A Computational Analysis of Tentativeness and Causation in Design Talk

Abstract. Analysing records of design activity such as transcripts or documents have typically involved close reading of transcripts and manual identification of concepts and behaviours. We explore the applicability of a machine-learning based computational tool—called Empath—in identifying high-level patterns in design talk. Specifically, we use it to examine the datasets from the Design Thinking Research Symposium (DTRS) workshops for two contrasting aspects of design talk—the expression of tentativeness that characterises designers’ exploration of the problem-solution space, and the expression of causal reasoning that characterises designers’ analytical thinking. We find that such a tool can be effectively used as a means of “distant reading”. However, the lack of design relevance in the tool’s training data results in ambiguities and mis-categorisations that still need resolution through close reading.