Dear Terry
There may be many ways to move forward to achieve our goals. First, we may
need to see if the goals that we set are valid in the first place. This
will need debate, discourse and cooperation.
I am not sure if accreditation and regulation with norms and processes in
place are a way forward. Here in India much of higher education is
accredited and regulated through Government and Public Statutory
institutions but the desired quality is not necessarily assured by these
systems. It only leads to high levels of corruption and we can easily see
that this is not the only way forward.
Ethical values and sensitivity in individuals and in groups that can act in
concert may be a way forward and design needs this just as much many other
professions would. There will be huge variety and not standardised outputs,
but I believe that this would also help in addressing the huge variety of
tasks and areas that would need to be addressed here in India.
We will need culture to drive these changes rather than rules and
regulation in my view. The challenges are huge and we will need to deal
with our proverbial elephant in the room as best we can. Each in our own
way, but with feeling and deep empathy for the context and situation.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my iMac at home on the NID campus
16 August 2012 at 11/40 pm IST
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*Prof M P Ranjan*
*Design Thinker and author of blog -
www.Designforindia.com<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>
*
E8 Faculty Housing
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India
Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
email: ranjanmp@g <[log in to unmask]>mail.com
<[log in to unmask]>web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp
<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
<http://www.ranjanmp.in/>blog: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com>
education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com>
education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com
<http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------
On 16 August 2012 10:09, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Ranjan,
> Thank you for raising the issue of responsibility of designers and the role
> of design educators.
> In your post on agency and Soros you asked a key question (about
> designers
> creating designs that result in adverse consequences)
> " Can we make the mission of creating responsible designer in education
> something that would include the processing and anticipation of these
> outcomes as part of the design process?"
> I'm puzzled as to why this is not the central tenet of all design courses.
> It would seems to be basic to professional competence of designers and
> design education?
> The need for such basic skills and responsibility is very obviously true
> for
> training designers to work in 4H realms (high risk, high uncertainty, high
> cost of failure, high technology). One would expect a design education
> program training people to design nuclear power stations or computerised
> automated surgery robots to be trained to anticipate and design out adverse
> consequences. In reality, this is already central to those forms of design
> education. Such design education programs are typically subject to
> detailed
> scrutiny and careful accreditation of educators, curriculum and assessment
> processes - and typically require accredited continuing professional
> development both for educators and those accredited by the design course.
> The same package of design skills and responsibility seems no less
> relevant
> for designers in other realms.
> For example those creating designs for a public health promotion that
> expends large amounts of public funds and fails to engender the intended
> results to the cost of all in society; a book cover design that does not
> pay its way as intended; a sound system that has long term adverse
> effects
> on users hearing; the design of touch interfaces likely to lead to
> ergonomic
> injuries if used in commercial settings; designs that encourage crime, etc.
> Ken and yourself touched on this dimension of responsibility in your
> posts
> on 'agency' .
> Your question points to the benefits from making design educators and
> designers responsible for design outcomes.
> The most obvious way of doing this in ways that protect all concerned is by
> careful accreditation that includes evaluation of the teaching of designers
> to be able to reliably and accurately predict the behaviour of the outcomes
> resulting from their design outputs. For some design education programs
> this might likely require additional programs to teach these design skills?
> The introduction of accreditation offers benefits for all concerned -
> design
> educators, designers, organisations buying design services, users and
> society at large.
> The Design Research Society has started an accreditation system for design
> researchers via its Fellowship assessment process. The next step would seem
> to be accreditation of undergraduate programs against standards of
> professional responsibility for anticipating design outcomes and addressing
> them - as you suggested.
> Best wishes,
> Terence
> ==
> Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
> PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E
> School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia
>
> PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030
> [log in to unmask] +61 (0)4 3497 5848
> ==
>
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