Klaus,

I didn't write that I have to explain the world the way I do.  I wrote 
that I have to accept "my" explanation, because it's the only way I've 
found that makes sense to me.

Okay, I didn't actually write "to me".  But can we please get past this 
notion that anything I say is to be interpretted as a dictum to be 
applied universally to everyone else too?

As for your experiment:

1. You propose an essentially 'scientific' experiment.  Haven't you just 
bought into what I've been saying?

2. I've been party to similar experiments, as both experimenter and 
subject, many times in my life.  I know exactly what to expect from the 
results.

If designers don't *know* how others see things, then how can they break 
the illusion/assumption?  Sure, they could go out and do "real" 
human-centred design, but they cannot do that AND be designers -- 
there's just not enough time in the day.  The change will come slowly, 
and only with alot of help from design researchers like you and me.

And then there's simple human nature at work.  Might it be not a feature 
of one's design skills but rather a personality characteristic that one 
doesn't see things as others do, for whatever reason?

If we're concerned about design as it is currently practiced and for the 
sake of improving it, then oughtn't we take into account human nature 
and its foibles?  I haven't read too much about that on this list.

And if an exchange of information between agents (via dialogue, survey, 
or whatever) is limited by the idea that we all see things differently, 
then how reliable is our ability to learn what other people really think 
about the designs we present them with?

Here's a simple example of how I am currently taking human-centredness 
into account.  We have a number of email lists to contact our students. 
  They're a pain to use because messages to the list are limited to 
150KB and many job postings (a popular reason to use the lists to 
contact students) are bigger than that.

So since I'm the resident computer geek, I thought of using our 
University's 'portal' software (Blackboard) to build what they call an 
'organisation' - a bastardisation of the software's structure to 
organise groups other than classes of students.

My first step: how can we use the portal to make things simpler?  I 
didn't even hazard a guess.  Instead, I sat down with the admin staff 
and other faculty members to discover (a) what they don't like about how 
things work now, and (b) get their wish lists of how they wish things 
would work.

Then I go to our central computing people and ask them how we can 
achieve these things, translating into geek-speak in the process.  I 
take that back to the staff/faculty and get their feedback, translating 
back to regular english (user-speak).

Wash, rinse, and repeat till (a) convergence happens, (b) my Chair tells 
me to stop harassing the secretaries, or (c) my head explodes.

This, to me, is pretty human-centred.  This is what I try to convince my 
students they need to do.

And, funnily, I have come to believe in this approach because of my 
dependence on logic, science, and what I think of as my own personality 
(lets call it 'a certain orneryness').

I'm there, Klaus.  What I'm starting to wonder is if you're having a 
hard time believing that one can get 'there' via other frameworks 
besides the one that very obviously is working very well for you.

Cheers.
Fil

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
> fil:
> 
> i had said:
> 
>>why do you want to hold on to the renaissance conception of science with
> 
> its
> 
>>effort to map what is outside there when we know only its descriptions and
>>speculations?
> 
> 
> you replied:
> I don't *want* to.  I *have* to, because it's the only explanation I've
> come up with so far that explains all the things I've seen/experienced.
>   I'd love to learn of an alternative, but it's going to have to offer
> me some practical advantage over the way I do things now.
> 
> if you are convinced that you "have to" explain the world the way it is (=
> how you see it) than you explain away the possibility that "it" could be
> otherwise.  i invite you to make an experiment:
> (1) take any design, say a chair
> (2) ask its designer what s/he wanted to accomplish or express with it.
> write it down
> (3) ask a group of users/potential buyers what they see the chair
> accomplishes or expresses, write it down
> (4) statistically compare the users' accounts with that of the designers and
> test the hypothesis that the designer communicates what s/he wants to
> accomplish with the chair or what it expresses
> in my experiences, the results of the experiment are eye opening to
> designers who notoriously assume (again i prefer the stronger word "live in
> the illusion") that they see the way others see.  the whole idea of product
> semantics is to find ways to design under considerations of meanings, i.e.,
> to overcome the illusion and the trap of believing to be able to represent
> the world how it really is.
> 
> good luck.  i hope you would share the results of the experiment.
> 
> klaus
> 
> [...]


-- 
Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University                         Tel: 416/979-5000 x7749
350 Victoria St.                           Fax: 416/979-5265
Toronto, ON                                email: [log in to unmask]
M5B 2K3  Canada                            http://deed.ryerson.ca/~fil/