Hi Ken,
Thanks for your message. The situation is slightly different from what you
suggest.
When I undertook those reviews, my interest was in identifying a coherent
and epistemologically validly justified theoretical framework of design
theory to provide a practical basis for integrating technical, social,
ethical and environmental factors in real world design methods. My central
focuss was the integration of these four factors in automated computerised
production of optimalised designs. It had to also work, however, as a valid
epistemological foundation for integrated technical, social, ethical and
environmental factors in design undertaken by humans individually and in
groups. The particular review of the design literature (30,000 words) that
was undertaken as part of that project was primarily to distil existing
design theory and speculations that might contribute to that end.
Perhaps important here is to distinguish between what I've called
'purposeful' or 'P' type literature reviews and what I've called 'T' type
literature reviews, whose role is primarily in the arena of teaching and
learning. The literature review I undertook was of the 'P' type in that
it had the specific practical and pragmatic purpose of helping resolve the
above research problem, rather than provide a general overview of the design
theory literature for generalised teaching and learning .
The discovery of the lack of theoretical rigour in the design literature was
incidental to and caused huge problems for critically reviewing the design
theory literature for the above research. One aim I had as a side project
was to develop a definitive glossary of design terms and concepts. That
proved impossible due to the generalised lack of epistemological rigour in
the literature. As a token gesture towards the glossary, I did undertake
and publish analytical reviews of the design theory literature relating to
the terms 'design' and 'design process' (50,000 words), which I've made
available online in various forms since the late 1990s (see below).
The problems of epistemological rigour in the design theory literature and
the difficulty of analysing the variety of different forms of concepts,
theories, speculations,, opinions and analyses in the literature resulted
in me creating several practical tools and concepts to enable review and
analysis.
In many cases, these comprised ways of carefully defining specific concepts
and bodies of concepts to enable analysis to progress. An example is
defining the differences between 'design theory', 'design research theory' ,
'engineering theory', and engineering design theory'
For a pdf copy of the literature review go to
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Pre2000/Design-theory-lit-revi
ew-SEEDT-Tlove-w-refs.pdf
Finally, it is possible worth noting that the design theory literature
across the full breadth of design fields is far larger than 1000 documents.
For a couple of weeks I'm moving office. For the last few days, I've been
sorting through and putting aside design theory documents that were from
earlier projects or have become dated. Today, I threw away a pile 1.2 meters
high - over 1000 documents. The design theory literature across all design
fields is many times bigger than that.
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
[log in to unmask]
--
URLs for reviews of 'design' and 'design process'
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Pre2000/1998%20SEED&DT_WP_Appe
ndix%201.htm
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Pre2000/1998%20SEED&DT_WP_Appe
ndix%202.htm
Sundry related papers see
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/publications.htm
<snip>
It would be interesting to see the actual review rather than statements
about the review.
A 1,000-item literature sample represents a massive proportion of the design
research literature in the years up to 2,000. Even thirteen years later,
your review would constitute a major contribution to the literature of our
field.
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