Terry, Klaus, et al,
Some comments embedded around various other message snippets.
Terry wrote:
> [...]Second, I'm unclear about your position. Your words suggest you are claiming
> that engineering design is primarily 'real design' and that 'Art and
> design' is bogus. Is that what you meant? Most engineering design outcomes
> are socially determined, except for those design problems addressed by
> individual designers (rare and mainly in the product/industrial design
> sector). In engineering, design mainly consists of socially and
> politically driven design activity and decisions involving possibilities for
> solution that are effectively beyond what is possible to count (i.e. larger
> than the number of atoms in the universe). In contrast, design outcomes in
> the 'art and design ' sector typically result from individual designers
> making individualistic design decisions by choosing between solutions - i.e.
> they are designs are limited in scope, individualistic and not socially
> determined. Design processes involving 'choosing a 'seed' or underlying
> 'design concept' etc have this effect of restricting the solution set so
> that it is a matter of choice of composition. Professionally, engineering
> design is seem to primarily depend on teamwork and collaborative design -
> more so than in Art and Design fields. Considerable amounts of time in the
> education of engineers is given up to acquiring abilities to be skilled in
> socially collaborative design activity (in some courses more than is given
> over to the use of maths in design). Teamwork in design is something
> engineering designers are taught early in their careers and engineering
> institutes emphasise the social construction of design activity in
> continuing profession development and models of design process. In contrast,
> 'Art and design' courses in my experience emphasise individualism in design
> activity - the 'genius' of the individual designer. This focus on producing
> individually determined design solutions is reflected in the different role
> of the use of signatures. Engineers automatically assume that design is a
> team effort and in almost all cases engineering designs are not attributed
> to individuals (except in sectors influenced by the culture of 'Art and
> Design'). Signatures in engineering design are used to identify
> responsibility in the case of something going wrong. In contrast, in Art and
> Design there is great emphasis on personal ownership and the role of the
> signature in identifying the individual designer to provide the individual
> status and emphasis that they made the design 'all by themselves' and
> without having to give credit to others - the opposite of social design. Are
> you suggesting that perhaps that design in the 'Art and Design' sectors
> should not be considered design because it is not social?
> [...]
I'm largely in agreement with you Terry.
My take, tho, on (one of) the differences between engineering design and
non-engineering design regards the nature of creativity in (non)engineering
design. That's where I see the difference between self-expression (in art,
say) versus the expression of others (in design). I think this is very close
to what you wrote - correct me if I'm wrong - except that I displace the
difference off of design and onto creativity (as a part of designing).
I find this POV more useful (to me at least) cuz it doesn't split things down
disciplinary lines but rather down what I think of as features of the
activities that practitioners carry out.
Klaus wrote (I think):
> engineering is easier as its problems are predominantly tame ones.
I'm afraid I have to disagree here, because I exclude problems like specifying
gear boxes or configuring elements from being wholly design problems. Such
problems might have design elements in them, but they aren't on the whole
design problems - as I see it. I would say there may be *some* tame problems
in engineering design (i.e. not in just 'engineering'). I think it's
particularly important we keep some distinction between 'engineering' and
'engineering design'.
Klaus wrote:
> although the engineering problem of increasing the speed of a microchip may
> make a computer more desirable to their users, the design of that microchip
> is a technical problem. the computer users' conceptions of what a microchip
> does has no impact on its design and the engineer is free to define the
> problem in engineering terms. in designing the interface of a computer, the
> designer must consider the conceptions that users have available to handle
> it, which a far more complex issue than what an engineer is trained to
> tackle.
Again, I'm uncomfortable with this. Tho I might be misreading Klaus's
comment, it appears that he's suggesting engineering is separated from the
user by the 'designers' - this kind of "over the wall" product development has
been shown to most often lead to products less suitable than would have been
possible had everyone "played together" - i.e. that engineering designers be
equal partners in the design.
While engineers may get often distracted by the technical complexity of the
widget they're designing, more and more they're also gaining an important
sensitivity to what the 'users' need. This is because sometimes (and more and
more often as technical complexity rises) the requirements are NOT in sympathy
with user's needs and desires. By understanding the users, engineers are
finding they're able to design better widgets.
As far as this goes, I agree with Chris that "either [individuals or teams,
regardless of discipline] must have a means to attend to the social context."
I also agree with Terry:
> If you want to have clarity in discussions that involve power, money,
> control and those influenced by decisions - then it is crucially helpful to
> distinguish between shareholders (those with a financial stake) and others
> who are influenced by or influence designed outcomes.
I think we need to distinguish those who are directly impacted by a widget (or
'design outcome') versus those who are indirectly impacted. I think this
distinction lets us better contextualize arguments for or against particular
designs.
Cheers to all.
Fil
--
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://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
|