dear david,
i don't know about ken's misreading.
i just want to say that i agree with you on the contours of your post.
i have a little bit of a problem regarding change-related evidence.

first of all, unprecedented change (which i consider the core of what designers do, leaving mere cosmetic changes or adaptations to new conditions aside for the moment) can be assessed only after the fact. for any action there are unintended and intended consequences. what do designers do when they offer their proposal to stakeholders? they do not have evidence of the changes they claim are forthcoming. All they can do is formulate compelling arguments that may be based on all kinds of evidence, theories, or commitments by others. but they do not have observational evidence -- least of all of unintended consequences.

while literature reviews are undoubtedly important, the question is what kind of literature is there to be reviewed, what kind if literature should be reviewed, and what kind of constraints this literature imposes on the designer. scientific research tends to test hypotheses based on observational data. data always are of past conditions. i have argued on numerous occasions: if the business of design it to propose new artifacts that could improve the practices of a community of stakeholders, to the better, their arguments cannot be based on what was the case but on what is possible and more specifically on people are willing or able to go along with.

i wouldn't want to discount reviewing established theories from other disciplines, but far more important would be do review the post design consequences - intended and unintended, welcomed by one community and loathed by another, liberating or oppressing smaller communities. perhaps calling for research of post-design histories, the histories of successes and failures, is a prerequisite for designers to learn from them. as ken once suggested, only a very insignificant percent of designs are realized. ph.d. research should not forget to focus on why this is so and what can be done to improve that percentage. literature reviews would be more helpful if there was an extensive literature from which to start.

klaus        

-----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 David Sless
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 4:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: More on Design Thinking

JK, Ken, and all,

Misreading me is your prerogative. I don't feel a need to responding. But for those of you on this list who might be interested, let me pose the issue in another way.

The so called  "change-making business", even if it doesn't say so explicitly, is in the business of bringing about useful change (at least for someone, some organisation, or society). I ask of those involved in this business who want to discuss it in a public domain that they give a public account of what they do and the difference (change) they make. Hence my preoccupation with plausible publicly examinable before and after evidence. I'm not after science, nor am I after ultimate answers, just some publicly examinable before and after accounts. Stories about getting from A to B, if you will

Similarly, if we are to believe that design is, as Simons put it, 
> transformation of existing conditions into preferred ones.
Then we should be able to ask, what are the existing conditions, what are the preferred ones, and what is the evidence that design got us there?

There are lots of interesting intermediate questions about such things as which methods get us most effectively from A to B, is it possible to describe A and B? If not why not? Is the story more important than the outcome? etc etc. I could go on, but I've made my point.

David
-- 


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