I'm exceptionally pleased to announce that Simon Bowen has successfully
defended his PhD thesis titled
"A Critical Artefact Methodology: Using Provocative Conceptual Designs
to Foster Human-centred Innovation"
available online at http://www.simon-bowen.com/?page_id=40
Simon's work explores some practical implications of the critical design
methods developed by Dunn and Raby, Bill Gaver and others. He has
synthesised and evaluated ways for designers to use provocative
concepts, "Crazy Ideas" as he describes them, to stimulate stakeholders
to engage in productive speculation about aspirations and needs that
might not be revealed by more conventional user research techniques. In
particular he positions the designer at the centre of his methods,
tacitly "processing" the insights from stakeholder workshops into new,
more relevant design concepts to stimulate further rounds of stakeholder
thinking, rather than relying on explicit analysis.
To support this Simon has developed a description of such processing
based on Michael Polanyi's theories of tacit knowledge in action. I find
this a most useful building block in the body of work being done here at
Sheffield Hallam by myself and Nicola Wood with more to come from Rizal
Rahman and Cigdem Kaya whose PhD studies are extending it in different
directions. You can find this description on pages 171-173 of the
thesis: 6.2.4 Designing as ‘processing’ and Polanyi’s indwelling
I've developed a short account of how Simon's work has stimulated my own
thinking on how Rittel and Webber's work on wicked problems might be a
basis for design methods, prompted by members of this discussion list
who have suggested that wicked problems might be interesting but don't
seem to provide help with methods.
http://chrisrust.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/an-argumentative-process/
Best wishes from Sheffield
Chris
...............................................................o^o
Professor Chris Rust FDRS
Head of Art and Design
Sheffield Hallam University, S1 2NU, UK
+44 114 225 6772
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http://chrisrust.wordpress.com/
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the
future of the human race. - H. G. Wells
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