For me, sending a draft paper to the list is a form of invitation for feedbacks. It is in this spirit that I am writing this post.
Peter's post 'elaborates' on Norman and Verganti's paper which I have read. After reading, I cannot help but wonder how new are the ideas presented? I know I have advertised this before, but I wrote my dissertation in 2005 on user study and I regret to say that I don't find any radically new insights in the paper or in Peter's post. I honestly believe, although the ideas are packaged now in different languages (or is this a lesser form of 'meaning-driven innovation'!?), many in design know about them either theoretically or intuitively.
Since Verganti (in his book Design Driven Innovation) draws on Klaus Krippendorf's design theory, I can only say that he has taken Klaus' invention and turns it into an innovation marketable in the world of business research and practice. This is no small achievement. But I think, a more serious review of design literature would have strengthened the paper for the readership of 'Design Issue'.
Best Regards,
Rosan
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Jones | Redesign [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Dienstag, 20. März 2012 18:20
Subject: Re: On the non-need to cite every statement in a paper
Don has argued his case for a few years now, in "our court" and in conferences such as IIT's Design Research. I'm surprised at the extent to which our colleagues continue to act amazed that paradigm entrenchment is not the case in design and social sciences research. Let me add a pragmatic view.
Picking apart Don's statements also shows a regretful lack of understanding of Verganti's long-standing argument made in Design-Driven Innovation.
Verganti promotes increasing the variety of "interpreters" in an innovation setting so that signals and trends from outside the immediate domain can intervene. This sensitization process is not a typical social science-based method.
As with any well-reasoned argument, nobody is stating that good exceptions don't happen. Sometimes we get the right opportunity. But if rapid ethnography, or even lead user innovation can "discover" next generation breakthroughs from everyday human practices, there would not be any disagreement. Social sciences based research requires we study a unit of analysis related to currently performed activities. User behavior studies do lead to incremental innovations and significant improvements in practice.
But these are not Bell Labs-level breakthroughs.
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