Sorry, but I still don't understand this notion of contextless definitions of designing being useless. While context is very important to make a definition meaningful to individuals' understanding, I think that a context-free definition - if one is even possible - would certainly constitute the commonalities between all the kinds of designing. It would be glue that could help bring the community together in all its diversity, and give us a common core language to help talk to each other.
I find so much of the discussion about design outside of engineering meaningful because much of the body of knowledge in non-engineering design *is* meaningful in engineering too. I'd like to think that the converse can also be true. I think that if we really tried, we could learn a lot from each other, but only if we develop a common grounding to talk rationally to each other.
Insofar as requisite skills for students to learn, I think some of them are:
* reflection
* method of enquiry
* analogical reasoning
* teamwork
There are gads of others, but these come to mind as particularly important.
Cheers.
Fil
--
Filippo A. Salustri, PhD, PEng
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University, 350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada
tel: 416/979-5000 x7749 fax: 416/979-5265
[log in to unmask] http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil
----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Chambers <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:23 pm
Subject: The Design Domain
To: [log in to unmask]
> Dear all,
>
> The discussion on a definition of design has been, and continues to be,
> quite fascinating. I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask the following:
>
> Since a definition of design without context is (as seems to be the general
> consensus) quite useless to all but the pondering researcher, what
> then are
> the requisite skills of the (eg Product) Designer? What is it that we
> are
> trying to develop through a design education?
>
> Or, in more vulgar terms, what could a design course absolutely NOT do
> without?
>
> I look forward again to your thoughts.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Daniel
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