Anne Connell is a member of the Cyber Security Solutions Directorate of the CERT Division at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. In addition to developing the user experiences for digital forensic tools and training material for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Anne's research focuses on emerging trends and tool development in the fields of forensics, incident response, assessment and risk management.
Specialties: Project management, requirements engineering, information architecture, and design. Managing projects, developing user experiences for digital forensics and incident response tools, training, and services. I love visualizing information and data to enhance both information and information gaps, teaching, information architecture, software design, and user experience.
The simplest way to describe the human-centered design process is to divide it into two phases: analysis and synthesis. But this description misses a crucial element—the connection between the two, the active move from one state to another, the transition or transformation that is at the heart of solving real problems. How do we move from analysis to synthesis? From problem to solution? From current situation to preferred future? From research to concept? From constituent needs to proposed response? From context to form? How do researchers bridge the gap?
The bond model illustrates one way of thinking about the path from analysis to synthesis—the way in which the use of models to frame research results acts as a basis for framing possible futures. It says something more than “then the other thing happens.” It shows how developers and researchers move up through a level of analysis in order to move forward through time to the next desired state. And bond models act as the vehicle for that move.
The bond model is the best way to illustrate this. It is organized as a two-by-two matrix. On one side we represent the analysis (the problem, current situation, research, constituent needs, context). The right column represents synthesis (the solution, preferred future, concept, proposed response, form). The bottom row represents the glue world we inhabit or could inhabit. The top row represents abstractions, models of what is or what could be, which we imagine and share with others. Ideally, the human-centered design process begins with observation and investigation—an inventory (or description) of the current situation.
We make sense of research by analysis, filtering data we collect to highlight points we decide are important or using tools we’re comfortable with to sort, prioritize, and order. We frame the current situation, but move out of the strictly concrete. We define the problem. We interpret. Analysis begins as thoughtful reflection on the present and continues as conversation with the possible. Crucial for progress is documenting and visualizing our analysis, making it possible for us to come back to it, making it possible to imagine alternatives, making it possible ultimately to discuss and agree with others on our framing and definition. We might write down a list of findings or a statement defining the problem. Better still is writing a story. A story describes actors and actions; it suggests relationships, which we may represent in visual form. A story of what happens suggests a model of what is—an interpretation of our research. The process of coming to a shared representation externalizes individual thinking and helps build trust across disciplines and stakeholders.
Having agreed on a model of what is (framed the current situation, defined the problem) then the other side of the coin (the preferred future, the solution) is implied. We can devise stories about what could happen. We can model alternatives in relation to our first bond model. In doing so, we’ve moved to the use and development of bond models of what could be. It is in the realm of abstraction—by thinking with bond models—that we bridge the gap between analysis and synthesis.
