A question: Are visual approaches outdated in addressing contemporary
design problems?
Are visual approaches more of a hindrance than a help? Does the use of
visually-based approaches to design encourage design failures and naff
design solutions?
Contemporary design problems are multi-dimensional. They are characterised
by having lots of factors, lots of stakeholders and lots of relationships
with other technologies. In other words lots of dimensions of design
considerations.
Visual approaches, however, are characterised by a paradigm of understanding
shaped by 2 or 3 dimensions. When used to represent factors other than the
obvious t3 Dimensions of space, they can only represent 3 factors of a
design at a time.
MY personal experience is visual approaches are often way too limiting in
design of multi-dimensional contemporary design situations. Worse, visual or
graphics approaches to modern design problems tend to force everything to
be reshaped to 2 or 3 dimensions and to force a kind of thinking limited to
2 or 3 dimensions. This corrupts the hell out of trying to understand
complex design situations and create better designs.
I'm wondering if it might be better to see the role of visual/graphic
approaches as peripheral and predominately located at both ends of design
activity: gathering information from stakeholders and defining appearance of
the final outcomes.
Is anyone else seeing the same issues?
Best wishes,
Terry
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Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
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