Dear All,
Once again, I share the frustration that David
Less expresses, and I feel a further frustration
with the responses, and lack thereof, to David's
recent messages.
The problem, and the complaint, are NOT with
abstraction, nor with the use of abstractions in
our various discussions. The problem and the
complaint are with what David well calls the
"spiral or abstractions," and with the particular
kind that results from the easily made, but
unsupported, sweeping generalisations we have
seen plenty of recently.
Such sweeping generalisations are abstractions.
They are not completely without true, but they
leave so much reality behind that what is left is
distorted beyond any real truth. These are not,
and cannot be, the way to establish a Common
Ground for our field. Common ground is
established first by trying (hard) to identify,
describe, explain, clarify, illustrate, and
discuss all the differences and variations we can
find amongst us. Common ground is not to be
found flying freely in the skies above us, as
these "spiralling abstractions" do, no matter how
easily and gracefully they may appear to saw and
glide up there. Nor is Common Ground constituted
of just what is the same for each of us: it is
formed by everything we bring together and share
from our various and varied interests, backgrounds,
experiences, and practices in designing and
investigating it.
The challenge, I think, is for each of us to
present the rest with examples and illustrations
of things that interest us, that we find
important, or puzzling, or curious, or striking,
or plain bad, in the designing and research we
do or know. Only when we can all begin to see
some of the nature and form of the landscape
we share will we begin to see something of the
Common Ground we need.
To end on a less grumpy note, how about if we try
to collect more of the kinds of thing Allan Reese
shared with us. Collecting and discussing more of
these "where was the user and real use when this
was designed?" examples (like my mobile telephone
example) will not be all we need to start to build
our Common Ground, but it just might help improve
some designing and designs, and it might also help
better understand designing or where some research
might be useful.
Agur,
Tim
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Tim Smithers
Donostia / San Sebastián
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