@Tom: that is an excellent point. My own thinking was heading in the direction of sheer logistics and the ability of the design researcher to maintain an appropriate high-level view that will enable those synthesis activities to take place. The addition of a time constraint complicates life for the design researcher, but is also a much better representation of reality for all of us.

The dangers of deconstruction is missing one crucial element, time. Lack of time, or attempting to deconstruct and reassemble in a meaningful way in constricted time leads to the problems you outline. In deconstructing it is important to understand all of the components down to the most granular level possible (given time constraints & hopefully over time get to that level). Understanding where things seem to need most improvement and how elements appear to interrelate is important for narrowing deconstruction when time is short. The state of understanding and knowledge of people interacting with ever changing technology foundation (and the many year adoption cycles) is constantly changing, which is going to modify how we understand all that we do.

The dangers of deconstruction you lay out seem to come down to one common problem, which is the designer keeping many contexts and levels of understanding in tension and view at one time. This is less a problem of deconstruction than a problem of skill level for the person deconstructing. Learning how to deconstruct deeply and broadly is partly tools, but also heavily knowing how to keep many things in tension and within view at once. Having the capability to reconstruct (conceptually or literally) quickly to see how changes at the molecular or sub-molectular level impacts the whole is very important. But, this capability comes from understanding the components we are working with to a very fine grained level. Once things are broken down to their ultimate granular and the various models for how they reconstruct are can be held in view w/ their various correlated and conflicting tensions, then the deconstruction becomes much easier. We are working with various ecosystems that all interrelate and interact (technical, human, information, design, semantic (various definitions), use/reuse, tasks, etc., which all require deconstruction and understanding.

Tasks are insanely complex set of sub-ecosystems with elements and sub-elements. Contextual understandings of place, device, motivations, use, constraints, emotional and intellectual constraints of the people performing tasks, as well as the constraints the task was derived under (which may no longer be viable constraints) is just scratching the surface.

This granularity takes time and resources, which can be collapsed with proper resources (access to data, information, & knowledge). Key to deconstruction under time constraints is having the depth of understanding to know how one or a few discoveries will change the whole. In complex systems that may be incredibly tedious in and of itself, but have large value if done well.

Deconstruction helps identify and clarify problems or opportunities for improvement. But understanding the problem is a level of magnitude below understanding the complexities to resolve or improve the situation. Understanding the level of deconstruction and what levels (untouched) that lay beneath is a very important first step in grappling with deconstruction.

My point is that deconstructing an existing element to its base pieces is PART of the process that needs to co-exist with construction. HOW your build up those grains back into something is as important if not more so than how, why, or what you broke down in the first place.

I think in your previous article you would have alluded to that as synthesis. What I have seen in the design studio is that synthesis is actually the 1st task before analysis. Not always, but often in the case, especially when “research” is not a primary part of the design studio’s processes (something that happens way too often), they build things usually enmasse as a means of doing the deconstruction itself. In your examples it is most akin to the card-sorting methodology. The method of building/synthesizing is brought together with critique to create a deconstruction that is iterated upon through multiple instantiations of construction. The 2 become bound together and their symbiosis is what creates the power to generate ideas and carve them into solutions.