Horst Rittel
| Horst Wilhelm Jacob Rittel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 14, 1930 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | July 9, 1990 (aged 59) Heidelberg, Germany |
| Known for | Wicked Problems, Issue-Based Information Systems, Design Theory |
| Title | Professor |
| Spouse(s) | Anita |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Architecture, Planning, Design Theory |
| Institutions | Ulm School of Design Germany, University of California at Berkeley, University of Stuttgart |
Horst Willhelm Jakob Rittel (14 July 1930 – 9 July 1990) was a design theorist and university professor. He is best known for coining the term wicked problem, but his influence on design theory and practice was much wider.
His field of work is the Science of Design, or, as it also known, the area of Design Theories and Methods (DTM), with the understanding that activities like planning, engineering, policy making are included as particular forms of design.
In response to the perceived failures of early attempts at systematic design, he introduced the concept of 'second generation design methods' and a planning/design method known as Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) for handling wicked problems.
Rittel was born in Berlin. From 1958 to 1963, he was Professor of Design Methodology at the Ulm School of Design in Germany (Hochschule für Gestaltung - HfG Ulm).
He died in Heidelberg, aged 59.
IBIS (for 'Issue-Based Information System') is the instrumental version of the understanding of design as argumentation. It is a method to guide the design process and to reinforce deliberation and argumentation. A number of computer-based versions of IBIS have been and are being developed for various computer systems (personal computers and workstations).
The idea of IBIS was conceived in 1968. It has served as a regular teaching tool, in order to demonstrate the typical difficulties of design and the different ways of dealing with them. IBIS was an idea "waiting for an appropriate technology" in order to become more effective and attractive. The various previous applications have been more or less successful, but have suffered from bureaucratic clumsiness. The recent availability of "hypertext" data-structures and user interfaces - even on small microcomputers and moderately priced workstations - has allowed the design of IBISes which are much more "user-friendly" than their predecessors. Today, we have a number of IBIS-programs, developed and implemented on a variety of machines by PhD-students, most recently by Ph.D. candidate Douglas Noble. In addition, there is an implementation ('gIbis'), developed by MCC (an R&D - corporation in Austin TX, run by a consortium of 25 leading US-computer companies and dissolved in 2004).
There are considerations to make the concept of IBIS the basis of operating systems for future generations of computers. At present, large scale tests of gIBIS as a tool for supporting hard- and software development are under way in several corporations. The use of IBIS as a management tool and as a means for argumentative treatment of technology assessment is also being considered by several companies in Europe and elsewhere.
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