Sources: Axel Roesler, an annotated bibliography

Photo: UW Comparative History of Ideas faculty page; credit not stated. Cropped square.

For the "Sources" of Qpoint's design methodology (brand/design_methodology.md). Roesler chaired Mark Parson's 2007 UW master's thesis Looking In: An Examination of Design as Method (the thesis front matter lists "Axel Roesler Ph.D. / Chair").

Compiled 2026-10-20. Every entry below was checked against a publisher record, Crossref, OpenAlex, OhioLINK, David Woods's OSU CV, Roesler's Google Scholar profile, or the text itself. Quotes are verbatim and kept under 15 words. "Read" means I read the full text. "Record only" means I worked from the abstract or metadata.

Start here: ranked by relevance to our methodology

The next tier: Hoffman, Roesler & Moon (2004) on what "design" means (paywalled), Roesler (2011) on interaction design in expert domains (author-hosted), and Roesler's 2001 MFA thesis on composing 3-D form from music (open on OhioLINK; relevant to assemblage).

Background (verified)

• PhD, Cognitive Systems Engineering (specialization: Human-Centered Design), The Ohio State University, 2005. OhioLINK records the degree as a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering, advisor David D. Woods. Sources: UW profile https://art.washington.edu/people/axel-roesler and the OhioLINK ETD record.
• Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory (CSEL), OSU, with David Woods: confirmed. From 2001 to 2005 Roesler co-authored with Woods, James Tittle, Magnus Feil and David Tinapple, including several CSEL "MediaPaper"/multimedia productions listed in Woods's OSU CV (https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/4/103481/files/2021/11/woods_cvrefs_019.pdf). The work was funded under the Army Research Lab's Advanced Decision Architectures CTA.
• MFA, Industrial Design (Research & Development), Ohio State, 2001 (advisor Reinhart Butter). Diplom, Industrial Design, Burg Giebichenstein, Halle, Germany, 2000.
• UW roles (per the UW profile):
  • Joined the Division of Design in 2005 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. Now Professor of Interaction Design and Chair of the Division of Design.
  • Founding faculty of the Interaction Design program (MFA/MDes concentration 2006; BDes 2012).
  • Founding member of UW DUB (2005).
  • Founding faculty of the MHCI+D program (2013); interim director for cohorts 7 and 9.
  • Adjunct in HCDE; affiliate faculty in CHID.
  • Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed University Professorship (2018–2023).
• Research interests he lists: interaction design for high-stakes work, line-of-sight interaction in XR, design and cognition / sensemaking, distributed cognition and visual storytelling, and "envisioning, design methods, and design process".
• Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mUXUH7AAAAAJ (about 940 citations, h-index 12, as fetched 2026-10-20).

Annotated entries

1. Inventing the Future of Cognitive Work (2005): RANK 1

Citation. Roesler, A., Woods, D. D., & Feil, M. (2005). Inventing the future of cognitive work: Navigating the "Northwest Passage." In W. Jonas, R. Chow, & N. Verhaag (Eds.), Design—System—Evolution: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of the European Academy of Design (EAD06), University of the Arts, Bremen, March 29–31, 2005 (pp. 209–227). No DOI. Woods's CV gives the editors. The page numbers are printed on the PDF. Scholar has a duplicate record that adds "…in Design" to the title.

Summary (read).

• Claims about how new technology will change expert work keep missing what actually happens. The authors give two reasons: those claims ignore findings on how people cope with complexity, and the people making them can only imagine a narrow range of ways to express new capabilities.
• They propose the de:cycle, which coordinates three roles: the practitioner, who adapts to complexity; the innovator, who envisions what would be useful; and the technologist, who brings change into practice.
• The roles are linked by "handover marks": listening to stories, developing scenarios, developing concepts, building prototypes and detailing for production.
• The "Northwest Passage" is the hardest, least documented stretch of design: the move from an abstract model of the work to concrete design seeds.
• In that stretch, ideas are hypotheses tested by broadening, which resists premature narrowing.

Quote. "storytelling provides the framework to share and develop simulated futures" (p. 223)

Relevance: very strong.

• It states our "forming the problem" principle in CSE terms. The paper's line "Designing formulates hypotheses about change" (p. 214) pairs with Rittel & Webber.
• Functional decomposition into an abstract model of the work matches our decomposition/modularity.
• Handover products as shared representations match the thesis's "shared consciousness" through problem modeling.
• Broadening against premature closure is our edge of chaos / early freedom, later order.
• Storylines and animocks match design as telling the problem's story.
• It cites Alexander (1964) and Jones (1970), the thesis's own primary texts.

Full text.

• Open, author-hosted (UW): https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/design_cycle2005.pdf (application/pdf, 1,669,592 B).
• A ResearchGate copy uploaded by co-author Woods also exists (publication 228668738). That is a legitimate author upload, but I couldn't open it (403).

2. Designing for Expertise (2008): RANK 2

Citation. Roesler, A., & Woods, D. D. (2008). Designing for expertise. In H. N. J. Schifferstein & P. Hekkert (Eds.), Product Experience (pp. 215–237). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008045089-6.50011-3. The chapter's pages are marked © 2007, and Woods's CV dates it 2007. Crossref and ScienceDirect give 2008.

Summary (read).

• Expertise rests on a deep conceptual model of a domain. Design shapes how that model is built and used, because it supplies the external representations through which people see the world.
• Designers working in expert domains face the "Ethnographer's Challenge": they must be part insider and part outsider.
• Interdisciplinary teams fail when they just juxtapose specialists. Visual designers chase simplicity while engineers know complexity can't be simplified away.
• Section 3 links eminent expertise with innovation and proposes design methods as a way to demystify innovation. It then frames the design process as structuring "resource pools".

Quote. "Design builds tangible models people can play off as they envision future possibilities" (p. 218)

Relevance: strong.

• The thesis argues that creativity can be understood and demystified. This chapter argues design methods could "demystify innovation" (p. 227).
• "Experts decompose complex situations into manageable chunks" (sec. 2.2) supports decomposition.
• Its rejection of "simple solutions to complex problems" fits the wicked problems framing.
• Tangible models for envisioning fit forming the problem.
• The point that external representations shape how practitioners see their world supports visibility before control.

Full text.

• Author-hosted (UW): https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/CH8expertise_2006.pdf (application/pdf, 552,151 B).
• These are Elsevier's typeset pages ("CH008.indd") posted on the author's university server. It is not a third-party mirror, but the posting rights aren't stated.
• Publisher copy (paywalled): ScienceDirect.

3. Lessons from Three Mile Island (2009): RANK 3

Citation. Roesler, A. (2009). Lessons from Three Mile Island: Visual information design in a high-stakes environment. Visible Language, 43(2/3), 170–197. This was a special issue on design communication error. No DOI.

• The title varies across records: "Visual Design…" on the publisher page and "The Design of Interactions…" in one Scholar record.
• The page range varies too: the PDF header says 170–195 and its running footer says 170–197.

Summary (read).

• Uses the first critical minutes of the 1979 TMI accident to study systems that are controlled at a distance through representations.
• Operators faced around 2,400 displays. The paper argues the failure was partly a representation failure: the displays showed isolated readings, not the relationships between failures or their trends, so the severity stayed hidden.
• It calls for collaboration between communication designers, interaction designers and engineers on process displays.

Quote. "showing relationships rather than isolated instances"

Relevance: strong, the clearest Roesler source for visibility before control.

• Control fails when the system's state is opaque. Representation has to show relationships, which is what Qpoint does by making flows, not just events, visible.
• It is also a concrete case of a problem that only became workable once someone gave it visible form.

Full text.

• Open, author-hosted: https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/three_mile_island_2009.pdf (application/pdf, 519,014 B).
• Also open from the publisher (Visible Language archive, University of Cincinnati, diamond OA): https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5821. The PDF is at https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/download/5821/4685. HEAD returns application/pdf with no Content-Length; the file is over 10 MB, judging by the fetch limit.

4. Design is Telling (Sharing) Stories about the Future (2001/2004): RANK 4

Citation. Roesler, A., Feil, M., & Woods, D. D. (2001). Design is telling (sharing) stories about the future MediaPaper CD. Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory, Institute for Ergonomics, The Ohio State University. https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/animock

• The 2001 citation comes from both the 2005 EAD paper's reference list and Woods's CV.
• The web PDF is titled "animock: design tells (shares) stories about the future" and dated 10-11-2004. Search metadata lists its credits as Roesler, Woods, Schoenwald, Chapman, Feil, Puskeiler and Tinapple.
• A related item, "Design is sharing stories about the future", appears in Scholar as Proc. CTA Conference (2003). I couldn't verify its details.

Summary (record only; PDF not read). Design is the making and sharing of stories about how future work could go, with the designed object as an agent of change in a field of practice. Each stakeholder's view of that future is partial. Comparing where views overlap and where they leave gaps is how a team handles the uncertainty of envisioning. The "animock" (animated mock-up) turns research findings into general storylines as a shareable, revisable visual narrative. That last point is from the 2005 EAD paper, p. 223.

Quote. None verified (PDF not read).

Relevance: strong. This is where design as telling the problem's story comes from, the thesis's "expert problem storytellers". It also bears on assemblage: synthesis across partial perspectives.

Full text.

• Open, hosted by Woods's lab at OSU: https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/animock/CSELanimock_web.pdf (application/pdf, 3,416,831 B; last modified 2015-10-29). The landing page is https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/animock/ (HTML, 200).
• Flag: the server's TLS certificate is for *.osu.edu, not csel.eng.ohio-state.edu, so browsers will show a certificate warning. The source itself is legitimate.
• A Wayback snapshot of the original page exists from 2003-09-20 (not read).

5. Connecting Design with Cognition at Work (2008): RANK 5

Citation. Woods, D. D., & Roesler, A. (2008). Connecting design with cognition at work. In H. N. J. Schifferstein & P. Hekkert (Eds.), Product Experience (pp. 199–213). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008045089-6.50010-1

Summary (read).

• The chapter contrasts two views of design. In one, people are limited and need prostheses. In the other, people are active, adaptive agents who re-design artifacts through use.
• In the second view, designs are stimulants in adaptive cycles: they release or hobble expertise, and the result follows the "Law of Stretched Systems".
• It separates micro-cognition (good for finding where a design limits performance) from macro-cognition: anomaly recognition, sense making, joint activity and replanning.
• Macro-cognition "participates in innovation". It gives early design directions and criteria before any prototype exists.

Quote. "There is no neutral." (the chapter's epigraph, quoting Woods 2002)

Relevance: moderate to strong.

• A design is a claim about how work will change. That pairs with forming the problem and with framing our product as a design instrument.
• Sense making and anomaly recognition are what a visibility product supports.
• It cites Alexander on design's responsibility to connect technology to people's adaptive power.

Full text. Author-hosted (UW): https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/CH7cognition_2006.pdf (application/pdf, 493,089 B). These are Elsevier typeset pages ("CH007.indd"); posting rights aren't stated. Paywalled at ScienceDirect.

6. Is Good Design a Result of Science, or an Evolution of Ideas? (2016): RANK 6

Citation. Roesler, A. (2016, November 3). Is good design a result of science, or an evolution of ideas? Big Think. Reposted by UW Innovation.

Summary (read, UW repost).

• Innovation centers on people. Specs and scientific discovery can't be the starting point.
• Design differs from science. It forms hypotheses about what could be better and learns by testing them in the world.
• Products evolve as users work around them and designers respond, so innovators have to keep revising.

Quote. "Design doesn't usually start with a problem that requires a solution."

Relevance: moderate.

• A plain-language statement of forming the problem (the problem isn't given) and the evolution mode.
• His line "Innovating is hypothesis testing" matches the 2005 paper.
• Useful as a citable, readable summary for non-academic audiences.

Full text.

• Open: https://www.washington.edu/innovation/2016/11/03/is-good-design-a-result-of-science-or-an-evolution-of-ideas/ (UW repost).
• Original: https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/does-21st-century-innovation-have-to-be-people-friendly/ (returned 403 to my fetcher).
• UW listing: https://art.washington.edu/research/publications/good-design-result-science-or-evolution-ideas

7. What Is "Design" in the Context of Human-Centered Computing? (2004)

Citation. Hoffman, R. R., Roesler, A., & Moon, B. M. (2004). What is design in the context of human-centered computing? IEEE Intelligent Systems, 19(4), 89–95. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2004.36

Summary (record only).

• Traces where the concept of "design" came from and tests modern assumptions about design against the principles of human-centered computing.
• Argues that "form follows function" breaks down once an artifact's workings are electronic.
• Argues that HCC principles state design challenges rather than recipes.

Quote. None verified.

Relevance: moderate. A history and definition of design, close to the thesis's Part One question of what design is. It also says principles aren't recipes, which matches "rules are means, not ends" in our formula mode.

Full text. Paywalled (IEEE Xplore 1333041; ACM DL). ResearchGate lists it (3454212); I couldn't confirm an author upload. No legitimate open copy found.

8. Interaction Design in High-stakes Domains (2011)

Citation. Roesler, A. (2011). Interaction design in high-stakes domains: The impact of design at the intersection of expertise and technology. Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, 5(5). Common Ground. https://doi.org/10.18848/1833-1874/CGP/v05i05/38212

Summary (read: abstract and introduction).

• A case study of the UW Interaction Design × Boeing Flight Deck Concept Center collaboration.
• It asks how designers new to an expert domain build enough domain understanding to propose innovations, and what interdisciplinary collaboration strategies make that work.
• It contrasts consumer design, whose theme is "otherness", with expert domains, whose theme is consistency.

Quote. "their defining design theme is consistency"

Relevance: moderate. Qpoint designs for an expert domain (security and governance). The guidance on building domain understanding before proposing, and on consistency, maps to archaeology and replicate first.

Full text. Open, author-hosted: https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/flight_deck2011.pdf (application/pdf, 3,696,229 B). Common Ground leaves copyright of individual papers with the author(s), so author hosting is legitimate.

9. A Compositional Based Approach to 3-Dimensional Form Generation in Product Design Based on Music (2001, MFA thesis)

Citation. Roesler, A. (2001). A compositional based approach to 3-dimensional form generation in product design based on music (MFA thesis, The Ohio State University; advisor Reinhart Butter). OhioLINK ETD osu1391699743. 268 pp.

Summary (record only).

• Compares the compositional concepts that music and product design share.
• Develops a technique that translates any piece of music into a 3-D visual structure, then applies it to three pieces in three styles.
• Uses the resulting forms to guide three stereo designs, drawing on architectural principles of visual order and on product semantics.

Quote. "generate three-dimensional visual structure from any given music piece" (abstract)

Relevance: moderate (unread). It is close kin to the thesis's assemblage argument, which uses the analogy of 12 notes and their chords: form composed from existing elements, translated across media. Worth a look to see whether the thesis's music analogy came from Roesler's teaching. That connection is my speculation.

Full text. Open (OhioLINK ETD): https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1391699743&disposition=inline. HEAD returns application/pdf with no Content-Length; the ETD record states 8.13 MB. Record: https://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1391699743

10. Envisioning Human–Robot Coordination in Future Operations (2004)

Citation. Woods, D. D., Tittle, J., Feil, M., & Roesler, A. (2004). Envisioning human–robot coordination in future operations. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C, 34(2), 210–218. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMCC.2004.826272

Summary (record only).

• Robot developers underestimate how much coordination with people autonomous systems need.
• The paper sets out open problems: supporting the people who hold the problem and handle the robots, ambiguity in remote perception, helping operators anticipate robot behavior, and assigning responsibility in mixed teams.
• It is Roesler's most-cited work, at about 300 citations on Scholar.

Quote. "Automata are brittle as literal minded agents" (abstract, via ASU Pure record)

Relevance: moderate. An envisioning case (an envisioned world problem in practice). It's also topical for agentic AI: humans need to see and anticipate what automated agents are doing.

Full text.

• Paywalled at IEEE.
• ResearchGate lists it (3421565); I couldn't confirm an author upload (403).
• ASU Pure has the record (abstract only): https://asu.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/envisioning-human-robot-coordination-in-future-operations/

11. Keeping It Too Simple (2004)

Citation. Feltovich, P. J., Hoffman, R. R., Woods, D. D., & Roesler, A. (2004). Keeping it too simple: How the reductive tendency affects cognitive engineering. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 19(3), 90–94. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2004.14. Woods's CV gives the title as "Looking at Cognitive Engineers Doing Cognitive Engineering: Implications of the Reductive Tendency…".

Summary (record only). Designers of cognitive systems fall into the same "reductive tendency" as the people they design for. They oversimplify complex domains, and that oversimplification resists correction.

Quote. None verified.

Relevance: moderate.

• A warning against premature, oversimplified problem formulation. It underpins replicate first, optimize later ("premature optimization is premature problem formulation").
• It respects how hard wicked problems really are.

Full text. Paywalled (IEEE). No legitimate open copy found.

12. A New Model for Perspective: The Role of Point of Observation in Virtual and Remote Perspective-Taking (2005, PhD dissertation)

Citation. Roesler, A. (2005). A new model for perspective: The role of point of observation in virtual and remote perspective-taking (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University; advisor David D. Woods). OhioLINK ETD osu1133297173.

Summary (record only).

• Where you look from, and in which direction, decides whether a view of remote or virtual activity is usable.
• Proposes a framework that pairs in-scene views with distant overviews ("long shots").
• Turns that framework into a concept for a 3-D view-control interface.

Quote. "Perspective-taking is observing activities on a stage from a location" (abstract)

Relevance: moderate. It bears on visibility: overview plus in-scene detail is the structure of a topology view such as qmap, with an overview and drill-down. Weaker on method.

Full text. Open (OhioLINK ETD): https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1133297173&disposition=inline. HEAD returns application/pdf with no Content-Length; the record states 6.31 MB.

13. Designing Affordances for Direct Interaction (2016)

Citation. Roesler, A., Churng, S., Bader, S., & Park, H. (2016). Designing affordances for direct interaction. The International Journal of Designed Objects, 10(2), 1–16. Common Ground. https://doi.org/10.18848/2325-1379/CGP/v10i02/1-16. OpenAlex and Scholar list Roesler alone; the PDF lists four authors.

Summary (read: abstract). Traces affordances from Gibson through Neisser's perceptual cycle to Norman. Proposes a framework for affordances as directly actionable representations, illustrated with a next-generation primary flight display.

Quote. "the right information for action at the right moment in the right form"

Relevance: weak to moderate. A display-design principle relevant to how the product surfaces findings for action. Not a methodology source.

Full text. Open, author-hosted: https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/affordances_AF447_2016.pdf (application/pdf, 756,777 B). Authors retain copyright (Common Ground).

14. A New Model for Perspective: Patterns of Perspective Change… (2011)

Citation. Roesler, A. (2011). A new model for perspective: Patterns of perspective change and the ecology of point of view and resulting image. The International Journal of the Image, 1(4). https://doi.org/10.18848/2154-8560/CGP/v01i04/44223

Summary (read: abstract). Brings motion into the study of perspective. Patterns of perspective distortion as the viewpoint moves reveal where the observer stands relative to the scene. They also hint at what is hidden from view and could be revealed by moving.

Quote. "the model provides clues for what is obstructed from view"

Relevance: weak to moderate. A metaphor for visibility (what's hidden until you move your point of view). Mostly perception theory.

Full text. Open, author-hosted: https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/perspective_2011.pdf (application/pdf, 1,313,869 B). Authors retain copyright.

15. Video Prototyping for Interaction Design Across Multiple Displays in the Commercial Flight Deck (2017)

Citation. Roesler, A., Holder, B. E., Ostrowski, D., Landes, N., Minarsch, S., Ulgen, D., Murphy, E., & Park, H. (2017). Video prototyping for interaction design across multiple displays in the commercial flight deck. In Proceedings of DIS '17 (pp. 271–283). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3064663.3064800

Summary (record only). Develops video-prototyping techniques for interactions spanning multiple flight-deck displays, drawing on the history of human–machine interaction from analog instruments to glass cockpits.

Quote. "video prototyping techniques for spatially aligned interactions" (abstract)

Relevance: moderate. It applies the animock idea (telling stories about the future through moving mock-ups) in a later practice, the same move as our captured, animated mocks.

Full text.

• Author-hosted: https://faculty.washington.edu/roesler/publications/flight_deck_DIS2017.pdf (application/pdf, 7,859,468 B). The title is inferred from the filename; I didn't open the file. ACM permits authors to post their own versions.
• Paywalled at the ACM DL.

16. Zeigen, wie es sein wird: Interaktion und Design (2012)

Citation. Roesler, A. (2012). Zeigen, wie es sein wird — Interaktion und Design "Showing how it will be: Interaction and design". In S. Reiter, S. Unger, & V. Widrich (Eds.), Inszenierung und neue Medien / Presentation and New Media: 10 Years checkpointmedia (pp. 172–199). Springer Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0981-6_17. The book launched in November 2011; Crossref dates it 2012.

Summary. Not available. There is no abstract, and I couldn't access the chapter.

Relevance: likely strong, unverified. The title is the storytelling-about-the-future thesis in German. Worth obtaining.

Full text. Paywalled (Springer). No open copy found.

17. Practice-Centered Design of an Anesthesia Medication Template… (2019)

Citation. Roesler, A., Grigg, E. B., Martin, L. D., Ross, F. J., Feil, M., Rampersad, S. E., Haberkern, C. M., & Martin, L. D. (2019). Practice-centered design of an anesthesia medication template to reduce medication handling errors in the operating room. International Journal of Design, 13(1). No DOI.

Summary (record only).

• A design case. Observation and cognitive analysis of medication workflows, done with physicians as co-designers, produced a low-cost standardized syringe layout.
• The layout was refined through prototypes tested in simulation and in the work setting.
• Four years of data show safety improvements, and other US centers have adopted it.

Quote. "a low cost, standardized layout template" (abstract)

Relevance: weak to moderate. A worked example of practice-centered design: field study, then an abstract model, then iterated prototypes, then evidence. It shows the de:cycle in practice.

Full text. Open, CC BY 4.0:

• Article page: https://ijdesign.org/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/3201
• PDF: https://ijdesign.org/index.php/IJDesign/article/download/3201/841 (application/pdf, 3,011,157 B)

18. Lower-relevance verified works (brief)

• Tittle, J. S., Roesler, A., & Woods, D. D. (2002). The remote perception problem. Proc. HFES 46th Annual Meeting, 46(3), 260–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120204600309. Remote video omits the cues people use to build a coherent spatial picture. Relevance: weak (visibility, perceptual). Paywalled (SAGE).
• Tittle, J. S., Woods, D. D., Roesler, A., Howard, M., & Phillips, F. (2001). The role of 2-D and 3-D task performance in the design and use of visual displays. Proc. HFES 45th Annual Meeting, 45(4), 331–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120104500414. Information in 3-D displays may work better as qualitative distinctions than as precise magnitudes. Relevance: weak, though it touches 3-D visualizations like qmap. Paywalled.
• Morison, A., Voshell, M., Roesler, A., Feil, M., Tittle, J., Tinapple, D., & Woods, D. D. (2009). Integrating diverse feeds to extend human perception into distant scenes. In P. McDermott (Ed.), Advanced Decision Architectures for the Warfighter (pp. 177–). Source: Woods's CV. Relevance: weak.
• Woods, D. D., Tinapple, D., Roesler, A., & Feil, M. (2002). Studying cognitive work in context: Facilitating insight at the intersection of people, technology and work multimedia production. CSEL, OSU. https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/woodscta/ (HTML, 200; not read, certificate mismatch). Relevance: moderate (archaeology: studying practice before designing).
• Woods, D. D., Roesler, A., Feil, M., & Tinapple, D. (2002). Steering the reverberations of technology change on fields of practice: Laws that govern cognitive work multimedia production. CSEL. https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/laws/ (HTML, 200; not read). The companion CogSci 2002 paper is by Woods (open on eScholarship). Relevance: moderate.
• Roesler, A., Tittle, J., & Woods, D. D. (2002). View tracks: 3-D virtual displays are viewpoint dependent MediaPaper CD. CSEL. Source: Woods's CV. Relevance: weak.
• Grigg, E. B., & Roesler, A. (2018). Anesthesia medication handling needs a new vision. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 126(1), 346–350. https://doi.org/10.1213/ANE.0000000000002521. Calls current practice "primitive, fragmented, and cavalier" and argues for human-centered design from aviation. Relevance: weak. Paywalled.
• Grigg, E. B., Martin, L. D., Ross, F. J., Roesler, A., et al. (2017). Assessing the impact of the anesthesia medication template on medication errors during anesthesia: A prospective study. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 124(5). https://doi.org/10.1213/ANE.0000000000001823. Hybrid OA. Relevance: weak (clinical evidence).
• Grigg, E., & Roesler, A. (2023). Using human-centered design to create a safer anesthesia workspace. In Patient Safety and Quality Improvement in Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (pp. 10–24). Cambridge UP. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108125758.003. Relevance: weak.
• Grigg, E. B., Palmer, A., Grigg, J., Oppenheimer, P., Wu, T., Roesler, A., Nair, B., & Ross, B. K. (2014; online 2013). Randomised trial comparing… electronic emergency documentation system with the AHA paper cardiac arrest record. Emergency Medicine Journal, 31(10). https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2013-202512. Relevance: weak.
• Douglass-Olberg, C., et al. incl. Roesler, A. (2008). The new face of procedural content. CHI '08 Extended Abstracts, 3495–3500. https://doi.org/10.1145/1358628.1358880. This is a panel. Relevance: weak.
• Talk: Roesler, A. (2019, October 10). Into the Line of Sight public talk, 46 min. UW School of Art + Art History + Design. https://art.washington.edu/research/exhibitions/line-sight. The page lists a recording but gives no video link. Relevance: unknown.

Adjacent (not Roesler): works he builds on

Roesler cites these in the 2005 paper. They are the origin of several ideas sometimes attributed to him.

• Woods & Dekker (2000), "Anticipating the effects of technological change", Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 1(3), 272–282. This is the envisioned world problem, with four oversimplifications: plurality, underspecification, ungroundedness, miscalibration.
• Woods (1998), "Designs are hypotheses about how artifacts shape cognition and collaboration", Ergonomics, 41, 168–173.
• Hollnagel & Woods (2005), Joint Cognitive Systems.
• Dekker & Woods (1999), Cognition, Technology & Work, 1, 86–96.

Full texts

Local copies of the open full texts by Roesler, downloaded on 2026-10-20 from their institutional or author hosts. Sizes match the hosts. The other entries are paywalled, library-only, or of unclear posting rights, so they are given as links only.

Could not verify

• Papers from 1995–1998 under "Axel Roesler" with S. G. McLellan: CHI '95 "What help do users need?", IEEE Software 1998 "Building more usable APIs", IEEE Trans. Prof. Comm. 1996, and IEEE TSE 1998. OpenAlex merges these into his profile, but they are probably a different person. They're absent from his Google Scholar profile, and he was studying in Halle until 2000. Don't cite them.
• A Roesler paper titled "the envisioned world problem" doesn't exist. The concept is Woods & Dekker (2000). Roesler applies it (2005, p. 215).
• "Joint cognitive systems" as a Roesler work: none found. The term is Hollnagel & Woods (2005).
• Papers in Design Issues or Cognition, Technology & Work by Roesler: none found.
• ORCID: none found (OpenAlex shows no ORCID). DBLP, Semantic Scholar, ResearchGate and EconBiz blocked or rate-limited my fetches. ResearchGate pages for several items exist (profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Axel-Roesler), but I couldn't confirm which hold author uploads.
• "Design is sharing stories about the future", Proc. CTA Conference (2003): in Scholar only; venue details unverified.
• The animock PDF's content and its 2001 vs. 2004 dating: not read, because of the certificate mismatch and the HEAD-only rule. Credits and dating come from search metadata.
• Big Think original page: 403. I read the UW repost instead; its text may differ slightly.
• Content of Zeigen, wie es sein wird (2012): no abstract, chapter not accessed.
• Google Scholar extras not independently checked: US patent application 12/789,030, "Spherical view point controller and method for navigating a network of sensors" (Morison, Woods & Roesler, 2012); several advised MDes theses listed under his name.
• The 2011 workshop "Interaction Design in High Stakes Domains" at the 5th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, Rome: confirmed by a UW news item, but published only as entry 8.