Yes, it helps. I expected that that was what you meant. Dunno if Klaus
meant this.
The one thing you're missing, IMHO, is that just because engineering
designers have a different background from any other kind of designer does
NOT mean they (could) share a substantive methodological background. I'm
one of those apparently odd birds who thinks that designing is an activity
the body of knowledge of which is NOT entirely dependent on the artifact
being designed. That is to say, there is such a thing called design that is
not associated with any particular discipline, and that it is rather like a
methodological template. It gets instanced into a discipline and modified
by/with the domain specific knowledge of that discipline, to yield
engineering design, or graphic design, or [whatever] design.
I have come to this view after years of listening to non-engineering
designers and noticing startling methodological similarities between them
all.
And I think the biggest mistake we make, as design researchers, is in
thinking that design is only what it is in the sundry disciplines. This is
the undercurrent I perceive when reading posts like yours and Klaus's.
I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just saying that, based on my own
experiences and studies, I disagree.
Cheers.
Fil
2009/9/13 jose luis casamayor <[log in to unmask]>
> Hi Fil and David,
>
>
> I apologise if the word ‘should’ might sound a bit like a personal
> judgement (which was not), but the point I tried to make was that design
> engineers (practitioners/researchers) have a range of knowledge and skills
> inherent of their disciplines (training, research training and experience)
> that differ from the knowledge and skills of, say, graphic designers.
> Therefore it is only too natural that they respectively will be more
> prepared (and feel more comfortable) to do their respective work than people
> who did not receive that specific training/experience. Of course, there
> might be design engineers with exceptional natural skills as a graphic
> designer but that is not the general rule. All This by no means imply that
> design engineers cannot collaborate with other type of designers, all the
> opposite, design is multidisciplinary by nature, so they usually have
> (should) to collaborate with design engineers, and this is usually the case
> in product development.
>
> But their respective disciplines have specific training, etc. that makes
> them different among them, although they can also have similarities. To make
> clear these differences not only have benefits for academic purposes but
> also for the professional world. i.e.: design engineers designing the casing
> of a product which might well be designed mainly by industrial designers;
> and the opposite, industrial designers having to design the functional part
> of the product which might well be designed mainly by design engineers
> (although this not so usual due to the type of skills required). Again,
> these ‘reference boundaries’ do not mean that there should not be open
> collaboration and discussion among all members of a team/academy involved in
> product development/research, but that each one should know which part of
> the design outcome they should be experts in for the benefit of the other
> members and the final outcome.
>
> I hope this helps,
>
> Jose
>
>
>
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--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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