On Monday, December 15, 2003, at 02:47 pm, Susan M. Hagan wrote:
> As I see it, the issue is not a "smart" "dumb" dichotomy. I
> think that was David's point entirely. The intuitive is equal to the
> "intellectual."
> As you point out, what is later shared must often begin with
> what can only be internally felt.
I will snip a section from an earlier paper of mine that talks about
these felt things in the context of the work of eminent designers.
This is one of the best examples of intuition at work, and would
presumably be a significant part of designerly ways of knowing.
---
....further light has been thrown on this phenomenon by a study of
members of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry (RDI). This
comprises a group of eminent designers administered by the Royal
Society of Arts, UK. Membership is by invitation only, and is based
upon excellence in practice of the subject. The Faculty numbers no
more than 100 RDIs at any one time. Thirty five RDIs were interviewed
at length about the ways in which they design, in order to elicit how
they experience moments of insight significant to themselves (Davies &
Talbot 1987). How is it that, from the many ideas generated in a
problem solving task, the designer knows that a particular proposal is
the idea that should be taken forward? Several points emerged from
this study which are typical of designers' descriptions of their
experience of having the idea and knowing it is right. A typical
response was
"I always know when an idea is right [but] I can't always put facts and
figures against it".
It is significant from this study that the gaining of the idea is
strongly held. It may appear intuitively, but is then felt to be
absolutely right as a solution to the problem space under
consideration. This realisation may also be attended by strong
emotions such as feelings of wholeness and completeness. Designers
also recognised the difficulties that intuitions present for providing
rational explanations that are acceptable to others. While there was
acceptance that the "intuitive bit comes first" it was argued that often
"you do rationalise every step of the way. But I think the actual way
in which you got them [ideas] might even be called irrational."
These deeply held responses may be summarised as follows:
- a sense of wholeness and unity about the solution
- experience of paradox
- difficult or impossible to analyse, or to express process adequately
in words
- openness to all kinds of experience
- deeply felt positive, pleasant ecstatic feelings and lack of anguish
- originality, unique syntheses and harmony
One of the characteristics of these designers is that they are open to
all kinds of experiences, with high awareness to influences relevant to
their design problem. In particular, they seem ready to notice
particular coincidences or juxtapositions of events which others — less
sensitised — fail to notice. The researchers state that these
designers:
"are able to recognise opportunities in the way coincidences offer
prospects and risks for attaining some desirable goal or grand scheme
of things."
REFERENCE
Davies, R. & Talbot, R. (1987) Experiencing ideas; identity, insight
and the imago. In: Design Studies, Vol.8, No.1, pp.17-25.
I discuss this in: Durling, David. (1999) Intuition in Design. In
Bulletin of 4th Asian Design Conference International Symposium on
Design Science 1999, Nagaoka, Japan, October. ISBN 4-9980776-0-0 C3072.
---
More opportunity-seeking than problem-solving then?
David
ps- sorry but have to run for a train now. I will answer the other
interesting points raised by Ellen and by Kari-Hans when I return
tomorrow.
ARi_____________________________________________
Dr David Durling
Director, Advanced Research Institute
Staffordshire University
Stoke on Trent, ST4 2XN, UK
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