Great site. Linear as opposed to cyclic thinking. Devoted my PhD research to that subject (www.researchinarchitecture.com). Our world would look much better if designers, and especially architects would start to think more cyclical
Thanks. I wish I could read Deutch so I could explore your research. Looks very interresting.
Very true - PowerPoint has taken much of the joy out of presenting ideas, because it's hard work to linearise a UX project idea and sell it. You can do small changes that way, but a radical overhaul also needs an interactive model, which PPT can only do if you are very well versed in it.
I notice in passing that this is yet another UX/design blog written by a Frenchman in English.
Recently I made two texts that follow the same path of thought, I would like to share it with you:
Design as the Creation and Manipulation of Models and Ontologies::
http://luiscarli.com/research/design,-models-and-ontologies/
Custom Coded Design tools:
http://luiscarli.com/research/custom-coded-design-tools/
I like the way you call "Linear Thinking" and "Cyclic Thinking".
Sometimes we feel a bit confused about our way to manage, think, create, but even when we try, we can not understand exactly what's happening, why we'r thinking in this specific way, because thinking is an ASAP action, its automatic, come directly from some place on our brain that we cant control. So you just think, and a lot of times you even dont know what made you reach to some idea, but you know you is thinking.
In my vision, "giving name" for this concepts is the best way i know to address some question accurately. Otherwise, how could you change your way to think if you even know what is YOUR way?
While I am an adept of iteratiive workflows and Agile methodologies, the arguments you use in your essay are somehow not convincing — for an audience that would need convincing.
You say that everything can be seen as cyclical, but one could posit everything as linear… A story, a movie, a book, or even life itself have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Powerpoint is just a tool, how it is used depends on the speaker.
I guess what I am trying to say is that this is a sophist point of view. One could declare one statement, and its reverse.
While I agree that we could say that we are not linear in our thinking, I believe going from that to saying Powepoint is one of the worst contributions is a bit far-fetched in my humble opinion.
Having said that, a lot of times there is a need for linear presentations. While our minds may be shooting ideas in all directions in a clearly NOT linear way, our speech is linear and so we must organize the ideas in such way to communicate them.
Otherwise we would simply spit random concepts and thoughts as they come into our heads and while that might make a lot of sense to us, it would be impossible for our audience to understand it.
I also believe that categorizing one way or another of thinking in terms of inspiring, boring, rigid, fluid has nothing to do with whether the process is linear or not. You could have a boring and uninspired brainstorming session and at the same time have a fluid linear presentation or the other way around, so this association to each thinking model is in my opinion not true.
Still, this article certainly gave me a kick to rethink a few ideas of my own, so I thank you for that.
Well I do agree with you on the linear vs cyclical thinking, the PPT example you used is not the best. Power Point Presentation is a just a means to an end.
For example, when writing the article: Cyclic and Linear Thinking. You must have jotted down some ideas/brainstorm as to what the argument or case is. This brainstorming necessarily should not be linear but random or cyclic (more of chaos).
But because Humans are rational beings, presenting such a chaos of ideas to them may not breed proper appreciation and understanding of the presentation. So you'll have to organize the ideas in a logical manner capable of being understood. And usually this is often done in a linear way(sets of points on slides/pages) to help build idea upon idea and at the end, there's order or rationale. As you rightfully put it in another context your article http://design.activeside.net/why-designers-should-seek-complexity.
Regardless of PPT, your point is well made, Design is a practice, not a process.
I tend to agree with the last few post.
Great article though and you had me completely captivated until the 2nd paragraph when you got into PowerPoint. As some of the others expressed when dealing with a presentation of any kind there must be balance and order. PPT is just a tool that helps an audience digest little tidbits of information at a time. If we were to try and present in the same manner as we had received the original ideas then it would be utter chaos. A presentation is the culmination of all your ideas condensed down into its simplest form. It needs to be simple, neat and easy to grasp. PPT accomplishes that and that's why it has been so successful for so long.
