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Linkography : unfolding the design process
Goldschmidt G., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014. 216 pp. Type: Book (978-0-262027-19-9)
Date Reviewed: Dec 24 2014

“Designing is a structured process that can be explained and analyzed ... it is not pure magic.” Upon reading this statement by Goldschmidt I initially balked. Although I am a computer scientist by trade, I come from a family of artists, so the idea that design is not a purely creative and spontaneous process was something of a surprise. However, upon digging deeper into Goldschmidt’s eloquent and engaging book on design, and indeed reflecting on my own work as a software engineer, I was a convert to this way of thinking. Design can be explained and analyzed in such a way as to provide insight into the problem, the solution, and the designer’s process. Linkography--the focus of Goldschmidt’s book--provides one such way of explaining and analyzing the design process. It would, however, be a disservice to think that this book is only about the linkography method; it paints a far broader picture than that. The book is told through the unfolding story of Goldschmidt’s own understanding of design analysis, from her initial work on sabbatical at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1980s, through to cutting-edge advances and uses of the linkography process. This makes the book both interesting and useful, even to those who have no prior knowledge of design modeling.

At the heart of Goldschmidt’s book is the linkography method, a way of capturing the essence of design cognition and behavior by modeling the links among small increments of thought (referred to as “moves”). The resulting linkograph provides a visual snapshot of the entire design process by showing the moves and their relationships in the form of a directed graph. Links between moves can be forward or backward, and give an overall picture of the “how” of the design process. Once produced, linkographs can then be analyzed to gain insight into the design process--when the important decisions were made, how well the design process was executed, and how the overall design came about.

Goldschmidt does not immediately bombard the reader with the technicalities of the linkography method. Rather, she begins in the opening chapters by providing a brief history of the inception of linkography and also an overview of design thinking research. As previously mentioned, this makes the book accessible to nonexperts and experts alike. For those wishing to gently ease themselves into the subject area, chapters 1 to 3 provide a good introduction to the field. For those wishing to gain an understanding of the linkography method without any of the background information, chapters 1 to 3 can be skipped and the book can be picked up from chapter 4.

The book can be coarsely split into three parts: introduction (chapters 1 to 3), overview of the linkography method (chapters 4 to 6), and case studies involving the linkography method (chapter 7). Throughout all of these chapters, examples and diagrams are used to help the reader understand the key concepts and motivation for the work. This is one of the real strengths of Goldschmidt’s book: the liberal use of examples makes it simple for the reader to quickly understand the heart and purpose of linkography. Due to the method’s conceptual elegance, it is possible for the reader to quickly learn how to construct and interpret a linkograph.

In general, the book is well paced and, for the new reader, at an adequate level of detail. The only slight shortcoming is in the discussion of protocol parsing. Linkographs are generated by observing the designers involved and using protocol analysis to transform their verbal communication into the design moves (design moves, “brief acts of thinking,” combine to form the design thinking process). The links between the moves are then obtained empirically. It appears that this initial construction is key, however, little is mentioned on the “how” of this protocol parsing. Perhaps opening a discussion on this subject would shift the focus of the book away from design analysis and more toward cognitive psychology, but slightly more detail on this subject would be beneficial for the novice reader.

Overall, Goldschmidt’s book is an excellent introduction not only to linkography, but also to the explaining and analyzing of design processes. Although the book is aimed at design from an architectural viewpoint, its application could be readily translated to software engineering. After all, many software engineering practices have been borrowed from architecture (for example, design patterns). And if design is logical and “not pure magic,” as Goldschmidt stipulates, the more software engineers who read and engage with books such as this, the better.

Reviewer:  Harry Strange Review #: CR143035 (1504-0278)
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