Klaus, sorry but I still don't get it.

History is history, whether it's about design or not.
And anything new deviates from what existed, whether it was designed or not.
The telephone, as you say, was invented, not designed.  And the parts of
telephony that were designed, such that they made the widespread use of
telephony viable, were not what Mr. [whoever invented the telephone - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone]
created/invented/whatever.

I do not understand the sentence: "all the research into the history of
speech, including sound production, can say little about how the telephone
expanded the interaction among people by electric or radio devices."  I read
this as suggesting that research cannot inform people about the way
telephony impacted human interactions.  Surely, I must have this wrong.

I would argue that all innovations are extracted (by the human mind) from
existing data.  We just don't yet know how that works exactly.  I personally
think that analogy plays a much bigger role in invention, innovation, and
design than most people think.  One reason why innovations seem
unpredictable is that there are (usually) many, many alternatives to an
innovation that would likely have done just as well.  For instance, the
reason why the iPhone hit so big is that it provided certain functions to
users (including not only technical functions, but also functions pertaining
to aesthetic pleasure, social standing, etc).  But there are probably many
other designs that could have provided those exact same functions equally
well.  Any of them could have been successful.  Sure, we might not be able
to predict the specifics of a given case, but they were all functionally
equivalent - so there really was only 1 solution.

Indeed, I would argue that the Palm Pre actually does a better job of
providing most of the iPhone's functions.  The Pre lost the game because it
wasn't first out of the gate; but that doesn't make the Pre a worse "design"
per se.

Also, something new and unpredictable may be added, but it is unpredictable
only with respect to the possible alternatives - that is, history may allow
for diverse future alternatives, but not infinitely many.  History /blocks/
whole classes of alternatives.

Yes, a design (when manifested, of course) /should/ deviate what happens
from what would have happened without it.  But the past is full of designs
that were introduced and for which we might have data describing quite well
how exactly it caused a deviation.  Research on that data could help us
understand how the design caused the deviation and could help us design
better in the future.

Cheers.
Fil

On 15 August 2010 19:08, Klaus Krippendorff <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> filippo and johann,
>
> of course, history is important, especially when the object of historical
> interest does not change or changed by a fixed pattern, say of gr4owth in a
> particular dimension.
>
> filippo, you mention the map of a city one has developed in one's head, and
> needed to find one's way. but it presumes that we do not change the city as
> we use that map -- at least this is the presumption.
>
> i was talking about history in regard to design. if design intervenes with
> what exist, innovates or revolutionizes, say, the way we can interact with
> each other by voice, that what is new must deviate from what existed, what
> has developed so far.  think of the invention of the telephone.  it surely
> makes use of human speech, which has a very long history indeed, but was
> always limited to how far the sound carried the articulations (i am not
> talking about writing). all the research into the history of speech,
> including sound production, can say little about how the telephone expanded
> the interaction among people by electric or radio devices.  as i said,
> innovations cannot be extrapolated from existing data, they always add
> something new and are inherently unpredictable from the past.  a design
> deviates from what would happen without it and this is the key to
> understanding design -- not research of past data.
>
> if you are interested, click on
> http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.htmlto hear about the amazing things that a good scientist can do with
> comparative population data.  as you listen, please not the correlation he
> describes between family size, population size, income, mortality ...
> hundreds of variables by which he can predict how existing variables change.
>  but it doesn't say anything about design (except re his own software).
>  it's fun.
>
> klaus
>
>
>
-- 
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/