Information in Designing
How do we think about and use information in designing?
Information theory would have me reconstructing Terryıs assertion about the
centrality of ³information gathering² in all design methods (PERIOD!) out of
my own repertoire, since meaning is a construction, not a something that can
be put in an e-page for me to just take out. It helps that we both speak a
version of the same language, but other differences inevitably enter in.
I reconstruct ³gathering² as a kind of early collecting and fail to see how
it could not be purposeful, selective, require evaluation for relevance,
thoroughness, kinds of content, usefulness and Klaus mentions, timeliness,
relation to what I already know, truthfulness. I donıt think information
needs to be truthful to be useful. It helps to know what people think they
know. It helps to know what they would like you to think that they know. It
helps to learn what they think they want.
My first, perhaps ungenerous, reconstruction is to think, ³information
gathering² is to designing as shopping is to cooking. But information
theory also tells us that the more information, the better chance of a
successful reconstruction, and so I learn from further exchanges that
³information gathering² in Terry-world is a packed constructivist concept.
And am relieved, even though I still donıt think the term ³travels² well. I
know, travel is an inappropriate metaphor, because in information theory
nothing really travels. The conduit metaphor is hard to overcome (Michael
J. Reddy).
I can stop envisioning DCI Jane Tennison of Prime Suspect directing the
bagging of evidence for laboratory analysis. I donıt have to explore the
benefits and limits of her expert systems. I donıt need to suggest that her
lab can tell her what something is but she will have to serially evaluate
how each piece of evidence fits into a reconstruction and resolution of her
situation. I donıt have to reflect on how my own professional habits can
(have?) become a barrier to comprehending theory. We do become participants,
caught up in our expert systems.
Designers are protagonists in the ³information polysystems,²(Popowsky) that
they choose. Information comes to us with the choices that others have made
(KK). All this choosing and evaluating just underscores for me the axiology
of wickedness in designing.
Regards to all,
Jerry
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Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: http://www.uoregon.edu/~diethelm
541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
541-206-2947 work/cell
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