Design from Zeroth Principles

Jordan W. Suchow, Michael D. Pacer, Thomas L. Griffiths

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A successful design accounts for the structure of the problem it is aimed at solving. When it is a human-directed design, this includes the expectations of its users. How do we arrive at such a design? One approach starts from first principles (e.g., simplicity, unity, symmetry, balance) to evaluate the quality of proposed designs. Here, we introduce design from zeroth principles, a form of human-in-the-loop computation that synthesizes a design that conforms to its users' expectations. The technique begins by constructing a transmission chain seeded with a random design. Each user in the chain is exposed to the design and then recreates it, passing along their recreation to the next user, who does the same. Through this iterative process, the users' perceptual, inductive, and reconstructive biases directly transform the initial design into one that is better fit to human cognition. Such designs are easier to learn and harder to forget. We evaluated the approach in three domains - stimulus-response mappings, vanity phone numbers, and letter placement in typeset words - and show that it produces a good design in each.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
EditorsAnna Papafragou, Daniel Grodner, Daniel Mirman, John C. Trueswell
Pages1505-1510
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196739
StatePublished - 2016
Event38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 - Philadelphia, United States
Duration: 10 Aug 201613 Aug 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016

Conference

Conference38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPhiladelphia
Period10/08/1613/08/16

Keywords

  • cognitive ergonomics
  • design
  • inductive bias
  • transmission chain
  • user interface

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