Dear Jacob, David and others
I was struck by the resemblance of Jacob's original question to my own
doctoral research questions. In my dissertation, I ask
"How does user study inform design?". However, I further narrow the
question to
"What are the formal characteristics of user study outcome?".
The reason why I don't ask about the CONTENT of user study (and i think
that can also be applied to theory) is that the value of any information
(or theory) depends on what we can make use of it... and this is forever
an open question. To attempt to answer this question in any absolute way,
is to deny our creativity. Having said that, i believe, we can define
content (or theories) that designers need to do their jobs effectively for
a particular time in a particular context. But the defined content will
change, as design practice and the world change. Therefore, more
interestingly (as least for me as a research approach) is not to describe
how designers use information (or theory) now, as if it is something fixed
and must continue; but to experiment and find out how other
information/theory might be used that could advance design practice. On
this note, David's intellectual experiment on the 'minimum set of
assumptions and inferences to undertake design practice ' seems to be in
line with my own reasoning.
Best, Rosan
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