Those of you who are not interested in design research for designers can
delete this post and the threads it might lead to. (I do not want to cause
any unnecessary irritation.)
Following recent posts, however, I'm sufficiently reassured that I'm not
just having a conversation with myself.
With the collaboration of those remaining, I would like to attempt some kind
of synthesis, and draw together some of the ideas that we have found
valuable in recent posts. I'm going to try to put these into some
provisional coherent shape, and see where it might lead those of us with an
interested in this subject.
Because I have limited time between other duties, and because I suspect
readers have limited reading time, I'm not going to put it all down in one
long post; I'm going to split it up into shortish posts and see where we go
with them.
In this post, I want to make a personal prejudice clear. It may not be to
everyone's taste, but it does lead me directly to what I think of as one of
the most important ways in which designers can chose between research that
may be useful in helping improve practice, and research that is unlikely to
do so.
My prejudice. I put a great deal of store by designers' accumulated
practical know-how. Some of this has been articulated by reflective
practitioners, but much of it has not. Partly this is because the work
remains to be done, but there is also a substantial body of practical
know-how that can only be acquired through practice itself--the bicycle
riding type of skill, if you will, of design know-how. While we can
articulate the reasons why this know-how is important; describe the process
one has to go through to acquire that know-how; and discuss what might
constitute evidence for the presence or absence of this know-how; the actual
know-how itself is not to be found in text books or research papers, but in
design practice itself.
In my view, this accumulated practical know-how is the bedrock on which our
knowledge of designing rests (I use the verb 'designing' as opposed to the
noun design so that it is clear that I am talking about something that we
do. This is, by the way, a simple use of Terry Love's eminently sensible
advice on avoiding nominalisation, on which more later).
None of this is to suggest that designers accumulated know-how is canonical
and beyond question, scrutiny, criticism, change, or improvement. But
necessarily that questioning must be done by doing designing differently and
making practical, economic, political, social and aesthetic judgements on
the outcomes.
But--and here I offer my first criterion for judging the value of research
from a designerly point of view--any research on this or other designerly
topics must satisfy practicing designers that it proceeds from an
understanding and valuing of the accumulated practical know-how of
designers.
In my own field of information design there are many many examples where the
designs researched--the objects of study--have been designed by novices.
Attempts by the researchers to draw generalised conclusions from such poor
examples are rightly questioned, and in many cases rejected by professional
practicing designers. Worse still are the research reports that do not
include reproductions of the actual designs. In these cases the practicing
designer can form no judgement whatsoever on the visual designed quality of
the work. In my view any researcher trying to give designers practical
advice on the basis of poor or 'invisible' examples, should not be taken too
seriously.
This may seem to some an obvious point, but in a number of recent literature
reviews that I have conducted from a designerly point of view, I have
rejected over 90% of papers because they did not satisfy this particular
criterion. Now it might be that I'm too picky, too critical--an irritable
arrogant bastard who throws out anything that doesn't match his impossibly
high standards--that may be, but try it yourself and see. I suspect that you
too will find that the reject pile is bigger than what's left.
There are many possible reasons why this is the case, but that would take us
off on a whole new thread, and perhaps I've already irritated enough people
for one day.
One final remark. An impression I get talking to many designers and young
design researchers is that they are in awe of other people's disciplines,
yet fail to value their own know-how sufficiently. I sense this at times on
this list. I think a little designerly confidence is in order. Instead of
sitting at the foot of the table and saying 'don't forget us when the
important work starts', I think it might be appropriate to say 'Ignore us,
at your peril! If we didn't do what we do, then the rest of you would have
nothing to research or talk about'.
Best wishes from Canberra, the most vilified city in Australia. We are
regarded in Australia in the same way that 'Washington', 'Westminster' and
'Brussels' are regarded by other nationalities.
David.
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