Dear David and Terry,

There is are interesting distinction in this interchange that are worth
considering:

[1]

Design research may not be about improving outcomes, but design itself
does involve improving outcomes or creating preferred states against
current states.

Design research involves a wide range of questions, and only some of these
involve teleology or improving outcomes.

Design is teleological. We design to create outcomes.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, but teasing out a distinction, and
this includes an aspect of the distinction that distinguishes between design
research and design.

[2]

Terry argues that all design research involves "predicting behavioural outcomes 
to improve  them."

To me, that is a sweeping statement. I can conceive of many forms of design
research that involve other goals. There is also the need to clarify the term
"behavioral outcomes." If by behavior, Terry means the behavior and function
of metals or chemicals or artifacts as well as human behavior, that statement
has one range of meanings. If Terry means behavior and interaction between
artifacts and surrounding systems or end users, it has a different meaning. 

Even though I will argue that many kinds of design research do not involve
prediction, I'd like to know what kinds of behavior Terry intends to cover
in this statement.

[3]

Without agreeing that all forms of design research involve prediction, I agree
that we can understand and predict far more than we understand and predict
successfully today. That is clearly one purpose of design research, and a 
valuable purpose.

One reason I value Terry's work so highly is that he spends so much time
carefully and patiently working through the literature and practice of multiple
design fields, applying what he learns to the process and practice of design.
This has several consequences. One is a specific consequence of Terry's  
background in engineering and computation. On the one hand, this means
that Terry seeks measurable and predictable outcomes. On the other, this 
limits the ambiguous and interpretive. That simply bugs some of us -- and 
I occasionally find it frustrating. The second consequence is general. Terry
approaches issues in a scientific manner. This means the rest of us must work
hard just to keep up with and understand Terry's work. Many of us find the
demands on our time difficult -- we can't follow Terry's work without wide
reading in fields where we do not often go. The third consequence follows
from the first two: Terry is sometimes wrong. That is what happens when
people actually work in a scientific manner. Some experiments fail, some
hypotheses prove wrong. Terry has a genuine ethos of scientific inquiry:
he wants to know whether his ideas prove out. In the grand style of Karl
Popper's philosophy of science, he proposes bold hypotheses and tests 
them to build on what works while he cheerfully discards what doesn't.

Terry is engaged in a long-term, progressive research program in several
areas of design. In this respect, he is a model researcher. This is not the
only model of research, to be sure, but I am glad that Terry is one of us, 
and I value his work. 

The third paragraph -- below -- is a typical Terry Love statement, and Terry
really does work on the issues that he raises. What's so puzzling to me is
that we have too few people in our field doing the very necessary kind of 
work that Terry does. I think that will change as more engineers, logicians,
mathematicians, and physicists become interested in design. 

Warm wishes,

Ken


On Sun, 8 Aug 2010 23:08:07 +0800, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

[1]

>You say that ' Design research, such as my own, into the philosophy of
>design is not necessarily about improving outcomes, nor is critical research
>of the kind done by Victor Margolin.'

[2]

>I claimed that at heart all design research has an underlying focus on
>'predicting behavioural outcomes to improve  them'.  I suggest that this is
>true of both your research and Viktor's although some research may appear to
>be  less directly connected. Point me to a research paper that you feel this
>is not true for and lets test it.

[3]

>You say ' There is a vast area of human activity which falls outside the
>category of things that are potentially predictable'. I suggest 1) that in
>the areas in which designers work, this is much rarer than designers claim,
>and 2) where designers design in areas where behavioural outcomes are truly
>unpredictable then they lay themselves open to  legal action against them
>(on what basis would they justify that their designs were any good/optimal/
>satisfied the brief?). Again, the test is to look at some examples. It is
>true that one cannot exactly predict the behaviour of some indeterminate
>systems. One can, however, predict a lot about them, and, systems that are
>totally unknown in terms of their behavioural outcomes are usually not
>terribly useful. Please give examples and we can work through them to test
>them.