the social science that falls into three major categorizations: positivist, phenomenological, and critical theories; only positivist and phenomenological theories are relevant to context. While positivist theories are derived from the rational, empirical, and scientific tradition and, therefore, are often objective and quantitative in nature, the phenomenological theories are subjective and qualitative in orientation. In summary, positivist and phenomenological theories are not compatible. However, many researchers attempt to derive positivist responses to phenomenological arguments, for instance, when trying to encode and represent the context. From this point of view, such definitions of ”context” can be generalized into four assumptions, including the following: • context is a form of information • context is delineable • context is stable • context and activities can be separated. Dourish argued that context as a representational problem with the four listed principles above can model the sociological critiques but not the context itself. He proposed an alternative view which does not use the sociological approach. Instead of considering context as a representational problem, he considers it as an interactional problem. Instead of raising the question of ”what is context and how can it be encoded”, he questioned ”how and why, in the course of their interactions, do people achieve and maintain a mutual understanding of the context for their actions?” Those four assumptions listed above have been altered into the following assumptions: • contextuality is a relational property held between objects or activities • the scope of contextual features is defined dynamically • context is occasioned property • context arising from the activity (or content) cannot be separated.

(42) 24. THE CHAOS OF CONTEXT: A MEANING RECONSTRUCTION SURVEY. 2.3. With this assumption, Dourish altered the conception of ”context” from something that describes a setting to something that people do and formed an engagement of those settings. This conception, although slightly different from what Dey and Abowd [1999] and Dey [2001] proposed, still opposes the common meanings listed in the dictionary. The item 3 common meaning of the word ”context” would give a setting, for example, of why somebody would do this or that. However, with Dourish’s conception, it will be understood that somebody does this or that because of a certain context. Moreover, Dourish claimed that users would be allowed to negotiate and evolve systems of practice and meaning in the course of their interaction with information systems, or what he called ”embodied interaction”. Crowley et al. [2002] categorized context into a user’s and system’s context. They refer to the ”user”, using common computer science terms, as human agents. The context of which such systems should be aware is that of one or more users. In most cases, users are driven by one or more goals which can be parallel or switched from one to another. However, interacting with the system is not considered to be the goal of the user. In fact, when they use the system to archive their goals, it should be invisible to users. Crowley [2002] proposed definitions of state, task, and activity for this model. A state is defined as using combinations of predicate (or their negation) expressions, which are functions of properties observed in the world. Actions are represented by connected states in the universe. While at any instant in time, the universe is a state called a current state, a goal state is a state where the user brings the universe to another state, requiring a sequence of actions. The association between the current state and the goal state is a task. A set of current tasks define the user’s activity, some others can be referred to as background tasks. A system’s context is composed of this model plus a model of its internal context. This composition then provides the means to observe and interpret the observations. Gu et al. [2005] classify context into two main categories: direct and indirect context. A context is classified as a direct context when it is directly acquired or obtained from an internal or external context provider. Meanwhile, indirect context is derived by interpreting direct context through context reasoning. Direct context can be classified into sensed context if it is required from physical sensors; a direct context is classified as a defined context if it is defined by the user. Chalmers et al. [2004] identify the use of context or contextual information into six categories as follows: • contextual sensing, where the context is sensed, and information describes the current context • contextual augmentation, where the context is associated with data • contextual resource discovery • context triggered actions.