Hi All,
As you may gather, my post and link to a blog about the death of design, the subject of another thread on this list, has a direct bearing on this thread. Simply put, if you cannot measure the impact of design, then the chances design's death are high.
A little while after that blog I wrote another that links this thread with the other much more explicitly.
http://communication.org.au/modules/wordpress/?p=61.
I agree with Fillipo.
I'm involved in information design, not product design, and I would hesitate to suggest that concepts, methods, and findings in our field are readily transferable. But information designers, as a matter of routine, have been measuring the impact of their work for a very long time, and they continue to eat and avoid death. Perhaps there are some lessons there.
David
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On 20/07/2011, at 11:22 AM, Filippo A. Salustri wrote:
> Jurgen,
>
> It seems to me that to verify or justify something, you need to know
> what to measure and you need a metric to measure with. Even when
> deciding which posts to read, I'm sure you have an internal "meter"
> that tells you when - based on the subject, the author of the message,
> the length, etc - whether you're 'justified' to read it. And that
> measurement might change as you read the message. And I'll bet that,
> if you had the time and inclination, you could externalize those
> criteria.
>
> The problem of justifying or verifying the contribution of design in
> an organization is *way* more complex, but one deals with it in the
> same way. Assuming one can distinguish a design activity from a
> non-design activity - in itself not necessarily easy - one must track
> the impact of that activity throughout the organization. Sometimes
> the effects aren't fully realized till long after the activity is
> finished, so it's not just complexity across the organization, but
> complexity in time (as if the organization were a function of time as
> well as other things).
>
> I don't even know if such an undertaking is tractable, let along
> feasible. But that's what design research is for (among other
> things).
>
> On the question of whether knowledge is transferable from outside
> design, I suggest we won't know till we try. You acknowledge that the
> body of knowledge of design is not that large yet. If that's so, then
> we can't know if it will transfer without trying it. That's another
> reason for design research.
>
> I would, however, suggest with respect that there's a great deal of
> knowledge that is already in 'design' - only its sequestered in
> specific design disciplines. Before we start looking in other
> disciplines, I think we should be looking for knowledge that is in
> specific design disciplines but that could be transfered (albeit
> possibly with some alterations). I would surprised if we could not
> start to develop a body of knowledge of design-in-the-broadest-sense
> by trying to pull together knowledge that now only exists in specific
> disciplines.
>
> Cheers.
> Fil
>
> On 19 July 2011 14:59, Jurgen Faust <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi Filippo,
>>
>>
>> thanks for your time and thought. It is interesting to compare design with what happened before the Big Bang.
>> But if enterprises spend money, at a certain point they are going to evaluate what design will contribute. Since I was many times involved in University decisions, I sometimes asked similar questions. Can we verify an investment, can we justify when we spend money and resources?
>>
>> The same I am doing when I am reading such posts, even if not quantitatively justified, I will stop reading and posting if I don't see a value anymore. The reason: I have limits, timewise, therefore limited ressources.
>>
>> It is a valuable statement that we should as well look outside our discipline, in adjacent practise. Many interesting models, theories about design, I didn't find in 'narrow design' research. The body of knowledge is still not big enough and substantial reflecting on designing is often found in adjacent fields, I do agree.
>>
>> But finding models of measuring in other disciplines and fields, we need to ask always are these models transferable?
>>
>> Clearifying or getting closer to what happens when we involve design, when we are designing, and whether we can differentiate it from other activities like management isn't an easy task, or might be impossible, or it might not be appropriate, since we have to do with what Buchanan called fourth order design.
>>
>> Existing in-vivo is another interesting question? The question of exist(ing) might be even oposed to the question of in-vivo, since existing might reduce design to a partial entity and therefore is creates a contradiction to an in-vivo situation.
>>
>> But all these framing and reframings will help, so I hope, making a decision, whether it is valuable to spend some time researching whether we can measure the impact and value of design.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jurgen
>>
>
>
>
> --
> \V/_
> 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/
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