Some Wicked Problems of Software Design

Some Wicked Problems of Software Design

Björn HartmannUC Berkeley EECS

Sunday, October 27, 13

From social policy to software


(cc) Eric Fischerhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/3897327276/


Rittel and Webber’s paper describes challenges of planning at the societal level, and particularly the challenges that a classical or rational approach faced at the time of writing. An example problem was that of freeway design - here’s the 1948 plan of a network of freeways for San Francisco including the panhandle and mission freeways and the southern crossing across the bay directly to just about the area where the oakland airport would be built.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/3897327276/






San Francisco Freeway revolt (1959)Photo: Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library, via

http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Freeway_Revolt


As the 1959 freeway revolt showed, the work of professional planners met with increasingly strong public opposition. Rittel and Weber draw a a larger picture of an increasingly diverse, “tangled”, and often antagonistic social context.



People’s Park RiotPhoto: Robert Altman

http://www.altmanphoto.com/Catalog.1.html


Examples of such antagonism include the student revolts in Berkeley



Photo: Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party


and the “urban as a racially charged problem” as we heard in the previous session.Exemplified by the black panther party in Oakland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

What do wicked problems have to do with software?


So what do civil upheaval and the new types of wicked problems that planners faced have to do with software design?

The classical paradigm of science and engineering is not applicable to the problems of open societal systems.”

Rittel and Webber

“


In short, it’s the sense that “classical” approaches don’t work for new types of problems.So transferred to my own domain, Rittel and Webber’s statement ... turns into ...

The classical paradigm of science and engineering is not applicable to the problems of complex software systems”

“


The classical paradigm of science and engineering is not applicable to the problems of complex software systems.So what is the classical paradigm and what should one do instead?

Requirements Capture

DesignSystem

BuildSystem

DevelopmentalTesting

AcceptanceTesting

System in Use


Our “classical approach” of software development is called the waterfall model - an orderly set of stages, to be traversed in sequence. Design takes in concrete requirements and its output then gets thrown “over the wall”.

Source: http://www.everyspec.com/DoD/DoD-STD/DOD-STD-2167_278/


Now earlier on today we heard that consultants may perhaps tell you they follow one model, and do something completely different once the clients have left the room.

However, process models do get enshrined into standards - for example any software developed for the department of defense, had to follow the waterfall as defined in DOD standard 2167.

The waterfall, while rationally appealing, has not fared so well in practice.

http://www.everyspec.com/DoD/DoD-STD/DOD-STD-2167_278/

http://www.everyspec.com/DoD/DoD-STD/DOD-STD-2167_278/

R. N. Charette, Why Software FailsIEEE Spectrum (2005)


Consider this long list of failed software projects that all cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

• over budget

• over time

• unmanageable

• difficult to maintain

• does not fulfill user’s needs

The software crisis


“ Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber defined a 'wicked' problem as one that could be clearly defined only by solving it, or by solving part of it. This paradox implies essentially, that you must 'solve' the problem once to clearly define it and then solve it again to create a solution that works. This process is almost motherhood and apple pie in software development.”

Peters & Tripp (1976), quoted in McConnell, Code Complete, p.74-75


These failures suggest that software design itself is a wicked problem. Computer scientists have made this very connection - For example, Peters and Tripp 37 years ago wrote about the paradox that in wicked problems, one must first solve the problem to understand and define it.


Over the years the language of wicked problems recurs in plenty of Computer Science publications.

1991Sunday, October 27, 13

I want to pick out one in particular since it points out that wickedness seems to be especially inherent to user-facing applications

“ We are now encountering problems of a different nature where the computer is no longer at the center of things — the human is — and the machine is now acting to provide or organize information the humans need to produce results. These are called ‘wicked’ problems, described by Host Rittel and Welvin Webber [1973].”

DeGrace & Stahl (1991)


1996Sunday, October 27, 13

This led to the search for better methodologies of constructing software.In my own area, human-computer interaction, a very influential view was that instead of treating software as a rational planning problem, one should treat it instead as a design problem. Terry Winograd’s edited book bringing design to software certainly did much to advance this perspective.

DESIGN

PROTOTYPEEVALUATE

Dreyfuss, Designing for People, 1955 Lawson, How Designers Think, 1997

Cross, Designerly Ways of Knowing, 2005

Iterative Design


Iterative design acknowledges that fit between problem and solution can only be achieved through repeated testing and improvement.

OBSERVE

VISUALIZE

PROTOTYPEEVALUATE

UNDERSTAND IMPLEMENT


In addition to iteration, we also emphasize the importance of observation, contextual inquiry - the designers adopting the perspective of a target user.


Almost all programs in the field in Human-Computer Interaciton now teach this process, including us here at the Cal Design Lab in Wurster Hall...

Moss Up 2013Moss Up 2013

CITRIS INVENTION LAB

LEARN

LAUNCH

BUILD

Bjoern Hartmann & Eric Paulos Co-Directors 141 Sutardja Dai Hall


...and in the invention lab that Eric Paulos told you about.

Local Commerce

SustainabilityRecycling

LocalPolitics


What do these courses tend to produce? The ones on software often focus on generating new apps. In my undergraduate user interface design course, students design and implement new applications that may be commercial or may have some positive community impact as their motivation.

Image: http://www.techsling.com/2013/06/how-you-can-promote-your-mobile-apps-successfully/


Bringing user-centered desing to software has been fantastically productive:There are now more than 800,000 mobile applications available - and that’s only for iOS.

http://www.techsling.com/2013/06/how-you-can-promote-your-mobile-apps-successfully/

http://www.techsling.com/2013/06/how-you-can-promote-your-mobile-apps-successfully/

macrumors.com april 23, 2013


This development has been profitable, too - Apple reported earlier this year that $9b dollars have been paid to app developers

New industry created

Users empowered

Inefficiencies eliminated

Anachronistic ways “disrupted.”

Success?


So should we declare success? Not so fast...

http://www.jaronlanier.com/futureukuscombo.jpg http://www.amazon.com/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610391381

http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-ebook/dp/B005WTR4ZI


There is a growing literature of discontents with the emergent properties and repercussions of our increasingly softare driven economy. The following are not so much original thoughts but perspectives that resonate with me.

http://www.jaronlanier.com/futureukuscombo.jpg

http://www.jaronlanier.com/futureukuscombo.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610391381








ComputerWorld

http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-employees-and-investors-2012-4

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9243038/As_the_digital_revolution_kills_jobs_social_unrest_will_rise


Consider the following juxtaposition of headlines.They raise the question whether successful apps increase economic disparity.





Does Successful Software Increase Economic Disparity?

• Application platforms aggregate free user contributions

• Economic benefits all accrue to the “platform” operators

• You barely need any people to run the platforms

(Lanier)


Many of our most successful applications follow a recurring pattern:they aggregate information contributed for free by users; app or platform operators reap all the benefits; and it takes a very small team of employees to run such an app. Somewhere along the way, we have collectively decided that “free” is preferable to contributions from creative professionals such as critics, restaurant reviewers, travel writers, journalists, etc.


Beyond free content, there are also many marketplaces that break paid work into small manageable chunks (like delivery through task rabbit or information processing tasks on mechanical turk); or host winner-take-all contests (like 99 designs for graphic design).

Does Successful Software Increase Disparity?

• Work-on-demand increases granularity and flexibility of labor

• Removes hard-fought rights and protections, creating a “Precariat” (Guy Standing)


These sites have many positive aspects such as increasing flexibility for both employers and employees. However, in general, they also tend to be devoid of any labor protections or other “levees” - you may be employed this morning, but not this afternoon. The danger here is that we’re encouraging the formation of as “precariat”, a class of workers who have no safety net or even job predicatability.

How might we create software-driven eoconomic systems that benefit a larger number of their participants?

A wicked problem:


This leads to a first wicked problem I’d like you to consider.

Limits of Technological Solutionism

• While design as a process may be wicked, are the problems that are tackled in Silicon Valley only tame?

• 99c apps as a (limited) genre

(Morozov)


There’s also a danger of redirecting too much of our collective intellectual energy into a particularly narrow genre of applications - this genre naturally has its limits and also tends to encourage thinking in terms neat engineering solutions - in many ways a retreat to “tame” problems.

How might we channel enthusiasm and entrepreneurship towards activities that balance approchability and impact?

A wicked problem:


Which leads to a second wicked problem for you to consider.