Improvisational
Design: Continuous, Responsive Digital
Communication
by Suguru Ishizaki
The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2003
167 pp., 64 illus. b/w. Trade, $35.00
ISBN: 0-262-09035-X.
Reviewed by Dene Grigar
Texas Womans University
dgrigar@twu.edu
A highly readable book and accessible to experts and novices
alike, Suguru Ishizakis Improvisational Design: Continuous,
Responsive Digital Communication is an excellent source of information
for digital designers interested in finding ways to improve the process
of dynamic design. Based on three overarching principlesnamely,
that dynamic design is open-ended, functions in much the same way as
improvisational performance, and is based on the work emerging from
multiagent systemsthe book offers, as the title suggests,
a new theoretical framework for continuous, responsive, and dynamic
digital communication. Defined as both a theory and a method (17), improvisational
design "anticipat[es] potential changes in the context and specif[ies]
the communicative forms that design agents should perform according
to their immediate situations" (9). Although it originated as research
for a doctoral dissertation completed in 1995, the ideas the book presents
are still fresh. Those of us who produce interactive media intended
as dynamic and contextual to the user will find much value in reading
Improvisational Design.
The organization of the book is straightforward, offering
nine chapters that each focuses on a particular issue related to improvisational
design. However, chapters one through five provide the groundworkthat
is, the books argument, background, and theories. Specifically,
chapter one lays out the differences between traditional design methods
and those found in improvisational design. Helpful are the diagrams
illustrating the major points the author makes. Chapter two provides
the theoretical framework for the book. Ishizaki makes it clear early
on that he is not developing normative theories, what some of us may
see as a prescription, for design, but rather a method that allows others
"to design a way of designing" (12). Chapter three offers
models of improvisational design. Agents and their properties are fleshed
out in detail, as well as the various approaches to dynamic design,
from "decentralized and lateral interaction" (44) to "the
multiplicity of semantics and the dynamic shift of focus of attention
in the design process" (47), are carefully discussed. Finally,
chapter four discusses issues related to "temporal forms"
or what Ishizaki describes as the "means to describe the design
agents precise formal actions" (51), and chapter five explains
the various methods by which designers "design a design."
The next section, chapters six and seven, presents case studies and
the authors reflections about these studies, respectively. This
section is crucial in developing the argument Ishizaki makes. As mentioned
previously, the ideas presented in the text are still flesh; however,
it is strange that all five examplesa dynamic news display,
an email interface, a piece of interactive poetry, a geographical information
display, and expressive typography projectsused to illustrate
the points he makes in the first section are somewhat dated. So, while
these works aptly underscore his argument, it would have served his
purpose better, in light of recent developments in nightly news as per
CNN and dynamic electronic literary work like those created by Talan
Memmott and Diana Slattery, to find more current examples of what he
describes.
Chapter eight looks at "computational design systems that are used
in digital media to solve design problems at run time" (127), a
concept more prevalent and necessary to consider when designing a site
today than perhaps it was even in 1995; chapter nine offers a succinct
reiteration of the principles outlined in the book.
It is always a source of great consternation to many of us that publishers
do not take advantage of strategies, some of them quite simple, to enhance
the presentation of their books, particularly books on new media requiring
illustrations of design choices, dynamicism, etc. In the case of Improvisational
Design, reproductions of color images in the book into black and
white could have been augmented by a companion website offering the
originals in a dynamic format, just as the examples used in chapter
six would have benefited greatly from the addition of a CD-ROM that
would have allowed for the lack of "fixity" the author focuses
on throughout. At the very least, publishers could pay more attention
to editing in order to eradicate typos as well as errors in the bibliography.
Work as good as Ishizakis deserves more care than has been obviously
given.
In sum, Improvisational Design is an important work and should
be usefulif not necessaryfor teachers and practitioners
of new media, interactive arts, and design.