Hi Terry,
Thanks for this thought-provoking thread.
Can you expand a bit more on what you mean by 'behavioral changes in the world'?
I'm thinking that the main behavioral change in the world designers are responsible for is to make products cool/beautiful so that customers will buy them over other products. As you say, this is 'much the same as what we currently see'.
What other vision do you have for design, design education and the design profession?
Best wishes
Amanda
Dr Amanda Bill
Institute of Design for Industry and Environment
College of Creative Arts
Massey University, Wellington
New Zealand
+64 4 8012794 ext 6886
email: [log in to unmask]
On 12/08/10 3:26 AM, "Terence Love" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Gunnar,
Thank you for your message.
You wrote,
<snip>Is this a tautology--design creates a design and art creates art and
that's the difference? <endsnip>
That difference appears to result in a lot of implications for design
theory, design education, professional design practice, design contracts,
design processes, design evaluation, when a 'design' is defined as a set
of instructions to make or do something..
You wrote,
<snip> 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.
<endsnip>
I agree. The need to focus on behaviours of outcomes comes as a result of
asking about the skills and processes needed to create designs and to
improve designs. It comes in asking what are the cores skills needed for
design education. Skills at understanding and predicting how designs change
behaviours of people, objects, systems etc seem to be prior and more
significant than study of say aesthetics or developing a good visual sense.
I suggest that if these are given priority over understanding and predicting
behaviours then the proportion of failed designs is unnecessarily higher and
it results in attitudes in designers that tend to unnecessarily explain
design in terms of magic, talent, coolness or in terms of high and low
status individuals and organisations - much the same as what we currently
see.
You ask, who makes the claim that creativity is the central skill of design?
I've found it a common explicit description of the skills of design and
implicit in many other explanations of the skills needed for design. Do you
feel the situation is different?
You ask,
<snip> If one person creates a design (or several) and another person
selects a design to implement, which one is the designer? <endsnip>
Good question.
You commented,
< Terry> 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. <>
<Gunnar> 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.<>
I'm suggesting something different from how you seem to be interpreting.
There are already available many straightforward easy to use approaches for
predicting the changes and differences in changes in behaviours of design
outcomes resulting from choosing different potential designs. These are not
commonly taught to designers. My guess is in part because this approach
contradicts many culturally-based assumptions held by designers, design
educators and design researchers.
You wrote,
<snip> 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.) <endsnip>
The previous email suggested a primary skill is predicting the 'behavioural
changes in outcomes' resulting from a design or potential design. The focus
is 'behavioural changes in outcomes' - not 'prediction'.
The essential purpose of any design is to change the way the world behaves
as a result of that design being implemented.
Put simply 'design' => 'behavioural changes in the world'.
This is so central to design that by implication it is central to any
research relating to design.
I asked,
> If you can think of aspects of design research that don't fit this >
view, I'd > love to hear about them!
You proposed,
<snip> Inquiries into design ethics? Consideration of the social structures
of the design business? Investigations into the idea that all aspects of
design other than outcome prediction are trivial? . . .<endsnip>
'Design ethics' is about the implications of 'behavioural changes in the
world' that result from a design.
' Consideration of the social structures of the design business' can be
viewed simply as design at an organisaitonal level. The study of the social
structures id meaningless without understanding 'behavioural changes in the
world' implied by design business using different designs of social
structures.
' Various sorts of historical studies. ' - Do you mean about design?
'Behavioural changes in the world' resulting from different historical paths
is central to historical study.
' Investigations into the idea that all aspects of design other than
outcome prediction are trivial? . . .' To investigate this idea is
implicitly grounded in the assumption that there will be different
'behavioural changes in the world' when this idea is used rather than some
other idea.
Best wishes and thanks,
Terence
==
Dr Terence Love FDRS,AMIMechE, MISI
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Mob: 0434 975 848
Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
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