Hi Gunner and Terry,
I have been following this thread and it's related offspring, though I decided not to contribute until now. The education of Don Norman is not one of my priorities, and it seemed to me that many of the responses to Don's 'provocation' were engendered by Don's public standing rather than his well informed opinions.
Nonetheless, I was drawn in by an extremely important question asked by Terry and responded to in part by Gunner.
I agree with Gunner's answer, but I don't think Gunner does full justice to the topic. Here is the core of Terry's observation that led to his question:
> To be a design 'control freak' in this web design environment means to
> control the rules that define the creation of lower level rules and
> automated decision-making processes that shape how content is assembled on
> screen. This is very different from the idea of tightly defining the
> aesthetic appearance of a fixed web page.
and the question:
> The question is, where does the graphic designer contribute to these kinds
> of website design? What is their best role?
As a chronic design 'control freak', I have been engaging with the craft of designing rules for a long time, indeed long before the www. And I am not alone among designers—some of whom would call themselves graphic designers—who have been preoccupied with this craft at a professional, research and pedagogic level for most of their professional lives. There is also a long history of this type of work which preceded our generation, and on which we draw in our own work.
Designing rules has been a professional preoccupation for many graphic designers: type designers, book designers, wayfinding system designers, corporate identity designers, instructional designers etc etc. In each of these types of design, there is a need to develop a coherent set of rules that can be articulated, shared and systematically applied.
It's probably true that some graphic design courses don't teach this high level craft, but many do. And there are examples aplenty in any good design library for the bright student to learn from, copy and master. The www data base/css driven web sites of today are just a rather crude version of what the publishing and design industry have been doing for a long time at a sophisticated level. And this high level craft—generating rules for complex information systems—is continuing to be researched and evolved through practice. Maybe the reason it does not get noticed on this list is because it takes place outside the academy and in that disputed category of research through design.
Some responses then to Terry's question:
1. Tightly defining the aesthetic appearance is part of this type of design, it's just that the rules for doing so are built in from the start. If they are added at the end, after the structural work is done, then they don't work. As in other areas of design, professional graphic designers involved in this type of work have long since moved beyond the idea of mass production of single objects to customized production of a variety of objects generated by rules. Even the design of the humble bills and customer letters, an area I know well, has for the last 30 years been about designing rules for different customers and media rather than single pages. And the 'aesthetics' is there from the beginning.
2. The problem faced by graphic designers, as Gunner points out, are political. It's to do in part with the point at which graphic designers get invited into projects and the expectations of their role once they are there. Position is everything in political matters. It relates to the position one is perceived to occupy by other stakeholders and where one is allowed to draw the boundary round the problem domain. Many designers with a good understanding of designing rule based systems become frustrated and disillusioned when they are restricted to decorating, as Terry suggests, by inviting them in when all the rules are designed. There are many examples of this in the research literature, lists and blogs.
So a well trained and experienced graphic designer can do a great deal more than is sometimes expected of them by other professionals. It is up to the professional bodies and design advocate groups to help make this clear. It would also help a great deal if design researchers and gurus paid more attention to what senior designers learn as part of their craft and their ongoing research through design, rather than indulging in procrustean thinking and displays of ignorance.
Having said that, there is much to do in the design of future curriculums and better articulating the results of design through research.
A couple of references for the insomniacs or curious. One is a paper on the nature of designing rules. The second is an essay which is part of a much larger work on the future of graphic design eduction. Both point to issues in current practice and the current shortcomings of design education. But none of this should be seen as criticisms of professional designers working at the peak of their profession, of which we have many both past and present. It would be helpful, as I have said before, if design researchers and gurus looked at some of these precedents before pronouncing on an entire profession.
Sless D 2007
Designing Philosophy
Visible Language 41-2 101-26
Sless D 2011
Critical Reflections on a Manifesto 120–123
in ICOGRADA Design Education Manifesto edited by Audrey Bennet and Omar Vulpinara
downloaded 2.11.2011 from http://www.icograda.org/education/manifesto.htm
David
--
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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