OK guys, let's go strait --

Can you imagine laymen treating sick people, laymen flying your Jumbo jet,
laymen, laymen doing this and that when you go to a service provider. But
when it comes to design -- you can see laymen designing the whole world.

The issue is not about laymen making design -- the issue is about
developing design programs/briefs that reflect balanced social and
individual needs. That is what I am talking about for years, but nobody
wants to hear it.

The whole discussion that goes for years can be eliminated if designers
consider the position of the intermediary -- design programmer/brief
makers. Than designers will do design, and programmers will do user
research. Of course, the boundaries of these responsibilities are
overlapping, but such a model will alleviate designers from the need to
engage in activities they are not trained for. The customer/user interest
will be served, and the providers will have to consider the stakes of the
ordinary person as well as all groups affected by the product. It is so
simple. However, the design profession has no guts to rinse itself from
programming and let it go as a separate specialization. Designers want too
much power and attention.

It is more attractive to make political discourse and two pull out of the
history chest practices from the middle ages. Actually the empowerment
practices have hidden stagnation effect for the people who are objects of
empowerment action. This is probably the most effective way to keep people
ignorant, unsophisticated, and indulged in their own ignorance.

Professionalization is what made Western society the way it is now. If you
don't like it, go and live in the coral reefs. However, stay there for
ever, make your life plans to stay there, and do not take with you your
Siemens and Mercedes gadgets. Then let's talk again. Don't forget that
before the age of Rarionalism, the West was far behind China. The Islamic
cultures were also more sophisticated compared with the West until the
Middle Ages. Now they spend their oil gold to by Mercedes cars.

At this point, professionalization has  no alternative. The problem is not
with professionalization -- the problem is with too many poor
professionals. Poor professionals that see the world one-sided, that
maximize only one or two criteria and leave the rest unattended. I always
say -- there are no sick buildings -- there are dumb engineers. It is so
simple. However, we should not blame professionalism in principle for that
rampant stupidity. The problem is with poor preparation of engineers. Too
narrow thinking. Too much laymen' enthusiasm and self-confidence. And this
makes the ignorant arrogant.

May be after centuries everyone will reach professional level in all areas
of human endeavor, but now it is not possible. Postings at this list prove it.

Have a nice day and take a sober look at the current civilization.

Regards,

Lubomir

At 11:22 PM 10/28/2002 -0500, klaus krippendorff wrote:
>Kari-Hans Kommonen wrote:
>1) all humans design, but in our current western society which is
>founded on expertism, design is generally understood as something
>reserved only for experts; this alienates 'ordinary people' from
>design debate and makes them unnecessarily dependent on the experts
>
>This is a point I have been making for years and I am happy to see it
>rearticulated in kari-hans' comment.  I have also been showing that design
>and traditional scientific research follows two distinct paradigms that
>intersect only where problems are conventional and recursive, not
>innovative.  I have found quite a number of members of the design community
>celebrate scientific or descriptive knowledge at the expense of design or
>constructive knowledge.  In my opinion this undermines what designers ought
>to be good at.
>
>2) the society is all the time becoming more design intensive, and
>the freedom to live, act and realize one's own aspirations is
>increasingly dependent on designs people have not had a chance to
>influence, as well as competences to compete in the market through
>designing. The social and political importance of enabling people to
>design for themselves, and to participate effectively in the design
>of things/systems/policies that affect their life, and to make a
>living designing (to some extent), is growing.
>
>I couldn't agree more with that.  It is the ground for participatory design.
>
>Not design-for-all but design-by-all?...I guess that would be a
>little too provocative and also not really feasible.
>Why not feasible?  Surely the fact that all people are speaking a language
>does not mean that poets are not feasible.
>But something
>that indicates the involvement and agenda setting by the
>stakeholders, but does not carry the baggage of the other terms. For
>example participatory, user driven, user inspired, democratic, etc.
>all have connotations and links to other ideas about design that make
>it hard to discuss the kind of approach you seem to be advocating.
>But the main point is that to me, the term 'metadesign' has similar
>problems.
>
>In any case, interesting topic!
>
>Yes indeed
>
>klaus