Inquiry By Design Tools For Environment-behavior Research Pdf

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Feb 24, 2019 Shelby rated it liked it

Very interesting case studies for understanding the significance of of implementing neuroscience into the environmental/behavioral design.

May 16, 2013 Deb Stone rated it it was amazing

I don't remember how I came to own this book. Intended for environmental designers, it is an illuminating discussion of social science and public space, but it is so much more than that.

The author discusses how the brain processes and tests information as images and metaphors. He suggests how individuals can present ideas to influence conceptual leaps. For example, he writes that whenever you "restructure the way you look at something, you replace complex reality with a simpler version to guide your reactions and actions." Zeisel states that helping others view a problem is achieved by representation, which he defines as an extreme way of "asserting that 'solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent.'"

His discussion of change as the movement toward a particular goal out of many possible outcomes is relevant to many modes of individual and social change. The book contains informative chapters on focused interviewing and research design. Although this book is written for those designing public spaces, it's an engaging and valuable resource for anyone who wants to better understand social behavior as it pertains to problem solving.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on Concepts, Hypotheses, Tests in which he discusses approaches to and preconceptions, problems, and solutions. His discussion of empirical information is stimulating; his sections on how to form questions, focus interviews, and probe responses are engaging.

I return to this book whenever I want to think deeply about a subject (personal, social, structural, systemic.) Although I stumbled across it quite accidentally, I consider it a valuable reference book for reminding myself how to consider alternative points of view.

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