All,

For me, David's post was like a life line thrown to a drowning person. Why?
Because, like many people on this list, I regularly need to transfer the
theoretical and philosophical debates of my colleagues, no matter how valid
they are, into a position that is more pragmatic and somehow connected to
the realities of contemporary professional design practice.

This conundrum, that is, the apparent disconnect between design research and
its applicability to design practice, has been a recurring theme on this
list. In fact, I sense that we may have lost some members because the
connection between research and practice was not always apparent -- a case
reminiscent of the surgeon who declared that the surgery was successful but
that the patient died.

For those of us teaching in professional design programs, especially where
bachelor's, masters and PhD programs coexist, connecting research to
practice is an everyday challenge. To listen to some of my colleagues,
especially the so-called 'die-hard' professionals, research is meaningless
unless it can serve their professional needs. Some research findings do
serve these needs and these practicing designers are pleased to incorporate
them into their practice; however, other research findings appear esoteric
and therefore are not valued.

Where am I going with this? I sense that as one discussion or another
becomes progressively more arcane -- irrespective of how valid it may be --
our practitioners, including educators, retreat. I hope that I am wrong but
let me provide a recent case in point. Charles Burnette raised a general
question on creativity. How apropos, I thought. Creative thinking has always
been considered a prerequisite for designers. Closer to home (meaning
professional industrial design programs in the US) I sense a clear shift in
what is expected of our graduates if Bill Moggridge's comment a few years
ago is to be believed. Moggridge stated that his office, IDEO, can hire five
competent industrial designers in China for the cost of one in the US. IDEO
can get a great deal of the bread-and-butter design work done in China for a
lot less than it costs in Palo Alto. This pattern is not dissimilar to what
is happening in software development and basic accounting. Therefore, what
are American design schools to do? Continue to focus on the so-called
bread-and-butter skills associated with industrial design practice or begin
to place more emphasis on areas like creativity and innovation?
Unfortunately for me at least, the online discussion on creativity went into
a very different direction and very little of it applied to the challenges
that directors such as myself face. This is the case because as public
universities in the US (and I place the accent on public because public
universities are not expected to be inexpensive versions of Harvard or
Stanford) are facing greater public need for accountability in research
endeavors. Consequently, the Pasteur model of university research is often
being promoted more and more. By way of this model, research should have
some direct and meaningful impact on society.

Therefore, may I urge for an enhanced participation from those of you who
read the posts regularly and who feel as I do that a connection between
design research and professional design practice/education is invaluable. I
would appreciate reading how research findings can benefit design education
and practice to a degree that somehow balances the more theoretical side
that often develops in our exchanges.

Thank you everyone.

Jacques Giard, PhD
Professor and Director

MSD/PhD Programs
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2105

P Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.




On 8/17/09 6:14 AM, "David Sless" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'm just about to board another flight, this time homeward bound from
> London to Melbourne. So a few quiet moments to reflect on posts to
> this list.
>
> As the old hands will know, we have been here before. Discussions of
> intention and other mental constructs recurs on this list without
> productive outcome, and that is inevitable. But it's interesting that
> when I first joined the list, very few of us that contributed took a
> post Wittgenstinian view. I'm heartened that this is no longer the
> case and that many people have moved towards this way of thinking,
> releasing us from the mentalist shackles.
>
> One of the consequences of this way of thinking, if one is prepared to
> take it, is that it relieves one of the burden of offering
> explanations for such things as intention, knowing, desire and
> thinking, as antecedents to theory in design. This is a wonderful
> opportunity for design researchers and phd candidates to focus on
> designing without the need to doff ones cap to every discipline within
> the social and behavioural/cognitive sciences before doing useful
> design research.
>
> This is not to suggest an approach which lacks rigour or careful
> articulation, far from it.
>
> There is here an opportunity for a rigourous evidence based approach
> to design research that truly informs design practice. Rather than an
> approach to theory that endlessly elaborates itself into the
> intellectual space available, I have found it quite useful to see how
> little theory I need to account for an evidence based design practice.
>
> Without the evidence base as a check, however, you are doomed to
> endless, though highly entertaining, elaboration.
>
> David