Hi Terry et. al.,

Been following the threads, avoiding trying to jump in due to essay
deadlines, but your question was too provocative to sit out. Namely, it is
frightening to realize that I work (currently) across all of these areas
that you mention:

Humanities/sociology/anthropology/ethnography (My habitus)
Art (Role as super art critic at UIC)
Business/organisation (Past and present consulting)
Environment/ecological/biological (Project starting on green manufacturing
for Chicago Cook County)
Architecture/planning (City Design Center duties)
Government/policy/power/control (My primary research area)
Software/programming (My professional work at Sapient and Arc World Wide)
Engineering (My co-teaching of Interdisciplinary Product Dev at UIC)

So with all that I've come to define design simply as "the act of
translating human values into tangible experiences." I know this defintion
excludes "conceptual design" but my view is that if it is not something
that I can experience through sensory perceptions (including extra-sensory
perception for all the metaphysicists) then it just part of an incomplete
process of designing.

"The act of translating human values into tangible experiences" seeks to
hybridize both the Herbert Simon-esque and craft/engineering based notions
of designing. The discussion of translating values getting to Herbert
Simon. The discussion of the principles and elements of designing getting
to the translation to something tangible to people. The tangibility part
is important because it has to hit people at both the emotional and
rational levels.

It allows me to discuss with students and colleagues the relationship
between values (from anthropology, ethics, and philosophy), design (from
design research on the processes, tools, intentions, authorship, scale),
and experience (again from anthropology, psychology, management science,
etc). It allows me to discuss the distinctions and blurring boundaries
with art and engineering, mostly having to do with intentions and
experience. For example, one of the distinctions between art and design
has to do with the tolerance for ambiguity of experience. Art tends to
have more tolerance for ambiguity, which it perhaps tied to its human
values regarding personal expression and the relative lack of transparency
in meaning. Engineering, for me, tends to have less tolerance for
ambiguity because of its value of precision, which is tied to methods of
manufacturability.

But enough procrastination, back to my essays.

Dori


On 6/29/08 7:15 PM, "Terence Love" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Just wondering how many of us on this list work (either as designers or
> design researchers) across multiple design sectors?
>
> One way of describing Gunnar's 'constellation' is in terms of the
background
> knowledge that designers use. The main groups seem to be:
>
> Humanities/sociology/anthropology/ethnography
> Art
> Business/organisation
> Environment/ecological/biological
> Architecture/planning
> Government/policy/power/control
> Software/programming
> Engineering
>
> Perhaps I've missed some?
>
> I'd be interested to get a feeling about how many on this list commonly
work
> across these sectors and consider themselves fluent in the understanding
and
> language of multiple sectors.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Terry
>
>