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PHD-DESIGN  August 2007

PHD-DESIGN August 2007

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Subject:

Graphic Design? Was RE: Culture

From:

mschmidt <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

mschmidt <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Thu, 9 Aug 2007 10:23:22 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (105 lines)

I responded to David offline thanking him, but I want to add something for
the list here.

David says graphic design is behind. I agree, where the object of just what
graphic design is behind in has to do with evidence-based research. What
graphic designers bring to the table is a deep understanding of visual
rhetoric, aesthetics, the capacity to transform ideas into visual/verbal
form, to explicate in length or provoke in a moment. Graphic designers can
use words, images, and now interactive media and motion graphics to evoke
emotion as well as explicate concepts. I don't need to go on, most members
of this list, I assume, know something about a graphic designer's training
and practice.

Graphic designers have been, for a good many years, expanding their research
horizons. Cultural studies was the rave when I was in grad school, but my
field has done quite a widespread job of raiding as many fields of inquiry
as could potentially touch its borders: perceptual and cognitive psych,
anthropology & sociology, of course history, literature, and fine art, as
well as HCI, information design, comp sci, marketing, comm sci, and on and
on. But the manner has been ad hoc. PhD programs in graphic design have been
established, certainly, but they are relative new-comers, still justifying
their own existence to the larger GD mainstream.

It's seems a cliché to say that the internet and new media technologies have
brought the engineering, information, and related design fields into closer
proximity if not mutual need. Yet it's obvious that graphic designers don't
just develop static and/or passive communication artifacts any longer.
Interactivity has ushered in intervention. And as new kids to the design of
user experiences, graphic designers do have some catching up to do. But they
bring advantages to the challenge of user interface design, visual design
systems, and to meeting affective needs through creative conceptual
development, and they bring a "visual empathy" for the appropriate use of
form for a given user or audience.

Hopefully the broader design research community will not view graphic design
as "backwards" but as another relevant and advantageous source, albeit one
that will need help from this same community in adopting and leveraging the
evidence-based research methods so clearly required if graphic designers are
also to participate in generalizing their tools and interventions beyond
single use cases.

Michael Schmidt


On 8/9/07 2:30 AM, "David Sless" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On 09/08/2007, at 12:49 AM, mschmidt wrote:
>> Going one step now beyond the justification for an evidence-based
>> approach
>> is what type of approach to take. If one is working in healthcare,
>> quantitative studies are preferred. However, much of the user-centered
>> design process is qualitative.
>
> Michael,
> This is an important point, but it takes us onto a whole new thread.
> As I've written about this in some detail, and a lot of it is already
> in the public domain, it might be appropriate to deal with this off-
> list. For the insomniacs amongst you, we have a growing number of
> publications on our web site dealing with this, and, as those of you
> who read my blog will know, EVIDENCE is one of my obsessions.
>
> For the list, I think it is important to realise that as researchers
> and professionals we have gone far more than one step beyond
> justification for an evidence based approach. The first step beyond
> is in terms of the types of evidence that is scientifically
> acceptable. The quantitative/qualitative issue is very much a
> traditional social science distinction. The most effective testing
> methods in this area--diagnostic testing--results in a combination of
> quantitative and qualitative data, and there are well developed
> rationales for the scientific basis of such data. In a medical
> context the closest analogy‹and one that we frequently use
> successfully‹is to compare diagnostic testing in information design
> with diagnostic testing in evidence based clinical practice in
> medicine. The second step beyond is that the best of current
> professional practice in information design‹most notably in the area
> of health information‹actually sets specific performance requirements
> in advance of prototype development commencing. The third step is to
> institutionalise good design practice so that minimum high
> performance standards are the norm. We spend a lot of our time these
> days working with industry and governments on developing industry
> codes of practice, guidelines, regulations and standardisation..
>
> As Terry points out, this type of approach is well established in
> many areas of engineering design. Why graphic design should be so far
> behind other areas is a topic that could keep me going for hours, but
> life is short.
>
> Bringing this back to Karel's starting point and to the critical
> evaluation of the social impact of design. No evidence, no critical
> evaluation.
>
> The problem in our field is that many of the failures are silent.
> When engineering design fails‹as is dramatically illustrated when
> bridges collapse or shuttles explode‹public concern and critical
> comment is widespread. When people die, become are disabled, or
> disadvantaged because they fail to find some important information,
> nobody notices and the world is silent. All around us millions of
> information bridges fail every day. Making them visible requires
> making the silent speak, the invisible visible, and the ephemeral
> concrete evidence.
>
> Without the evidence, there is no critique.
>
> David

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