M403  

Emergent Interaction

Whilst considering the concept of ‘ontological reciprocity, I was reminded of a study that I had previously read on the design concept of ‘emergent interaction’.  I made a search for it on the web, and found it freely available.

The paper describes itself as a ‘pre- study’ on emergent interaction, and is from Umea University, Sweden.  It defines an ‘emergent interaction system’ as ‘an environment in which a number of actors share some experience/phenomena, and in which part of the interaction among actors in the system emerges via a shared feedback loop’ and ‘the defining requirement of emergent interaction is that this feedback has some noticeable and significant effect on the behaviour of the individuals and the collective.  Something emerges in the interaction, between the individuals, the collective and the shared phenomenon as a result of introducing a feedback mechanism.’ [i] 

The paper gives an illustrative example of emergent behaviour in the human body, as follows:  A human being is made up of individual cells which are organised into 'organelles' or cell structures with specialised functions; the organelle displays emergent behaviour that cannot be predicted from examining the individual cells.  These organelles cooperate to produce the organs and structures that make up the human being; but the behaviour of the human being is also hard to explain from examining the organs.  Further, a population of humans is made up of many individual human bodies; but the emergent behaviour of a population of human beings is also difficult to predict from looking at one human body.

Emergent behaviours are characterised by two main properties.  ‘First, it is difficult to predict the global emerging behaviour by just inspecting the subparts.  Second, it is hard to decide which subparts to use to get a particular desired global emergent behaviour.’ [ii] Various other aspects of emergent behaviour are; that emergent behaviour is determined from the bottom-up; the subparts involved are widely distributed; global behaviour results from the local behaviour of each participating subject/subpart; and emergent behaviours can arise on all levels.

Emergent interaction as a design concept is similar to ontological reciprocity, where interaction between self and other creates the self, and also causes changes in the other.    But it extends this understanding from how we relate to the world, to how one can change the way we relate to the world, which is an interactive process.

Emergent interaction then, is behaviour that is associated with complex systems which cannot be predicted by analysing individual parts, and which can operate on multiple levels, but originating from the bottom-up.  An Emergent Interaction System is an environment in which a number of actors share an experience or phenomena and in which a feedback loop occurs and the feedback has a noticeable and significant effect on the behaviour of the individuals and the collective.  Emergent interaction in design is a way of designing new communication products by looking at the societal effect or communication first, and designing the product to produce that experience or effect.  It is therefore about social phenomena, and could just as usefully be applied as a method for designing projects or activities.  For example if one wanted to alter attitudes to art and creativity in society, and facilitate projects and activities of this type, then one could use emergent interaction design methodologies to plan a strategy.  Emergent design focuses first on the desired overall effect and purpose of the product or application, and the necessary conditions for emergence, and follows this with iterative re-design influenced by analysis of the emergent system.  The authors suggest five possible stages of this methodology:-

1) Consider first the desired final result, on what they refer to as ‘a very high level' in terms of abstract social value or effect. (for example with mobile phone technology, one could presumably examine the social implications of this communication mode).  

2) Design for emergence, creating the necessary requirements for the desired result as far as possible, accepting that accurate predictions are impossible. 

3) Implement and run a prototype.

4) Evaluate the level of success.

5) if the system is a failure, analyse the possible reasons and start again.  If it was partially successful, analyse the emergence that did occur and try to identify the successful design decisions.  Re-design, evaluate and iterate until the results are satisfactory. [iii]