Thank you Victor + Ken,
for this excellent discussion.
For me it seems that design research - in the way
it is discussed here - has very little to do with real (product) design.
Kenīs statement, that design research means
"studying the design process" was the topic of
the design methodology movement in the 1960s and
1970s (the Herman A. Simon syndrom). Remembering
the DRS Wonderground Conference at Lisboa (where
we all met last year), there have been no
products, no visions, no design concepts - but
numerous papers discussing the ways of doing it.
Wasnīt it exhausting ?
Since the 1980s the values of products have
changed in many ways. Function or meaning - this
is the question. Martin Heideggers essay (from
1957) about "Difference and Identity" is still an
important topic: for the companies, for the
countries and the designers at all.
Nigel Cross question (from 2000) how Design may
become a "Discipline" is not yet answered in the Design Research Community!
Look for example how many global companies are
involved in design research, e.g. LG
Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Samsung
etc. etc. German car industry is also doing a lot
of design research: AUDI runs an own Design
Research Dept., Daimler Chrysler is runing a
Research Office at Berlin (headed by Eckart
Minx), Volkswagen at Wolfsburg runs a future
design dept. etc.,. etc. They are all studying
intensivly cultural differencies (especially
between the US, Europa and Asia) and how they can
continue their values and identities in new
transportation concepts. Looking there it becomes
obvious, how advanced, how applied and how succesful design research can be.
I also have the impression that the differencies
between Universities (which teach much research
and very little design) and the Art & Design
Schools (which are doing very little research but
very much design, and where I am coming from) is
still obvious. In the Netherlands TU Delft and TU
Eindhoven are doing good jobs bringing things
together, the UIAH in Finland also - but who else is on this line?
We do not need so much natural sciences for
design but much more humanties to transfer the
results from science into the design of new
concepts. To visualize the technological progress
and to adjust it to the user needs and seeds is
the topic of design. The recently startet
discussion about anthropology and ethnology is
very useful indeed. And there is a lot of good hope into the new JID Journal!
But Victors examples of digital products are also
excellent. There are so many new questions for
design reserach but who will give the answers ?
Bernhard____
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