Using Coloured Cognitive Maps to Support Design with a Positive Lens

Abstract

The premise of this paper is that there exists a duality between a positive lens, which focuses on solutions and improvements and a negative lens, which focuses on understanding what problems there are and why they are so. This paper asserts that a focus on a situation with a positive lens should be complemented by use of a negative lens to gain an understanding of undesirable aspects of a problem solution – what the nature of the problem situation is, what its causes are and what the consequences of the problem are. Alleviation of problem situations and obtaining an effective focus on what can be done to improve on problem situations are only possible with real and thorough understanding of them. Only once there is a clear understanding of the problematic situation at hand and any desirable goals of alleviation of the problem(s) and its (their) causes can effective design proceed. This paper proposes employing a new form of cognitive mapping (coloured cognitive maps) as a way to both understand a problem situation (using a negative lens) and as a way to derive proposals for solution means and make decisions about which means are most appropriate (using a positive lens). The shift from problem understanding to design expressly represents a shift in focus from the necessary negative lens to a positive lens focusing on a desirable future state in which understood problems and their causes can be resolved. The proposed technique directly supports this transition and re-focussing.