Dear Victor,

I think you miss the point of my previous post. What follows is also in part
a response to Karel's post  (particularly his comment that design has
primarily focused on style)

What I was trying to point to in my previous post was there seems to be a
sort of parochial blindness in some parts of the design field that ignores
many of the realities of design and design research. 

Perhaps its easiest to explain using concrete examples.

Take the iPod.  The appearance of the iPod, its styling and marketing and
its interface represent perhaps 1/1000 of the design effort necessary for
its existence - perhaps less. The remainder, most of the design effort,
occurred outside 'Art and Design' design fields. I've detailed an example of
the sort of exploration that reveals overall design effort invested in a
product in
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind01&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R55451&I=
-3 There has been a sort of blindness to this reality.

Looking at Design Research and the effectiveness of particular developments.
The major impacts have clearly been via design research involving formal
design theory. It is that work and related relatively scientific
functionalist design research that has resulted in the massive advances in
the efficiency and effectiveness of design activity and the amazing
imporvements quality and volume of designed outputs.  It  has primarily
happened through scientifically-based design  research into issues and
design practices that were assumed at the time to be wholly intuitive and
purely  'creative'. It resulted in the design of automated processes that
achieved design outcomes  better than those produced by professional
designers that did not uses these approaches. It led to the tremendous raft
of computerized support for designers , not only for initial  design but
also for automated design optimization in areas such as CAD, CAM, CAE, FEA,
CFD - even in many areas of graphic design (in fact, much of the benefit of
the Mac and related software are in automation and routinisation of what
were previously creative skilled design activities).  Books such as Chris
Jones' Design Methods and have made a small difference to a small group of
designers and researchers but my guess is that compared to formal design
research it is in a similar ration to the iPod case above. There has been a
sort of blindness to this reality also.

Currently, the main advances in efficiency and effectiveness of design
practices in 'Art and Design' design fields have depended on advances
provided by design research from the bulk of the design field. These include
the design development of software such as Photoshop, imaging software,
printing software, new manufacturing techniques  and advances in business
processes that enable production and sale of mass produced items with
artistic merit. Again, this is another reality of design to which there is a
blindness. 

Looking at the publications of research relating to different areas of
design suggests there are substantial opportunities for improving the
breadth and depth of practically-focused  research relating to design in the
'Art and Design' design fields. This is particularly evident in relation to
research that goes beyond craft and uses approaches drawn from the sciences.
Another reality to which there sometimes seems to be a deliberate blindness.


Victor you say,
"So, my call for more research on the social effects of products relates to
the need for an ongoing critical component of design practice just as we
have comparable components for the practices of writing novels, making
buildings, making films, producing art, writing music etc. "

This would also widen the net of design research for other design fields
besides 'Art and Design' to  include critical research into 'making' would
also include critical research into 'manufacture'  and thus include the
whole of engineering, over and beyond engineering design. Is this what you
meant?

Thoughts?

Best regards,

Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love
Curtin Research Fellow 
Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Faculty of Built Environment, Art and Design
Associate Researcher at Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence
Institute
Research Associate,  Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council 
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Development
Management School, Lancaster University,Lancaster, UK,
[log in to unmask]
____________________