Chris,
I am glad to see you cite John Mason. I
thoroughly recommend his book:
_Researching your own Practice : the
Discipline of Noticing_
Routledge, 2002
	Whilst Mason's context is the pro-
fession of teaching, the vast array of ex-
ercises and examples in his book provide a
fantastic resource for teaching designers
the 'daily spiritual exercises' necessary
for discerning and deliberating on moments
of decision-making and judgment.
	(By 'daily spiritual exercise's I
am wanting to call up Alain Findeli's en-
dorsement for designers of Pierre Hadot's
work on the 'care of the self' strategies
of Senecus and Aurelius, etc. See Findeli's
"Rethinking Design Education for the 21st
Century", Design Issues v17 n1 (Winter 2001)
	This reference to Findeli makes me
want to offer the discussion on phronesis
Findeli's very Platonic/Gadamerian claim
that aesthetic judgment = ethical judgment:
	"The fact that ethics and aesthe-
tics both deal with values is another
reason to build a bridge between these
two seemingly foreign realms. We have
seen that ethical deliberation requires
the total involvement of the subject at
the moment of decision-making. The latter
happens when the subject has the intimate
conviction and deep-seated feeling that
his or her act and its ideal representa-
tion coincide. This feeling of coincidence
is actually of the aesthetic order: it is
the apprehension of harmony, the sentiment
of unity. Therefore aesthetic judgment
and moral judgment act as a pair and,
consequently, the training of an adequate
aesthetic judgment will be a guarantee
for reliable moral reasoning."
"Ethics, Aesthetics and Design"
Design Issues v10 n2 (Summer 1994), p66.)

Cameron



"What is most thought-provoking in
these most thought-provoking times
is that we are still not yet
thinking"        Martin Heidegger

__________________________________________________
Dr Cameron Tonkinwise

Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Design Studies
Faculty of Design, Architecture, Building
University of Technology Sydney
Building 6, Room 620, ph (61 2) 9514 8924
[log in to unmask]
GPO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 Australia

CEO, Change Design Foundation
Building C, Rozelle Public School, Darling St
PO Box 369 Rozelle NSW 2039 Australia
ph (61 2) 9555 7028   [log in to unmask]
www.changedesign.org   www.edf.edu.au



Chris Heape wrote:
> Dear Harold, Lubomir, Erik, Ken, Terry et al
> 
> This notion of decision and judgement in design is most interesting. I 
> can't help wondering if  choice, focus and intentionality are also 
> inextricably  related.
> 
> If I am not mistaken, this area gets to the very heart of design as an 
> activity. Why and how do we as designers make choices, decisions and 
> judgements? How can we involve others in these processes and what can we 
> do to ensure that different perspectives are considered throughout a 
> design task, that can help new decisons to be taken?
> 
> Now, I haven't yet  read the literature mentioned ( Nichomacean Ethics - 
> Aristotle, Back to the Rough Ground - Joseph Dunne and Mindfulness - 
> Ellen Langer), so I'm having to rely on the comments made by others up 
> to now. So please forgive me if I'm off key on my understanding.
> 
> Just to make my interest clear, I would like to introduce the notion of 
> "Design Learning". I sense that design learning is an attitude of mind 
> that relates both to the context of design students learning AND to the 
> exploratory and experimental phases of professional design practice.  I 
> consider design learning as a concept that covers a broad range of 
> activities, processes and methods used to gain an understanding to make 
> the necessary choices, decisions and judgements with regard to a given 
> design task.
> 
> Ken, I seem to remember that we've had a similar discussion on this 
> regarding Shaker furniture. What was the driver, other than just 
> describing their ability as an aesthetic sensibility, that enabled the 
> Shakers to produce their furniture that seems to posess such grace and 
> presence? Here I think quality of intention and focus apply. Something 
> very particular was motivating the decisions and judgements that they took.
> 
>  From the design student context, I have been confronted time and again 
> with students who get into a muddle, make generalised guesses as to how 
> to proceed with their design task and who stress themselves 
> unnecessarily, by struggling through a design task with far too many 
> options. Up to now I have considered this as a reflection of their 
> inability to make qualified choices and to ground their choices in an 
> understanding of the task. My research data is now confirming part of 
> this as symptomatic of a misguided notion as to what design learning 
> entails on the part of the students. My experience with the students is 
> that once they are shown the nature of precision decision making and 
> focus, they relax more, enjoy their design projects and begin to produce 
> results of remarkable innovation and quality.
> 
> With regard to professional design practice, I am intrigued with how one 
> can engender design learning throughout the design process, to ensure 
> that there is a good basis for making decisions, judgements and choices. 
> I am used to involving users and a range of collaborative techniques 
> throughout the design process. These are examples of design learning, 
> but others in a development group and even in the rest of a production 
> company say, have to recognise and accept that the phases of design 
> learning are both necessary and productive. Unfortunately, my experience 
> has shown me (design of hardcore user oriented, business to business 
> engineering products) that this notion of design learning is sometimes 
> unacceptable in terms of time, economy and activities considered as 
> irrelevant. Thus the particular project is carried forward without the 
> necessary basis or grounding for making decisions, judgements and choices.
> 
> I find that the notion of introducing various kinds of "breakdowns" into 
> the design process (Ehn 1989) as very constructive. Accepted practices 
> and processes can be turned on their head and new scenarios around a 
> design task can be generated, that allow others to see alternatives and 
> thus reappraise their assesment of the task and provide themselves with 
> a renewed set of options and possible decisions.
> 
> Now I have now deliberately mixed the terms of judgement, decision and 
> choice. I guess this reflects my lack of precision in the use of these 
> terms up to now. So I find it particularly helpful to read Harold's 
> distinction between judgement  and decision making. I am also intrigued 
> Harold, with your notion or distinction between the collaborative nature 
> of relaying the result of decisons to others, and the more personal and 
> context oriented process of making decisions.
> 
> I firmly believe that design involves the nurturing of a personal 
> understanding of a design task, which is then deployed into the 
> collaborative arena and negotiated into a synthesis or common 
> understanding that others can accept. This process is then reiterated 
> throughout the design process. It involves a range of decisions, 
> judgements and choices. There is a toing and froing, a flux of thought 
> and discourse and a dynamic modelling and remodelling of understandings 
> that reflect decisions reached or taken.
> 
> It could be very interesting to examine - if it's possible - using for 
> example Harold's distinction, as to where one concept of decision 
> making, seamlessly shifts over to another. Or can Harold's two concepts 
> (judgement and decision making) exist side by side at the same time? 
> What interactions are going on?
> 
> I will certainly re-consider some of my research material that deals 
> with this and see if it's possible to distinguish between various types 
> of decision making and try to identify what encourages the one or the 
> other, as opposed to just considering it as an expression of making 
> choices or not.
> 
> That this is possible is both confirmed by what Harold and Erik are 
> doing and by something I came across this summer. It was two chapters in 
> "Using Experience for Learning" (2000).  One was by John Mason on 
> Learning from Experience in Mathematics. He presented a concept of 
> "disciplined noticing" where he very clearly distinguishes between:
> 1. Recognising choices - distinguishing choices, accumulating 
> alternatives and identifying and labeling
> 2. Preparing and noticing - imagining possibilities, noticing possibilities
> 3. Validating with others.
> 
> The other chapter, "Living the Learning", was by E. Kasl, K. Dechant and 
> V. Marsick.
> Here they present a case, when dealing with a given task (in their case, 
> research into organisational learning) for distinguishing between  "task 
> orientation" to the task and "learning orientation" to the task.They 
> found that when in the learning orientation mode, they were able to 
> access associations and references to their experience that they could 
> share with each other and compare and which helped them gain a sense of 
> synthesis of understanding. In other words they accessed a particular 
> set of references that afforded a particular kind of innovative thought 
> and decision making. On the other hand, when in the task orientation 
> mode or frame of mind, they found that the decisions they were taking 
> were more practically oriented, time oriented and generally tended to be 
> less adventurous and sensible, bordering on the pedantic.
> 
> I sense that all this hangs together somehow and is particularly 
> relevant to our understanding of the sometimes barely noticeable 
> interactions involved in the design process; interactions and attitudes 
> of mind that can have such an impact on the decisions taken and 
> solutions produced.
> 
> I apologise to those who might think this post as too long. I enjoy the 
> informality yet precision oriented nature of this list and the 
> possibility of sharing my views, which, as I am in the process of trying 
> to understand and formulate, inevitably tend to reflect a sketch like 
> character. I do this deliberately, to hopefully encourage others to 
> comment on my thoughts and maybe contribute with their understanding.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Chris.
> 
> 
> References:
> 
> Ehn P (1989) Work-oriented design of computer artifacts. 
> Arbetslivscentrum, Stockholm
> 
> Kasl E, Dechant K, Marsick V (2000) Living the Learning: Internalizing 
> Our Model of Group Learning. In: Boud D, Cohen, R., Walker, D., (ed.) 
> Using Experience for Learning. Open University Press, Buckingham (pp 
> 143-156)
> 
> Mason J (2000) Learning from Experience in Mathematics. In: Boud D, 
> Cohen, R., Walker, D., (ed.) Using Experience for Learning. Open 
> University Press, Buckingham (pp 113-126)
> 
> -----------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> from:
> 
> Chris Heape
> Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
> Mads Clausen Institute
> University of Southern Denmark
> Sønderborg
> Denmark
> 
> http://www.mci.sdu.dk
> 
> Work @ MCI:
> tel: +45 6550 1671
> e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
> 
> Work @ Home:
> tel +45 7630 0380
> e.mail: [log in to unmask]
> 
> 





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