Klaus said:
>>to be fair, unless we have interviewed the designers about the motivations for their designs, why they did what they did, and
what drove the design process -- we cannot possibly know what designers had in mind and how they changed theirs as they proceeded.
this is why it is important not to rule out C, the acknowledgement of aimless variation.
in literary theory, it is long acknowledged that the intentions of a writer do not matter, only the reading by the readers of a
text (which may well include their speculations about what the author had in mind). i am suggesting that we do not go back to the
old mentalism and impute intentions on design without evidence.<<
If we could demonstrate that designers were "aimless" in introducing variations, or alternatively that their intentions were
entirely pointless - ie the audience "read" the design in ways that are entirely unrelated to the designers intentions, then I
would buy Klaus' arguments.
He is comparing designing with writing works of literature (works of art). Most designing is more akin to the production of
encyclopaedias, newspapers or instruction manuals where there is an explicit intention and results can be measured against that
intention.
regards
Chris
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