This refers to any breakdown in the relationship between components in referent 2 (the nth generation of the specified needs).
Not long ago I was working with a new subject for a new exercise in the Think Tank workshop. Participants had to design a course for spies. They had to teach their spy-students how to lip read. Referent 2 was indispensable in deciding who of the
The Five Elements in Referent 2
spy population needed to learn to lip read, how they would be tested, what content (words and language) would be used, what method-and-media (mirrors and fellow spies, for example) would be used and what constraints had to be taken into account. Design decision faults when they related to content and relationships in the workshop participants’ referent 2 were quickly traced. When the exercise was over we discussed the quality of the proposed design. In looking critically at their decision-making, participants knew that faults which sat in their databanks (referent 2) need never have been made!
A fault in your specification- of the needs (the data in your databank) is always an avoidable fault. Referent 2 ‘programs’ you to make decisions that ensure that the basic ingredients of the design (‘end goal’, `success criteria’, ‘content’ and ‘method and-media’) complement each other and that the decisions about each respect existing ‘constraints’. When you, as a designer, fail to respond to this ‘program’, you will only have yourself to blame when breakdowns between the components manifest themselves in the form of poor learning results during developmental testing and/or in an end evaluation of your worked-out design.