How To Write Tacit Knowledge As a Pattern Language

Media Design for Spontaneous and Collaborative Communities

Takashi Iba, Mami Sakamoto, Toko Miyake

Spontaneous and collaborative community is much sought but hard-to-get in

either physical or virtual community. The difficulty in realizing such communities
comes from the requirement that two conflicting conditions, the freedom of
participants and a whole order, must be satisfied. In order to solve the problem,
Christopher Alexander, an architect, proposed a method named “pattern
language,” which describes the tacit knowledge of local acts to create global
whole order. He and his colleagues have suggested 253 patterns for designing
buildings and cities, and indeed applied them into their practice. After a decade
since it was proposed, the idea of pattern languages was introduced into
computer-software design and has gained wide acceptance. Thus, the
significance of pattern languages as a method to describe tacit knowledge has
been recognized, however little is known about how to make them. Here we
propose a procedure for making pattern languages, demonstrating from our
experience of making “Learning Patterns”, which is a pattern language for
creative learning. To be concrete, the process consists of 10 steps as follows: (1)
understanding the target community, (2) identifying ideal behaviors and
intentions of individuals, (3) writing each of them in the format of “name,”
“problem,” and “solution,” as a essence of the pattern, (4) writing some patterns
in detail as prototypes, (5) improving them through writer’s workshops, (6)
sharing the image of final product, namely the emerging pattern language, (7)
writing all other patterns, (8) improving them through writer’s workshops, (9)
comprehending the structure of the pattern language and adjust the details, (10)
editing the catalogue of the pattern languages. Furthermore, we will also discuss
the importance of visual representation in pattern languages, and show our
examples of illustration. We anticipate that our study demonstrates a new
methodology for designing media for creative community and society.

College, University, Industry Represented: Keio University

Download copies of COINs 2009 research and industry papers at ScienceDirect.

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/59087-2010-999979995-
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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2, Issue 4, The 1st
Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference - COINs2009. Edited by Kenneth
Riopelle, Peter Gloor, Christine Miller and Julia Gluesing.

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