Terry,

On Aug 4, 2010, at 11:06 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> The purpose of any design activity is to create a design - a set of
> instructions to make or do something.

OK

> This is the difference between design
> activity and art activity.

Huh? Is this a tautology--design creates a design and art creates art  
and that's the difference? I can't even figure out what your  
assumptions about art are other than, perhaps being un-designlike by  
being primarily "creative" and unconcerned with effect. (Both of those  
assumptions represent an impressively naïve view of art.)

[snip]
> By implication, this  means that the primary professional skill of  
> designers
> is the ability to predict the changes in behaviour of people, objects,
> systems and organisations that result from any potential design.

If the purpose of design is to create a design, it would seem that the  
primary professional skill of a designer is to create a design.

Following your first statement, one would also assume that those who  
claim
> the central skill of design is creativity and thinking up new ideas
are wrong because creativity and thinking up new ideas do not, in and  
of themselves, produce designs. So this might be a straw man argument.  
Who makes this claim, by the way?

>  designers using only
> creativity may be limited in their understanding to predict how and  
> why
> particular behavioural changes are likely to result from their  
> designs being
> implemented.

So? Who has suggested that designers use "only creativity" (and what  
the hell could that even mean)?

By the way, if one person creates a design (or several) and another  
person selects a design to implement, which one is the designer?

> The creativity needed for generating those options is relatively
> routine and potentially trivial if one has the skill of being able to
> predict behavioural outcomes of designs being implemented.

Sure. And tennis is easy once you know that you should just keep  
hitting the ball back into the other side of the court in a manner  
that makes it hard for your opponent to do the same.

> From this perspective, it seems obvious the purpose of all design  
> research
> is focused around improving this ability to predict the behavioural  
> outcomes
> that result from any design being implemented.

Huh? How did we get from a claim that prediction is the primary design  
skill to excluding everything else from design research? That doesn't  
make sense even if I agreed with your premises. (You can probably  
guess that I don't.)

[snip]
> If you can think of aspects of design research that don't fit this  
> view, I'd
> love to hear about them!

Inquiries into design ethics? Consideration of the social structures  
of the design business? Various sorts of historical studies.  
Investigations into the idea that all aspects of design other than  
outcome prediction are trivial? . . .

> This way of viewing design seems obvious to me. If you feel it is  
> way off
> target, please let me know.

Consider this email to be your notification.

Gunnar
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