There is also then the issue of risk. To venture into unknown territory with
unclear goals runs the supposed risk of "failure". However, that is the very
territory where landmark design innovations have been born. So then that
becomes a question of what takes initial primacy, process or product. But it is
a funny cart/horse question because without willingness to risk, we may not be
able to recreate an object, system or society which is circling around in a
dysfunctional pattern.
So, yes we don't want to experiment, as it were, with 500 passengers, betting
that the new (for example) "hyper-drive transporters" will work based on a
hunch that it will. But we do want to explore the possibility of fanciful and
playful ideas, then develop and test them in a low risk way.
Jan Coker
C3-10 Underdale Campus
University of South Australia
+61 8 8302 6919
"There is no way to peace, peace is the way"
Gandhi
-----Original Message-----
From: Kari-Hans Kommonen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Love at first sight
I believe I understand you both here...let me try to explain and generalize:
--
Mark's advice and suggestions come from a pragmatic perspective: how
to design and complete a successful research project and come up with
results that fulfill xyz criteria.
Allan's comments come from the point of view that the issues
presented are interesting and it would be nice to know more about
them...a very valid stance for research, as well - in my opinion.
--
I feel that this is a recurring situation in Design Research. There
are many things that very much require research that is hard to frame
and complete as a project, and which may, unfortunately, produce
something which is useful for the person and the field, but is hard
to package as well-formed 'research result'.
For the person facing the issues, it is a challenge to do the
balancing act, and for the institutions and community around them,
to decide whether the work is worthwhile and should be credited (if
it does not produce those 'well-formed' results that fulfill the
criteria the system already understands).
--
Therefore, for the person, it is easier and less risky to follow a
familiar route that more or less guarantees that the results will
conform to a pattern that the system will not reject. Will the
results be interesting or useful? may then be at risk.
kh
...
At 16:52 +0000 21.1.2003, PALMER Mark wrote:
>Hi all
>
> on Tue, 21 Jan 2003, PALMER Mark wrote:
> > ....as I tried to point out before the research question should
drive
> > the scope of your enquiries. Some folk start with research
>questions so
> > broad as to be useless.
>
> Without pushing the point, I should like to comment that there
>is a danger
> here of being too reductionist. "Far better an approximate
>answer to the
> right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong
> question, which can always be made precise."
>
>.....what is reductionist about knowing what questions you're
>asking? To be reductionist would be to reduce the answers to a
>series of simple statements. The kind of complexity that arises from
>genuine enquiry to which I think you're alluding is the reason why
>we need to have a fairly good idea about what the subject of our
>enquiry is.
>
> It seems to me a common confusion, especially among politicians, that
> research leads to fixed answers; true research is
>exploration, so we may
> become more sure of the ground newly covered but the horizon is just
as
> distant and hazy.
>
>...yes often research results in a better stating of the question,
>but my point is that if one starts with hazy questions the kind of
>exploration you seem to suggesting seems doomed to failure as it
>becomes increasingly hazy. What is more if you start with
>assumption, or a set of convictions as the basis of your exploration
>you will find these will always overide that exploration.
>
>all the best,
>
>Mark
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