Van Andel’s “patterns of serendipity” are often instances of this broader pattern.

In future work, we would like to explore the usefulness of the somewhat more formal theory of design patterns \cite{alexander1999origins} for designing with serendipity in mind. Alexandrian design patterns are by no means limited to computing: the approach has its origins in architecture and urban planning \cite{alexander1979timeless,alexander1977pattern}.

Design patterns prescribe and describe: they provide models for as well as models of . Thus, when Alexander describes the pattern A place to wait, he is also telling readers that it may be a good idea to consider building a place to wait when designing a living environment.

In connection with our understanding of serendipity as closely associated with deviations from familiar patterns (in the everyday sense of the word), it is interesting to ask how it can play a role in the creation of new design patterns and pattern languages. Noticing and describing a new pattern is almost the antithesis of “pattern recognition” in the usual computing sense.

As a beginning, we examined the 14 “patterns of serendipity” selected and described by van Andel , using the criteria described in our Section \ref{sec:connections-to-formal-definition}. We found all of these patterns do indeed include a focus shift, a prepared mind, a serendipity trigger, a bridge, and a result, although two of the patterns raised questions:

• In the case of Testing popular belief, van Andel focuses on an account of a medical practise that originated in a folk claim, namely cowpox-derived immunity to smallpox. It is challenging in this case to identify one specific serendipity trigger – although a curious chain of events connected Edward Jenner with the smallpox vaccine. It may be most appropriate to think of Jenner himself as the serendipity trigger at the societal level: his “relentless promotion and devoted research of vaccination …changed the way medicine was practised” \cite{riedel2005edward}.

• Inversion is closer to what is called an antipattern in the design pattern literature \cite{brown1998antipatterns}. Van Andel describes the story of a researcher observing an effect due to the anticoagulant heparine which was precisely the opposite of the one sought – factors that cause blood clotting – and then failing to acknowledge that this observation was important for over 40 years. The result was eventually seen to be of value, however, again, this may be a pattern of antiserendipity.

Among the 14 patterns, four are cases of “perfect” serendipity from the point of view of our extended set of criteria (i.e. they included all of the 13 components, dimensions, and environmental factors) – these patterns were Successful error, Side effect, Wrong hypothesis, and Outsider. We wondered whether these were patterns might be used to support serendipity in other settings – such as the Writers Workshop. Table \ref{tab:reinterpret} gives an initial sketch, and initial experiments that will bring this material to computational life are underway.