UNDERSTANDING TACIT IN COMPUTER- ARTICLE -2

?Understanding Interpretation

To say that interpretation is central to innovative design is to stress that in order to design the designer must to some degree understand and be able to articulate the significance of the artifact being designed. This may include, for instance, understanding what is desired in a task specification, how possible composite parts of the artifact will function and interact, or how people can use the designed artifact.

According to the analysis presented below, such understanding is possible for people but not for computers. People understand things because they are actively involved with them in the world. The significance of artifacts for a person is determined by the artifacts’ relationships to other artifacts, activities, and people whose significance is already understood as part of the person’s situation. Understanding combines personal and socially shared perspectives on the world. All of this takes place primarily in tacit ways, i.e., un verbalized. However, one’s tacit understanding of something can be partially articulated or expressed explicitly in spoken, written, or graphical language—either to deepen one’s own understanding or to communicate with others. Two aspects of the process of interpretation can be distinguished.

?(1) There is a tacit preunderstanding based on previous background knowledge; items from this preunderstanding can be articulated explicitly.

?(2) There is the possibility of revising that preunderstanding based on discoveries that are opened up by it.

That is, one can interpret something as something that one already knows about, or as a variation that differs from that in ways that are discovered as a result of the breaking of one’s tacit expectations. Accordingly, interpretation in innovative design involves both human understanding of extensive background and a creative ability to revise one’s understandings iteratively. The analysis of interpretation developed below distinguishes three characteristics of interpretation: being situated, having a perspective, and using language.