To Terry, Tim, Francois:
Terence Love kirjoitti 31.8.2012 kello 2.04:
>One pathway I've been testing since 1999, is focusing design theory on
>'design as specifying an intervention' rather than 'design as specifying a
>product/process/organisation'. It naturally requires a dynamic perspective
Terry, intervention sounds good – that is just what is needed in a clinical attitude towards a "body" of our interest. Ideally each designed artifact or system could also serve as an intervention, an experiment for design research to prove or disprove ideas that have led to that particular design... but then one would first need hypothesis and models to be tested :-)
Tim Smithers kirjoitti 1. syyskuuta 2012 2.00.15 UTC+3.00
> Histories are necessarily reconstructions (in some form) of
>dynamic processes: processes that change over time. There is
>nothing to be gained from building a history of something that
>doesn't change; in fact there is no history in them. So, all
>history making is some kind of dynamic system modelling.
Tim, I fully agree with you, and design is indeed historical through and through, just as you indicate in your interesting suggestion for cultural-historical studies of trajectories and influences. This dynamic nature of the field of study would also need that the models, methods and theories used in design research would reflect this, but I have a feeling, that physics ideal of general, global and timeless models has implicitly been distorting in this respect the conceptual development of design research. Anyway, designers at least borrow from the past, but the situation is far worse in my own area, HCI, where the ruthless pace of technology development has erased out most sense of and need for history. There is a healthy subindustry producing design books full of examples what other designers have been doing in the course of time, but for HCI designers what is available are only a few web sites – of bad examples...
Francois Nsenga kirjoitti 31.8.2012 kello 2.04:
>Already in mid 70s, Michel Jullien et al.* had conceptualized as follows,
>for designing purpose, your "dynamics of materially-mediated relationships
>between humans and world": artefact concepts (should systematically) stem
>out of the complex dynamics between projected "produit-usagers-milieu".
Francois, thanks for the reference, very interesting, I will follow the lead. The "product-users-milieu" sounds very similar than what I have tried to say with the term "practice". The "design nexus" is an expressive and concise term, I like that.
>complex nexus that you call a "dynamics of materially-mediated
>relationships between humans and the word" (by the way, was this a
>citation? from which source?)
Don Norman told us last winter a lovely story about his former colleague Jerry Fodor using a phrase: "I refer you to my about to be written paper on the subject" -- so I dare to follow his example. I have just started a sabbatical lasting this academical year (this explains my recent burst of activity on the list), and the plan for the year is to finish a book project that has been lingering on already too long. So, I refer you to my about to be written book on the subject... :-). The phrase has been crafted to be one of the pivot elements guiding the work (the book will be at least about this!) – but it is hardly surprising if it has already been used by somebody else (if you know any such I am very grateful to hear).
best regards,
--Kari Kuutti
Univ. Oulu, Finland
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