Dear Prof. Ranjan,
In your response yesterday to Thomas Rasmussen, you wrote:
" Gui Bonsiepe has a table in his book "Interface" where he makes a
comparative positioning of technology innovation, science innovation and
design innovation, all of which need imagination and all the qualities
that suggest the presence of vision and experimentation. However the
location where these are typically tested take place are the company
workshop, the university laboratory and market place respectively and
the significant aspect is that while tech innovation can be tested
repeatedly by set procedures and science innovation needs to be peer
approved to find acceptance, in the case of design innovation its
validity can only be tested by its acceptance in the market place since
it is context dependent and cannot be standardised."
While agreeing that locations of vision and experimentation of
technological and scientific innovation are respectively in workshop
floors and in university and all other R&D labs, I personally tend to
think that the locus of design shouldn't be viewed at the market place,
the domain essentially of marketers and procurement agents. Rather,
artefacts validity should be tested in all real use contexts of daily
life. There is where they are approved or disapproved by concerned
users, and in this last case either put away or...helplessly endured
until alternatives (other artifacts, other users and or other contexts)
are found!
Francois
Montreal
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