dear victor,

while i agree that designers have not studied the consequences of products
as extensively as they should in order to learn from them for subsequent
designs, yet much of marketing and ergonomic research does this of course --
but mainly under the perspective of selling products or finding good sales
pitches. consumer research studies products after they were designed
comparatively. and the social sciences pursue numerous research projects
studying the effects of various products, usually of a whole genre of
technology, such as of downloading music, using cell phones while driving,
etc. the reason why such topics are favored among social scientists of
technology is because the mathematical models (regression analysis, for
example) that can be used in such research are widely available, data are
easy to come by, and numerous institution have an interest in the outcomes
of effect studies, making needed resources for research easily available.

since such studies inevitable are undertake after a design has been
completed, they do not inform past design decisions -- unless the design
continues towards a next generation of the product. usually designers
either consult effect studies or are given the results of studies of a
product they are asked to redesign.

klaus



-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Victor
Margolin
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 9:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: PHD-DESIGN Digest - 3 Aug 2007 to 4 Aug 2007 (#2007-179)

Dear Ken:
Thank you for your post. After almost thirty years in the field of design
history and design research I am probably as well aware as anyone that
studies of designed objects and their effects are being done outside of
design. In fact Donald Norman, now known to many design researchers came
from HCI and made a big splash with his contention that many products are
badly designed. His subsequent work on computers and other products has also
been useful. I can cite also Paul Atkinson's studies of computer technology
and its history published in Design Issues and the Journal of Design
History. Paul and others have raised interesting questions about why
developments in a particular technology went a certain way.
I don't remember ever hearing anyone enunciate that the study of the
design process was the central core of design research.
Perhaps you could trace the origin of that assumption for me. Many years ago
when Bruce Archer made his taxonomy of topics for design research, design
process was only one of them. I am also not clear how some of the studies of
the design process that we read about help designers. Can we really say that
the work of Donald Schon has changed the way designers work? And who else's
work has changed the way designers work. I'm sure some has but I don't see
that the kinds of studies I know about are as closely allied to changes in
practice as you seem to be suggesting.
At the design research conferences I have been to, there are rarely
any papers on products and their social consequences, particularly papers
that critique designs, particularly more complex ones like computer systems,
the web, trains, cars, transport systems.
These are the kinds of papers that lead to social change. In fact, products
hit the market with very little critique except for off line grumbling. I
would like to see more discussion of this kind of work on this list. There
has been little so far. Also, there are intense discussions going on about
the ongoing design of the worldwide web from the point of view of software
integration, capabilities, social interactions. This is a huge topic. Why
don't we see more of it on our list? I will stand by my original contention
that design researchers, at least the ones within the fold of this list,
have pretty much ignored research on products and their effects. In fact, it
is reasonable to assume that they would have a better insight into the
products themselves as they discuss their consequences than social
scientists for whom the artifacts may be simply means to social change. More
comments welcome.
Victor Margolin

>There are 3 messages totalling 391 lines in this issue.
>
>Topics of the day:
>
> 1. a question (2)
> 2. a question -- Outcomes and Results of Design Process
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 17:28:58 +0200
>From: Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: a question
>
>Dear Victor,
>
>This is a good question. Let me respond by turning it in a slightly
>different direction.
>
>There is a great deal of research in these issues. It simply shows up
>under different labels than "design research."
>
>In debates on design research, one of the perpetual themes that comes
>up is the notion that the primary purpose of design research is serving
>the design profession by studying the design process. This kind of
>statement -- and statements like it -- have been put forward frequently
>on this list and other design lists.
>
>Those who disagree with the proposition that the primary purpose of
>design research is serving the design profession by studying the design
>process are sometimes told that we are not genuinely interested in
>design or design research but something else.
>
>One reasonable purpose of design research is service to the design
>profession by studying the design process. When this is stated as the
>only purpose or the primary purpose of design research, the logical
>outcome is that "the outcomes of designing, their value and social
>consequences" are not an appropriate form of design research.
>
>Fortunately, this doesn't bother those of us who do this kind of work.
>In fact, research on these issues shows up regularly in such fields as
>sociology, informatics, cognitive science, psychology, medicine,
>anthropology, law, economics, learning theory, organization studies,
>and more. Because the effects and results of design process and
>designed artifacts are generally known through their impact on human
>beings, this kind of research generally turns up in -- or at the
>borders of -- the social and behavioral sciences. Nevertheless, you'll
>also find this kind of work in logistics, engineering, ecology,
>geography, mathematics, and other fields.
>
>Research involves many kinds of questions. I am still convinced that
>knowing how things work and why is as vital as knowing how to do thing.
>I'd be willing to argue that understanding more deeply "the outcomes of
>designing, their value and social consequences" will also help us to
>design better. By helping us better understand the relation of parts to
>wholes in dynamic systems, this constitutes one among several important
>areas of design research.
>
>Lubomir's insightful post on the tendency of many list conversations to
>turn political reflects a simple fact: whenever we discuss what we do
>in a fluid and developing field such as design research, people
>sometimes take statements of several kinds as political challenges.
>In trying to unpack issues and teased out varieties of meaning, for
>example, I have occasionally been accused of policing disciplinary
>boundaries or academic reputations. While this usually puzzles me, I
>understand where those kinds of statements come from. People often
>treat open questions as political, asking whose interests a question or
>an answer serves rather than simply engaging in inquiry for what
>Richard Feynman called the pleasure of finding things out.
>
>Anyhow, thanks for this question. And thanks, Lubomir and Johann, for
>your answers.
>
>Ken
>
>
>
>
>Victor Margolin wrote:
>
>I have a question for the list. Why is so much research attention given
>to the process of design and so little to its results - the products
>that are the outcomes of designing, their value and social
>consequences. It seems to me that one result of design research should
>be to serve as a critical lens for evaluating the results of designing.
>Of course, research into sustainable products is a promising direction
>but there are so many more things that are designed about which we
>don't know much. What about the way that new digital products like cell
>phones and ipods are changing socialization values. What about the
>changing ideas about the design of public space.We seem to leave all
>those and other questions related to the social consequences of
>designing to other disciplines.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 15:11:41 -0400
>From: Juris <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: a question
>
>Dear interlocutors,
>
>As a social scientist interested in the symbolic capital of design, I
>feel compelled to add just one more twist to this thread. If one is
>interested in the socio-cultural and political-economic roles of the
>idea of design, then the processes of design (internally, but also
>externally, as it acculturates its intended audiences), and perhaps
>even more importantly, the political outcomes of its functioning (for
>instance, how does the concept of design, and those who use it, do it,
>speak it, and make it, come to shape the production not only of things,
>but of relationships, power, identities, values, reality?), are as
>legitimately "results" as are the intended material products of design,
>their perceived or acquired value, and the social consequences of their
>presence. So (and forgive me if I'm generalizing too much) if
>analyses of the outcomes of designing are to be found largely 'under
>different labels' (as Ken Friedman explains), and an understanding of
>design processes (internal to design, primarily) is to be found largely
>within design research, then what I mean to suggest is the need to
>recognize the value of research into the broader functioning of design
>as a social and cultural system of classification - functioning within,
>through, and separately from its profession(s) - as a contributor to or
>creator of enduring structures of social order. In other words, how is
>the concept of design (no matter the field in which it is deployed)
>shaping political realities (which are inherently cultural and social),
>such as relationships of power, public policy, behavior, identity,
>taxonomies of value, philosophical questions, the human condition, and
>so on? I would think that as the influence and presence of design
>grows, these questions would grow in importance.
>Does anyone know where this kind of enquiry is taking place?
>
>Respectfully,
>Juris
>
>
>Juris Milestone, Ph.D.
>Department of Anthropology
>Temple University
>Philadelphia, PA
>
>
>On Aug 3, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Victor Margolin wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues:
>> I have a question for the list. Why is so much research attention
>> given to the process of design and so little to its results - the
>> products that are the outcomes of designing, their value and social
>> consequences. It seems to me that one result of design research
>> should be to serve as a critical lens for evaluating the results of
>> designing. Of course, research into sustainable products is a
>> promising direction but there are so many more things that are
>> designed about which we don't know much. What about the way that new
>> digital products like cell phones and ipods are changing
>> socialization values. What about the changing ideas about the design
>> of public space.We seem to leave all those and other
> > questions related to the social consequences of designing to other
>> disciplines.
>> --
>> Victor Margolin
>> Professor Emeritus of Design History Department of Art History
>> University of Illinois at Chicago
>> 935 W. Harrison St.
>> Chicago, IL 60607-7039
>> Tel. 1-312-583-0608
>> Fax 1-312-413-2460
>> website: www.uic.edu/~victor
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 23:35:54 +0200
>From: Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: a question -- Outcomes and Results of Design Process
>
>Dear Juris,
>
>Thanks for your question. While I generally agree with the kind of
>inquiry you propose, I hope it doesn't seem that I've posed this as a
>dichotomy
>
>To say that "analyses of the outcomes of designing are to be found
>largely 'under different labels'" also includes several labels within
>design research. I simply stated that design research shows up in
>several places. (For the sake of clarity, I'll say that I would not
>using the phrase "analyses of the outcomes of designing," but for the
>sake of simplicity, I'll accept it here. I used the term design as a
>verb, and the verb design describes a process with outcomes and
>results.)
>
>The classic definition of design as I use it is Herbert Simon's:
>"[devise] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into
>preferred ones" (Simon 1982: 129).
>
>Not only do people analyze the outcomes and results of design from many
>different perspective, but people practice design in many fields.
>People who design laws, for example, are called legislators or
>legislative aids, and people who study the outcomes of their work
>include political scientists, historians, lawyers, jurists, judges, and
>legal scholars. Physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, and others like
>them design different kinds of medical processes and surgical
>procedures. A wide range of researchers study the outcomes of their
>work.
>
>In Simon's terms, all kinds of people work as designers, and all
>professional practices are design fields. Management, for example, fits
>Simon's definition of design and management study is a design science
>as Simon saw it.
>
>There are many kinds of design research that study the design process
>and its outcomes. One kind studies design and the design process as a
>generic field or activity without regard to the target field of the
>design process. This is the sense in which Warfield (1994) writes about
>a science of generic design. Another studies design processes and
>outcomes situated within a specific design practice. This, for example,
>is the case of those who study managing as designing (Boland and
>Collopy 2004; see also: Managing as Designing 2002).
>
>If I were to expand your definition slightly from "design design as a
>social and cultural system of classification" to "design as a range of
>professional practices aimed at changing existing situations into
>preferred ones," then it would be possible to answer the rest of your
>question about who studies "[design as a range of professional
>practices aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones ...
>] functioning within, through, and separately from its
>profession(s) - as a contributor to or creator of enduring structures
>of social order. In other words, how is the concept of design (no
>matter the field in which it is deployed) shaping political realities
>(which are inherently cultural and social), such as relationships of
>power, public policy, behavior, identity, taxonomies of value,
>philosophical questions, the human condition, and so on..."
>
>The answer is that many people do, again under a variety of labels,
>from many perspectives, and within different fields. This is a
>necessary corollary to the fact that people practice design from many
>perspectives and within many fields, and their inquiries generally draw
>on the backgrounds from which they come.
>
>This is also related to a range of the kinds of issues that are coming
>to be described -- in the words of Nigel Cross's (2006) recent book --
>as "designerly ways of knowing." In this sense, design is not a set of
>technical skills, but a process, and designerly ways of knowing involve
>ways of thinking and knowing that form part of the process. From this
>perspective, there are three broad ways of knowing the world. Science
>examines the natural world including human beings in their role as
>natural creatures. Science seeks objective truth.
>The humanities examine the world of human experience. The humanities
>seek subjective understanding. Design in this larger sense examines and
>works with the artificial world. Design works through practice and
>examines the realm of the appropriate.
>
>One key aspect of design problems is that fact that they are situated
>in a context and constrained by conditions that arise from the
>contingent nature of most design problems. Science ultimately seeks
>truth and humanities seek increasingly deeper undemanding against a
>perpetually unfolding background of time that allows for renewed and
>extended research. Design solves problems embedded in the world of
>human action, where limits on time, resources, and information
>constrain every design process as solution-oriented but imperfect.
>Every solution must - in Herbert Simon's (1956) term - satisfice by
>selecting among constraints. Meeting one constraint more fully means
>accepting lower values on others. Understanding design as a general
>human phenomenon therefore requires us to understand the nature,
>conditions, and consequence of successful design process.
>
>It is this last issue that involves the kinds of question that Victor
>asked and that you extended.
>
>Cross (2006: 12) , to stay with this example, identifies five aspects
>of designerly ways of knowing. Designers struggle with ill-defined
>problems. They attempt to solve these problems by proposing and trying
>solutions rather than by seeking all possible information.
>They think in constructive ways, developing proposals and building on
>them in practice. They use professional codes to translate abstract
>solutions into working objects. Using codes enables them to read and
>write the object languages of design. So much for the process in
>Cross's model. But this process is anchored in a contingent world, and
>the process shapes results that change the world -- therefore changing
>the context in which the future iterations of a problem may be
>embedded, and changing the next cycle of contingencies.
>
>Cross (2006: 101) proposes a field of design research with three major
>branches: a field in which "design epistemology (studies) designerly
>ways of knowing, design praxiology (studies) the practices and
>processes of design, and design phenomenology (studies) the form and
>configuration of objects." If I were to propose something more
>expansive, I'd probably add branches to cover the kinds of issues you
>propose.
>
>If fact, I have been working on this problem in several ways. In one
>presentation (Friedman 2000, full text at URL below), I proposed a
>taxonomy that includes many of the issues in your note. I haven't
>really been satisfied with that attempt, and I've been working on an
>extended inventory and taxonomy together with Terry Love, M P Ranjan,
>and Fil Salustri. We're slowly picking away at it -- one reason this is
>so challenging is that we've managed so far to identify some 750 fields
>and subfields, disciplines and subdisciplines in design and design
>research.
>
>One way to make some progress in seeing how many ways people are at
>work on this -- and in what fields -- would be to undertake a
>bibliography of articles, books, and published reports on "[design as a
>range of professional practices aimed at changing existing situations
>into preferred ones ... ] functioning within, through, and separately
>from its profession(s) - as a contributor to or creator of enduring
>structures of social order. In other words, how is the concept of
>design (no matter the field in which it is deployed) shaping political
>realities (which are inherently cultural and social), such as
>relationships of power, public policy, behavior, identity, taxonomies
>of value, philosophical questions, the human condition, and so on..."
>
>If someone were to do this or edit it with the help of colleagues, I
>can most likely arrange to get it published in a good journal or -- if
>it is too large for a journal -- as a book from a good publisher.
>
>Any takers?
>
>Yours,
>
>Ken
>
>
>Reference
>
>Boland, Richard and Fred Collopy, editors. 2004. Managing as Designing.
>Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press.
>
>Cross, Nigel. 2006. Designerly Ways of Knowing. London: Springer Verlag.
>
>Friedman, Ken. 2000. "Creating Design Knowledge: From Research into
>Practice." In IDATER 2000: International Conference on Design and
>Technology Educational Research and Development. P. H. Roberts and E.
>W. L. Norman, eds. Loughborough, UK: Department of Design and
>Technology, Loughborough University, 5-32. Available from:
>https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace/handle/2134/1360
>
>Simon, Herbert. 1956. Rational Choice and the Structure of the
>Environment." Psychological Review, 63, 129-138.
>
>Simon, Herbert. 1982. The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge,
>Mass: MIT Press.
>
>Managing as Designing. 2002. Managing as Designing: Creating a
>vocabulary for management education and research. Case Western Reserve
>University, June 14-15, 2002.
>URL: http://design.case.edu/2002workshop/index.html#
>
>Warfield, John N. 1994. A science of generic design: managing
>complexity through systems design. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University
>Press.
>
>--
>
>Juris Milestone wrote:
>
>--snip--
>
>If analyses of the outcomes of designing are to be found largely 'under
>different labels' (as Ken Friedman explains), and an understanding of
>design processes (internal to design, primarily) is to be found largely
>within design research, then what I mean to suggest is the need to
>recognize the value of research into the broader functioning of design
>as a social and cultural system of classification - functioning within,
>through, and separately from its
>profession(s) - as a contributor to or creator of enduring structures
>of social order. In other words, how is the concept of design (no
>matter the field in which it is deployed) shaping political realities
>(which are inherently cultural and social), such as relationships of
>power, public policy, behavior, identity, taxonomies of value,
>philosophical questions, the human condition, and so on? I would think
>that as the influence and presence of design grows, these questions
>would grow in importance.
>Does anyone know where this kind of enquiry is taking place?
>
>--snip--
>
>
>--
>
>Prof. Ken Friedman
>Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of
>Management Oslo
>
>Center for Design Research
>Denmark's Design School
>Copenhagen
>
>+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
>+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
>
>email: [log in to unmask]
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of PHD-DESIGN Digest - 3 Aug 2007 to 4 Aug 2007 (#2007-179)
>***************************************************************


--
Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois at Chicago
935 W. Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607-7039
Tel. 1-312-583-0608
Fax 1-312-413-2460
website: www.uic.edu/~victor