Don,
I will summarize your positions so I can reply to them easily. It's
alredy obvious I'm pro regulation and exclusion.
1) We are talking about different things and the word "design" can't
cover all of these things.
In former posts the word "value" was introduced. I love the idea of
adding value - but maybe it's my germaness that makes me want to nail
down things. Value sounds to me like a variable.
Would a definition of design not include every form of design? A
seperation of the several design disciplines would cause a fracture and
would render the word "design" meaningless. It would be hardly bearable
for me.
I think that it is possible to define design and the designer. I assume
that every designer has the same intention but uses own methods in
different fields to produce different products; may it be communication
tools for companies or the products they sell.
My approach might be a bit to wide, but please let me know what you're
thinking of it. I wrote this in german and translate it. Hope I got it
right:
Design is a method applied to a creation process to influence the result
in a way that covers more aspects than the basic purpose of this process.
Designer are working in the system of this basic process, they align all
the parts and subsystems to reach the goal of this process, but they are
also stepping outside the system to counter check the current state
against the connectivity to other systems (other sytem should be an open
variable; maybe UTE, maybe esthetic "value" ) and to prevent possible
weaknesses at these connection points. When they step back in the basic
process they are evaluating their work under the light of these aspects
in a holistic manner to achieve a holistic result. They change what they
need to change and produce the next step in the basic process. After
that they step out and the loop starts again.
So design would be the (messurable?) value of the effictiveness of
several systems working together. A designer needs to deliver more than
"average" people to add value. An engineer who builds an engine that is
silent and ecological would be a designer. I do not have the slightest
problem with sharing the title "designer" with an engineer as long it is
proven that he works beyond the sole purpose of building functional things.
But this does not cover the different level of amateurs and
professionals. I'm glad that you've mentioned this.
2) Everyone is a designer.
What you have mentioned before is that we have no common definition of
what design or who a designer is. If I include esthetics into the field
of design a lot of people would not be designers (like Richard, the lion
bender). If I include tinkering my father (and Richard) would be a great
designer although he has only little sense for the esthetic things.
Please keep in mind that I'm coming from a visual communications
background. In a broader sense of design I would accept your statement
because the purpose of going beyond the closest solutions is common to
every human.
3) You've mentioned the accreditation process and that schools/programs
are sometimes not accredited.
This is my weak point. I can't add something to this because I'm not
associated with any school or university. I don't know how this
polishing process works but I understand that this is sometimes good not
to polish your profile to much.
4) You summed up your personal development and asked why a designer
should have a kind of licence.
Please be ensured that I'm not questioning your status as a designer.
You have profen that you can add value and I'm the last one who's in the
position to question your professional expertise. You have an impressive
CV and you can dig from a deep mine of knowledge. Who am I'm critizing
are the people without such a rich pool of knowledge who are calling
themselfes designers. Especially the field of graphic design/visual
communication/communication design is often judged as the handsome
sister of art. And because art is free everyone is allowed to do it.
It's like imprisoning the whole family for the crime of one member. Or
paying you less because your brother earned less. Or you uncle of second
degree from your mothers side. Artist are meant to be poor (but happy)
idealists by society. I see that visually talented people are coming to
my market and eroding the prices activly without having the necessary
depth to produce value. To be frank: I have financial interests.
Now the question is: Why should someone protect the financial interests
of designers?
This depends on the different political systems. I'm insisting on the
european/german practice of regulation while the arguments from the
other side of the pond sound completely different. Here I can speak as a
tax payer of the german welfare state. I don't want to see all these
young people getting old, becoming poor without any retirement
arrangement. (myself included). The society will suffer, the welfare
state will suffer and these people will suffer. They are earning not
enough to sustain their life atm (me excluded ;). That's simply not good.
5) Get over it.
No. Markets are discussions among people. Discussions can be influenced.
But now it is getting political.
6) Sketching
I would not tye the word sketching the craft of drawing. I would define
it as the ability to estimate the outcome of the process defined in 1)
by using whathever you like. If dancing or a handstand does the job for
you... why not?
No offense and best wishes
Kai
sorry for my english, I haven't checked this post again.
Am 29.08.2013 01:45, schrieb Don Norman:
> 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
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