Dear Don,
From experience as a member of the IMechE Management Panel here in Western
Australia and as a designer and researcher, the relationship between
practicing engineering designers and research is much closer than you
describe. The cutting edge of engineering design practice depends heavily on
information from research. Similarly, much social policy design and design
of government interventions in areas such as crime prevention and social
support depends heavily on up to the minute research.
This may be a difference between technical and non-technical design fields.
It might, however be a matter of scale in which the big design industries
(oil and gas, aerospace, power and ICT infrastructure, mining, vehicle
design, etc) and government can afford to use research in their design
activity?
Regards,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Senior Lecturer, Design
Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Senior Lecturer, Design
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
Director, Design Out Crime Research Centre
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don
Norman
Sent: Wednesday, 11 January 2012 10:01 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Opaque
Glenn asks:
On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 5:32 PM, Glenn Johnson
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> The fact that the Apple story is extremely opaque ... speaks volumes about
the growing gap between the design profession and research.
>
> There are many side stories connected to this lack of insight. For
> example;
>
> - are any other areas of post grad research as similarly disconnected?
>
> How can one study a closed 'guild' as it were?
This is NOT a closed guild. This is the standard research-product gap.
This is NOT a gap between the research profession and research. It is a gap
between academicians and researchers and product delivery in
EVery field: computer science, mechanical engineering, ... This
mailing list is primarily made up of academics and researchers -- hence the
gap between what many on this list know and understand and how product
people do their jobs.
Academics and researchers try to examine fundamental issues. They produce
lots of research and theory that is then read by other researchers and
students. In turn, this leads to more research and more theory.
Practitioners ignore all that. Practitioners practice: they have to deliver
products with tight deadlines. They do not read the journals nor do they
attend scientific conferences. When a research conference claims it contains
both academics and industry people, they don't: the industry people usually
come from the research side of industry.
People in the product side have no time.
this is true in ALL fields. When I am not in design, I am in computer
science. Same thing here. As a product person, my conferences are CES and
DEMO. My computer science friends have never heard of Demo and although
they have heard of CES, they never go. (see
http://www.demo.com)
I've written about this:
The Research-Practice Gap
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_research-practice_gap_1.html
also see
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/talk_research_practice_gap_2_kinds_of_innovation_1.htm
l
don
|