Created in collaboration with Jack Chung, Shelley Evenson, and Paul Pangaro.

The creative process is not just iterative; it’s also recursive. It plays out “in the large” and “in the small”—in defining the broadest goals and concepts and refining the smallest details. It branches like a tree, and each choice has ramifications, which may not be known in advance. Recursion also suggests a procedure that “calls” or includes itself. Many engineers define the design process as a recursive function:
discover > define > design > develop > deploy

The creative process involves many conversations—about goals and actions to achieve them—conversations with co-creators and colleagues, conversations with oneself. The participants and their language, experience, and values affect the conversations.

See also our How do you design? collection of models.

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Created in collaboration with Satoko Kakihara, Jack Chung, and Paul Pangaro.

This model is built on the idea that play is a type of conversation. It involves two individuals, who might also be teams, or points of view with in a single person, or a virtual person and a real person. Through conversation, they create a shared world in their imaginations, which leads to fun.

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Created in collaboration with Sean Durham, Ryan Reposar, Paul Pangaro, and Nathan Felde.

This model is built on the idea that innovation is about changing paradigms. The model situates innovation between two conventions. Innovations transform old into new. It is a process—a process in which insight inspires change and creates value.

Read the Interactions Magazine Article which explains the process of creating the map.

See also our collection of Innovation Models.

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Increasingly, organizations are focusing on understanding their customers to increase customer satisfaction and to maximize lifetime customer value. Insights gleaned from observing customers can drive product improvement, loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals and cross- and upselling.

Created for CIO Insight magazine, this diagram decodes current methods of customer tracking, retention, and acquisition. It shows the relationship between customer data, touch points, behaviors, data capture systems, customer databases, data integrity, customer segmentation, lists and targeted offers. The goal of the diagram is to provide a model of how organizations today track customers to retain them longer and acquire more.

Read the CIO Insight Magazine Article which accompanies this map.

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Created in collaboration with Paul Devine.

The domain name system stores and associates many types of information with domain names, but more importantly, associates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. DNS is a system vital to the smooth operation of the Internet.

The goal of this diagram is to explain what DNS is, how it works, and how it’s governed. The diagram knits together many facts about DNS in hopes of presenting a comprehensive picture of the system and the context in which it operates.

Hugh Dubberly created this diagram in conjunction with a study: “Internet Navigation and Domain Name System.” The study was run by The National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board which convened a study committee. The study was sponsored by the Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation and mandated by the US Congress.

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Created in collaboration with Audrey Crane.

For many years, Stanford University Cardiac Rehabilitation Program (SCRP) has conducted research on ways to change the behavior of patients who have had heart attacks. Their research is aimed at reducing the risk of a patient having another heart attack. Educating patients and their families is a key component of changing patient behavior.

Working under contract with the American Heart Association, the Stanford team asked DDO to help them develop a master plan for a new education program. DDO developed a series of prototypes of an integrated communications program involving print, video, and online components. One print component, a Health Coach notebook for patients (images below), included educational material, including this concept map. In this map, a patient can quickly see what a heart attack is, its causes and risk factors, and most importantly, behavior that can reduce the risk of a heart attack.

Created in collaboration with Audrey Crane, Jim Faris, and Harry Saddler.

This diagram explains Java by placing it in the context of related concepts and examples, and by defining its major components and other connections between them.

The diagram is intended to help developers who are familiar with one part of Java understand other parts. It relates unfamiliar technologies to ones with which developers may already be familiar. The diagram also provides an overview for developers who are new to Java and an introduction for non-programmers who want to improve their ability to converse with developers.

The completed map contains approximately 235 terms, 425 relationships, and 100 descriptions.

We also created a Flash Version of the map.

This diagram is a model of brand, a term often used in business, marketing, and design. The diagram attempts to present a comprehensive model of brand and to unpack the meaning of the term by providing related concepts and examples. You read the armature of the map (structure) horizontally and vertically. The map is framed around four main ideas:

1. a brand is more than a name or symbol
2. creating a great customer experience is the essence of good branding
3. perceptions of a brand can be measured
4. brands are a form of sign

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The game of baseball provides wonderful subject matter for a concept map.

I introduce design students to the idea and practice of concept maps by assigning them the task of de-constructing the game of baseball and then re-constructing it in the form of a concept map.

My students—at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and San Jose State University—have created numerous concept maps over the years. The students’ maps demonstrate great visual variety and unique approaches to structuring the information.

More information about this assignment, including many student maps, has been posted in article form on the Loop: AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education web site.

We couldn’t know back in 1999 how important Search would become to the Internet. It was important enough to us then—at Netscape—to develop a model to understand how Internet search worked at that time.

Matt Leacock designed this diagram with Hugh Dubberly when both were working at Netscape back in 1999. The model looks at the concepts, systems, and processes involved in Internet Search, including the Data/Document Creation Process, the Data/Document Storage System Process, the Data/Document Retrieval System Process, and the Data/Document Retrieval Process. It also holds a place for the User Context.

Matt suggests that the starting point for reading the diagram is from the point of view of the User.