Reviewing the arguments for and against designer certification, licensing,
and accreditation of schools makes me realize that we are all talking about
different things.
Maybe "design" is a "wicked problem," one that not only has no unique
solution, but that also has no clear definition.
I have argued (in "Emotional Design") that everyone is a designer. Some of
you (including my friend Bill Buxton) got very upset at that section of the
book. But yes, I insist that everyone designs, but only a few are
professional designers. Look, many people are tennis or golf players. That
doesn't make them professionals. In fact, the more people that call
themselves tennis or golf players, the more they appreciate professionals,
and the more they watch professional events. This should be equally true of
design.
One problem we face is the word "design." It covers such a wide range of
activities that it is meaningless to talk about being "a designer."
Consider the word "engineer." There are very few universities that give
degrees in engineering: the term is so broad that it is meaningless.
Instead we have schools of engineering, and within those schools
departments. And a single department might offer different degrees in
different specialties. Some are accredited, some are not (note that some of
the non-accredited programs are at the world's best universities -- they
feel that accreditation stifles their flexibility and, being world
renowned, they don't need it). Some areas of engineering require
professional licenses, most do not.
The Institute of design at IIT is not accredited because it feels its areas
of expertise are design research, strategy, and planning, none of which fit
the accreditation requirements which tend to emphasize art-based training
(my personal opinion).
I was originally trained as an electrical engineer, specializing in circuit
design (BS degree), in computer design (MS degree), and then in
Mathematical Psychology (PhD). Over my lifetime I morphed into an
information-processing psychologist, then into a cognitive psychologist,
then into a cognitive scientist, and then into interaction design, writing
basic texts for each field along the way, despite being trained in none of
them. I am not licensed in any field: the only engineers who need licensing
are those in safety-critical fields. The only psychologists who need
licensing are those claiming to help ill people. Why would
non-safety-related designers need licensing? Actually, if these designers
need licensing, it should be in human factors or ergonomics, areas not
covered in any depth in design curricula.
What is my discipline? I don't know. I simply say that i am interested in
the relationship of people and society to technology. The field that
covers these issues best, that is most concerned about the development of
technology, is design. That's why I spend so much time with designers. None
of the people ask whether or not I'm a designer. they ask whether or not i
add value. When i stop adding value, it is time to retire.
That's what i ask of all people and of all disciplines: Do you add value?
We have many different needs in design, and as has been pointed out, we
need to qualify what kind of a design we are talking about when we talk
about education of designers, accreditation of design programs, or
professional licensing. In my opinion, some engineering designers do
safety-critical work, but otherwise there is no need to license designers.
All of you who feel hurt, who feel that you are unique because you went to
design school: get over it. Some of the best computer scientists in the
world were not trained in computer science. Some of the best programmers
(not to be confused with computer scientists) do not have degrees in
programming (or computer science). Same with artists and writers,
musicians and engineers.
Bill Buxton calls himself a designer, but he has no formal training in
design. He is trained as a musician and as a computer scientist. Is he a
designer? If not, why was he so angry with me when i said "everyone
designs." (Maybe because it gave him a lot of speaking gigs.) Does he work
in the field of design? Yes. is he influential? Yes.
We need to distinguish among the various specialties of design. Each has
its own agenda and its own methods. I had lunch yesterday with someone
getting a design PhD. He works in political systems. I asked how much he
needs to sketch to develop his ideas. He looked puzzled: "why would i
sketch in order to design a strategy for overcoming diverse cultural
differences?" he asked. Is he a designer? I vote yes. His degree program
says yes (from a very respected university in a small country called
"Australia.").
Hmm. Some of you claim that the hallmark of a designer is sketching. That's
true of classical art-based designers. Perhaps true for industrial
designers. Graphical?
Am i an interaction designer? Yes, i claim. Interaction design has come
from many sources: one is the design field, the other from psychology and
human-computer interaction. I have argued that interaction designers from
HCI don't know much about design, but that interaction designers from deign
don't know much about interaction. Instead of arguing which approach is
better, we need to combine the approaches. Each approach needs the other.
As far as i can tell, few design schools offer the right training. Note
that the excellent HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon is located in the
Computer Science department, not in the Design department (although some
faculty are in both).
Last week I attended ICED (International Conference on Engineering Design)
in Seoul and am now attending IASDR (International Association of Societies
of Design Research). And in October I'll attend IIT's Design Research
Conference (And attend a board meeting for their Institute of Design). And
next week I'll give a talk on design at Shanghai's Design week. There are
only two speakers, and the other one is Jacob Jensen, whose company
designed the phone in my room here at Tokyo.
In the preceding paragraph I covered about a number of very different kinds
of design. Imagine the audience's confusion when my talk follows that by
Jensen. We inhabit very different worlds, but both are needed. (A
distinction I will make in my talk, explaining that design means different
things to different people.)
---
Am I a designer? You decide. But why do you care?
What matters is what we do. Do we add value?
Don
--
Don Norman
Nielsen Norman Group, IDEO Fellow
[log in to unmask] www.jnd.org http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/
Book: "Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded<http://amzn.to/ZOMyys>"
(DOET2). Pub date: November 2013
Course: Udacity On-Line course based on
DOET2<https://www.udacity.com/course/design101> (free).
Nov 2013.
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