Dear Jerry and Chuck

The questions about design, design opportunity, design context and
design situation in this ongoing discussion about the design situation
is something that I have been grappling with for some time now.
Recently, during this month, I have had the opportunity to speak at two
very different conferences about the role of design in each of these
different situations. The first was at the conference in Shillong on
12th & 13th November "CII-NID Design Conclave" which focussed on
development issues and the role of design in the Northeastern Region of
India. The second conference was at NID, Ahmedabad on 15th & 16th
November on "GeoVisualisation and Design for development". In both these
presentations I tried to describe wat is a "Design Opportunity" and
"What is Design" for a largely administrative audience in Shillong and a
scientific and technical team of experets in Geographical modelling and
IT applications at the NID, Ahmedabad meet.

I used the term "Design Opportunity" to describe the manner in which our
perceptions of any potential design situation immediately creates some
cognitive or emotional sense or intention which gets informed by
exploration and interaction leading to design action. I have modelled
this phenomenon in a diagram which looks like a ying-yang symbol with
the swirls separated by a circle on the middle. Each of the swirls is
labelled "problem perception" and "solution insight" respectively, while
the inner circle is called design opportunity. This "eye like set of
symbols is bounded by a larger circle in dotted line containing the
words "Vision" (at the top) and "Context" at the bottom. Human vision
interacts with the context, with imagination, to create a "design
opportunity" leading to design thought (based on growing conviction) and
then design action that is driven by conviction as well. So the term
opportunity is not about something that you can find by chance, but it
is a product of intentionality and imagination, which explains why it is
so difficult to explain an emerging design opportunity till some
concrete expression is achieved in the form of abstract models or at a
later stage more concrete erpresentations. This verbal description of my
visual models may not be the best way to describe what I have to say here.

However both these presentations can be downloaded from my web archive
at my web site link below
<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>

The file names are
The Shillong presentation file: CII-NID Shillong_Show2005.pdf (6.3 MB)
The NID GeoVisualisation presentation file
<GeoVisualisation_2005_Lres.pdf> (3.4 MB)

I like the emphasis on the terms design situation and transformation
situation but I continue to use the term context since, although we work
in a specific situation the actions are informed by a much larger
context (global concerns) and it is indeed influenced by history and by
future possibility as imagined by the designer. Further there is
competition in any design situation and politics of community or
official decisions that adds complexity to the whole activity.

You will see in my presentations that I have also been using the
terminology offered by Nelson and Stolterman in their book "The Design
Way" since it is a very accesible text that brings great clarity in a
space that is still underpopulated by good books on the subject. The
terminology used is a sequence to describe the design way from –
Intentions, Explorations, Compositions, Judgements, Action, Promotion
and Nurture, as the key stages of design thought and action.

I look forward to your reactions and comments.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan
from my Mac at home on the NID Campus
18 November 2005 at 9.45 am IST


Subject:Re: [PHD-DESIGN] context and design
Date:Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:14:46 -0500
From:Charles Burnette <[log in to unmask]>
To:[log in to unmask]

Jerry,

On 11/17/05 7:04 PM, "Jerry Diethelm" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


       My working hypothesis is that consciousness is fundamentally
       intentional, purposeful. Dennett says it is fundamentally
intentional and
       emotional. So when I read intentional situation it seems
redundant. My
       intentional stance in some situations is to ignore them, in
others to
       appreciate them, like the two faculty who will never agree but
are very
       entertaining, and in others to make suggestions as when I’m asked
       what we should have for dinner.

       And then there are the unresolved situations that I can help to
       understand, sharpen, ripen and resolve as a designer.


I go with Dennett in that I believe that every conscious thought is
triggered by an
emotional response to phenomena that is both the trigger for attention
and the
instrumental means for focusing intention. I don’t understand why you
would think
“intentional situation” is redundant when an intention focuses and
delimits a
situation. Think of it as a verb/noun phrase, representing a to-be-instrumented
outcome. If an intention is to ignore a situation it dismisses attention
and avoids an
intended outcome. To appreciate a situation is to accept it into memory
and reflective
thought without attempting to transform it in the manner indicated by
your last
sentence That is to say- an appreciation is an interpreted acceptance
that may inform
an intention. It is not an intentional transformation.
At least that is my take on your comments.

Best,

Chuck