Communicative attributes are a group of techniques and approaches that are used by craftsmen to clearly understand customers’ wants and needs, as well as conveying back their own ideas.
The research yielded three concepts that will be explained in detail under the title of ‘Communicative Attributes’: Interpretation, Use of simplified language and Prototyping.
4.1.1 Interpretation
Craftsmen neither expect from customers to know what they want exactly, nor do they assume that customers will articulate their requests in the most appropriate way. They rather translate customers’ demands into relevant parameters through their thinking processes.
The research shows that customers tend to use different modalities to voice their wants and needs. Some of them bring along similar products to communicate their demands [1], while others show several photos from magazines to explain their anticipations [2]. In certain cases customers use very specific terms to describe their expectations, which by itself would enclose a definite set of parameters within (e.g. the term ‘grafting knife’ is enough for cutler Hüsnü Altıparmakoğulları to have an idea about certain parameters of the final product, such as size, length and weight [3]).
Figure 4.2: An original design by Altıparmakoğulları crafted according to the demands made by one of his customers. He interpreted his needs and turned
them into design parameters [45].
In most digital customization interfaces, by contrast, customers are expected to express their wants and needs through digital parameters (commonly abstracted as sliders or multiple choice inquiries) (e.g. Url-1, Url-6, Url-7, Url-10, Url-11). In such
interfaces, customers are erroneously treated as professional designers. The ability to aptly parameterize a request is a complicated task for regular users, since their demands are most likely to be comprised of various associative parameters affecting each other. This approach is very unintuitive for the users. In craft customization, designers are not only problem solvers; but they are also definers of the problem. There is a significant diversity in modes by which customers express their demands, and craftsmen are the ones to interpret those demands and turn them into appropriate design parameters [4].
Figure 4.3: Bayramça has various catalogues in his workshop that he utilizes as a medium to better understand customers’ wants and needs.
4.1.2 Use of simplified language
When talking to their customers, most craftsmen use a language that is different from what they would use when talking to a professional. The sentences that they carefully formulate to exchange ideas with clients are stripped away from the unnecessary use of terminology [5]. In some cases, the words that they pick to elaborate their thoughts to the clients may not always be technically accurate. Nevertheless, from a layman’s perspective they are much easier to comprehend [6]. The craftsmen rarely refer to technical terms, and when they are obliged to do so they usually accompany
them with explanations that style them as easy to understand fragments [7]. They have various methods to do this: They describe terms using similar notions from daily language, they bridge the meaning gaps with analogies[8], they expand abbreviations to clarify their contents [9] and at times they even go as far as deconstructing etymologies of concepts [10].
But the instances of simplified language use are not only found in ways by which the craftsmen express themselves – but also in the ways they listen. When customers put their wants and needs in words, they borrow concepts from their plain daily languages and craftsmen play along with them. For instance, when a customer tells cutler Mr. Altıparmakoğulları that he wants a knife made out of hard metal, the seasoned craftsman immediately knows that his client is talking about ‘high-rigidity steel’. However, he does not correct his customer. Quite the contrary, he shifts to the language his customer uses to make him feel more comfortable about the way he expresses himself [11].
Figure 4.4: A ‘five-star’ knife by Altıparmakoğulları. Instead of milimetric dimensions which would potentially be confusing for the customers, cutlers use
stars as indicators of size.
In many digital user customization interfaces, the language used in interfaces is not easy to comprehend by regular users (Kramer, Noronha, Vergo, 2000). Sophisticated terminology is used unreservedly for the sake of factual accuracy. However such
pursuit of accuracy generally means compromising user friendliness (Valerio, 2012). Digital customization interfaces are mediums for users to translate their wants and needs to computer readable data – so they should be treated accordingly. The focus should be on the interaction between user and computer, rather than terminological accuracy (Kramer, Noronha, Vergo, 2000). In craft customization, accuracy of language is usually compromised intentionally in order to have a better understanding of customer demands. The factual accuracy is eventually achieved in craftsman’s thinking and clients are pleased to be able to express themselves without having to use a technical language [11].
4.1.3 Simultaneous visualization
Craftsmen primarily use lingual methods to communicate with their customers. They ask customers about their demands and share their own ideas with them. However in many situations spoken language is not the most efficient way to communicate. For such cases craftsmen develop non-lingual methods to exchange information more effectively. Some of these methods are more conventional, such as freehand sketching or showing photos of a similar object designed previously [12]. Others, like CAD drawings, are somewhat less expected and surprising (but not impossible) to see [13].
Figure 4.5: A quick freehand sketch by Altıparmakoğulları. Freehand sketches are one of the most frequently used ways of visualization in craft customization.
Figure 4.6: CAD drawing by Dağhan. CAD drawings are rare in craft customization scene, but not impossible to come across.
At first glance, this feature of craft customization may not seem like a competitive advantage against digital customization interfaces. After all, most digital customization interfaces provide accurate digital visualizations of the customized objects simultaneously according to the input given by the user. However although these digital visualizations are superior in terms of production speed and precision, they fail to reach the success of their analogue counterparts in certain aspects.
First of all, interventions to representations made by craftsmen require no additional knowledge of a particular medium. Customers can verbally explain craftsmen what they want to be changed, add some additional lines to drawings or shape clay prototypes with their own hands [14]. Contrarily, most digital user interfaces require a period of exploration and adaptation to intervene effectually (Piller and Kumar, 2006). Secondly, almost without exception, outputs of digital customization interfaces are intangible images. Craftsmen, on the other hand, have a tendency to use tangible representations [12] [15]. Their measureless prototypes may not be as accurate as digitally rendered 3D images. However, they nestle other qualities that digital images fail to provide. They accommodate tactile information that helps users better understand the material and they give a more concrete understanding of proportion by which users can have a better grasp of their relative physical existence.
Those qualities turn tangible prototypes into more accurate final products in the eyes of the customer though this might not be theoretically true. Lastly, representation in craft production can take place in real time; it can be seen as a reflection of craftsman’s mental model [16]. Given that the customers are present during the course of representation’s creation process, the design process becomes much more accessible for them to participate. In digital user customization interfaces, reaction to changing inputs (i.e. recreation of the image of customized product) is almost at an instant. Though this might seem advantageous at first, such process does not give any hints about designers’ thinking processes and therefore prevent design representations to realize their full potential in user participation aspect.