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Subject:

Re: Design Chasm

From:

Harold Nelson <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Harold Nelson <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 16:22:14 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Parts/Attachments

text/plain (150 lines)

I would like to add some thoughts to Erik's response. I believe that 
looking at design as a 'common' activity does not mean looking at it as 
a naive, unsophisticated activity. Using the sports metaphor mentioned 
previously, it is not a contrast between 'school yard' sports and 
'professionals'. It is a discernment of what the 'game' is all about, 
what are its boundaries, rules, traditions etc. and how does one become 
better at playing the game? What makes a particular game a 'good' game? 
How does the game change over time and what is 'playing' all about?

I believe that some of the most professional, successful, skilled, 
talented designers are not known as 'professional' designers at all. 
Design is more than a skill set. It is a mindset, knowledge set and 
tool set as well. The capacity to design is a fundamental human ability 
that is utilized to greater or lesser degrees of competence in all 
domains of life.

Harold


On Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at 01:48 PM, Erik Stolterman wrote:

> Lubomir (and others)
>
> I agree with you that we  "should study design not because of its 
> everyday phenomenality, but as a specialized and enhanced activity". 
> But, this has to be done at a level where design is given its due 
> respect as a such a specialized activity. Design is special by means 
> of its very fundamental preconditions and internal characteristics. To 
> me a foundational understanding of design must be created  by a 
> careful examination of how these fundamental preconditions and 
> internal characteristics play out  in advanced professional 
> situations, by the very best designers we can find. So, there is a 
> need to (both) create  a broader understanding of design as the most 
> general approach of world creation (in contrast to other approaches, 
> such as science, art and religion), and a need to develop general 
> design knowledge possible to be used by advanced design professionals 
> in their respective field. (Of course, there are besides this, 
> distinct skills and knowledges that goes with each field of practice, 
> related to the intended outcome, material, etc.)
>
> So, I agree that professionalization is needed, but not as a way to 
> define what design is or what it is not, but as a way to foster good 
> designers.
>
> Erik
>
> tisdagen den 15 juli 2003 kl 14.16 skrev Lubomir S. Popov:
>
>>
>> Eric,
>>
>> I appreciate your remarks and agree with them in a particular aspect. 
>> However, my concern is that with such approach we are going towards 
>> the study of everyday behavior. In addition, we dilute the term to 
>> such a degree that it looses its analytical power.
>>
>> At our level, we should study design not because of its everyday 
>> phenomenality, but as a specialized and enhanced activity. We should 
>> be interested in the advanced methods rather than the universal logic 
>> structures of projective (design) thinking. I haven't heard about 
>> someone professionally involved in soccer to go and learn soccer the 
>> way it is played at the local school ground. I know that experts go 
>> to Manchester or Madrid to study how the pros from United and Real do 
>> it. (Sorry I forgot the names of the Brazilian an Argentinean clubs.) 
>> We are interested in design benchmarking. We need the best examples. 
>> And it is natural that we can find them in the professionalized 
>> situations. That's why we talk about professionalization.
>>
>> There might be some differences in our professions and professional 
>> experiences. You recently implied that Industrial Design is still in 
>> process of academic definition and that in that area education is not 
>> a predictor of performance. I come from Architectural background and 
>> strongly believe that education is important. I mean not doctoral or 
>> research degree, but high level design training in a focused teaching 
>> environment. It is the most accessible way of disseminating the 
>> expertise of good designers. Studying at the workplace is possible, 
>> but it depends on serendipity -- availability of good designers, 
>> their desire to share expertise, etc. Lets not forget that in 
>> practice only a small number of designers are good. You a probably 
>> among them. But you can actually guess the number of incompetent 
>> designers by looking at all mass culture trinkets on the market.
>>
>> So, there is some sense in professionalization. And, it is not 
>> invented by Ph.D.'s -- it had emerged spontaneously as a result of 
>> social influences Mr. Capitalism. I see that at this time there is a 
>> big gap in the degree of professionalization in different domains. At 
>> the one end of the spectrum are engineers and architects, at the 
>> other end I see interior designers who still think like homemakers. 
>> There are might be more like them.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Lubomir
>>
>> At 12:18 PM 7/15/2003 +0200, Erik Stolterman wrote:
>>> This remark is not necessarily in opposition to anything already 
>>> written, since I believe some of it is already said ;-)
>>>
>>> To me, it is not interesting to understand design as a "profession" 
>>> or "field", but as one of several basic ways humans can approach 
>>> their world. And as such, design is more or less counsiously part of 
>>> all professions and fields. To design means to approach the world in 
>>> a specific way, different from other basic approaches, such as 
>>> science, art, religion etc. But we all know that we usually need 
>>> more than one of these words to describe the actual activity within 
>>> a specific profession or field, since the complexity demands for 
>>> knowledge from more than one approach. For instance, (hopefully) any 
>>> scientist know that there are design aspects, and also artistic, in 
>>> her work, not to mention how other approaches, such as 
>>> philosophical, ideological, economical play a role in the field of 
>>> science. The same is probably true for any human enterprise.
>>>
>>> This leads me to belive that there is no point in trying to define 
>>> design by single out professions or fields. Instead different fields 
>>> and professions (or organizations, teams, or individuals) might be
>>> described as to what degree they usually work in a designerly way, 
>>> or are design competent. Understood in this way, design is given its 
>>> rightful place and importance in relation to the other approaches 
>>> (science, religion, art, etc). This also means that we can find 
>>> excellent examples of good design work almost anywhere, but also of 
>>> terrible designs.
>>>
>>> Summer greetings
>>> Erik
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------
>>> Erik Stolterman
>>> Informatics
>>> Umeå University
>>> S-901 87 Umeå
>>> Sweden
>>>
>>> Phone: +46 (0)90-7865531
>>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>>> Homepage: http://www.informatik.umu.se/~erik
>>> Advanced Design Institute: http://www.advanceddesign.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Harold G. Nelson, Ph.D., M. Arch.
President; Advanced Design Institute
www.advanceddesign.org
Past-President; International Society for Systems Science
www.isss.org
Affiliated faculty, Engineering, U. Wash.

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