Cognitive Disentropy Theory - A grid for UX thinking

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hi everyone.\nI’m going to spent the next 5 minutes or so talking to you about a user experience method I came across quite recently that’s really been helping me work out how to do my job more efficiently.\nYou might find it useful in your UX projects. You might not.\n
• #3: So, this method has it roots in something called Cognitive Disentropy Theory.\nThis was devised by a guy called Roger Blake back in 1956 at the University of California.\nAnyone heard of Roger Blake?\nWell, Roger belonged to a rather weird collective of psychomaths called the Adaptive Thought Group, who basically existed to disrupt cognitive mapping by publishing collapsing rules.\n
• #4: The basic premise at the heart of Blake’s Cognitive Disentropy Theory was that there must be a finite set of resolution messages for constructing cognitive grids.\nHowever, he went further than just describing a set, he proposed a number, and that number is 7, which has subsequently been named as ‘Blake’s number’.\nBut what does that number enable us to do in cognitive pattern mapping? \n
• #5: Well, Blake’s extension of his own theorum saw him develop 3 techniques for understanding brain loading and time-bound cognitivity.\nParallel cognitive modelling, saturation state analysis and, most popular, brain mapping, were all based on Blake’s number, and were used extensively throughout generative research in the late 50s and 60s.\nIn fact, so popular was this deterministic research at that time, that Blake became something of a celebrity, which he found difficult to manage, falling into semi-obscurity.\n
• #6: So, scroll forward 50 years, to the Digital Cognitivity Research centre at Ohio State University.\nThere, an enthusiastic young researcher, Jennifer McGuinn (I don’t have a photo of Jennifer, by the way), is studying pattern time-phases in brain modelling.\nIn the dark recesses of the faculty, she comes across some of the early papers from those Cognitive Disentropy sessions and has something of an epiphany.\n
• #7: Now, McGuinn was a skilled researcher, but also a holistic user experience analyst and she saw something in those early research outcomes that was to bring about a big shift in her UX method practice.\nExtending Blake’s Cognitive Disentropy Theory, McGuinn developed an extensible framework for parallel UX which enabled her to dissassemble multiple paradigms - a huge win.\n
• #8: What she later published in 2007, was the basis of her ‘grid for UX thinking’.\nAs you can see here, what that grid enables is a much more deterministic approach to user-centred cognitive modelling.\nImportantly, it helps us understand the saturation states that Blake first identified, and converts them to unbalanced loops for iterative projections.\nAnd, her interpretation of self-selection was a breakthrough moment in brain-mapping.\n
• #9: But how can we use this grid?\nIn this example we have a 6x4 grid which maps the contingent methods for a strategic customer innovation. You probably recognise most of the methods in here.\nThe key to McGuinn’s grid, is the application of Blake’s number.\nRemember that his finite set of resolution messages was 7, so McGuinn uses a technique called ‘unbalanced clustering’ to reduce the grid complexity. \n
• #10: I don’t really have time to go into the detail of unbalanced clustering, but what you end up with are loose associations between method clusters that begin to suggest parallelism. There are a few iterations to go through, but the aim is to get to Blake’s number, 7.\n
• #11: And what you end up with is something like this.\nThis parallelism in UX methods means it’s possible to reduce the overall method envelope but actually support a broad range of techniques in less space and time.\nI think you can probably see the value in this and where it can drastically notionalise concepts.\n\n\n
• #12: Except, of course, this is all utter bollocks.\nThere is no Cognitive Disentropy Theory. There is no grid for UX thinking. There isn’t even a Roger Blake or a Jennifer McGuinn, even though there is, of course, a Blake’s 7.\n
• #13: So, what the fuck am I trying to say?\nWell, I’ve developed my own UX Method Interpolation Theory to deal with all this new method shit I can’t keep up with.\n
• #14: In short, in UX, there are too many methods and too little time. Simply choosing the right methods at the right times is a reasonable strategy.\nBut what does that mean exactly?\n
• #15: Well, much like the best camera being the one you have with you, the best methods are probably the ones you already have.\nThe best and most applicable times to use those methods are probably just when you need to.\nAnd the best interpolation of the wider method set is probably simply the right methods at the right times\n
• #16: And personally, if I’m feeling left behind with new methods or practices that I’m expected to know, I tell myself this:\nYou don’t have to know everything.\nYou’ll never know everything.\nand, actually, as far as UX goes, there isn’t, and will probably never be, an everything.\n\n
• #17: \n