Dear Mark and David
This is a good thread. I've been tempted to respond except that I was heavily involved in another discussion on Aquinas and why he did not think artificial things have essences. And that debate now I find useful here.
Is the notion of a "Designerly Way of Knowing" a place to start? Is DWK or Design thinking unique? This however suggests we need to first understand what we mean by unique.
Hhas design thinking a kind of identifiable essence, a collection of properties which form a unity, a kind of common nature, that can be instantiated across different fields (including non-design but nevertheless professional fields, like education, law...), so that if we can abstract that it could still be said to be unique, a identifiable essence, distinct from other essential forms of thought. Is it unique in the sense that it is an identifiable ""distinct form of thinking" different from other thinking. If it is this, it is in principle possible that sometimes, even professional designers fail to instantiate this unique design thinking. This suggests that in order to discover design thinking, we cannot immediately simply reseaRch teh way designers think. There must be a different approach, perhaps first theorizing some aspect of its nature, in order to identify it, and when one sees it, then one can quickly zoom in into that which instantiates it for a closer look, and detailed analysis.
Or must design thinking be unique only in the sense that it is found amongst a certain group of people, say professional designers. THis latter would be a different claim. IT would mean to say that, whatever it is, and perhaps we do not know what it is, but we are sure it is there in these group of persons. This means then that we can simply look at what designers do, and replicate that. IDEO seems to do that: I notice Tim Brown basically sees what processes professional designers go through, adopt that and label that design thinking. If design thinking is instead the above, then Tim Brown and IDEO could be very wrong. (This is not to attack IDEO: I like IDEO and Tim Brown very much)
OR both? Has it a certain nature, but amongst the kinds of persons that are candidates for instantiating it, perhaps professional designers seem most adapt to. This may be what Nigel Cross thinks. THis seems a nice position to take, because this means there are good reasons to focus mostly on designers, but also good reasons, on occasion, to look outside design for the nature of design thinking (since others could also instantiate it well)
There's also something likened to the euthyphro dilemma here. Is design thinking a certain thinking, so that when one has it, one is then a designer, or is it instead that, one is a recognized designer, and that which one thinks is then design thinking.
Another thing taht intrigues me. One thinks of design as the shaping of artifacts (as Simon does), but, what about the shaping of something artificial, like "meaning"? SO one does not shape a tool, but through using a tool well, one shapes its meaning, (which is a kind of ontological artifcat). Here is where I find HEidegger very useful for thinking these things through. I am unconcealing through skillful techne, the (manyfold new) meanings of myself and also my tool, and my tool-use experience. IT is also a kind of designing, a kind of shaping of the ontology (not the mere physics) of things.
Jude
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Evans [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 9:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design Thinking Unique to Design?
David
Thank you for your post for which I have been awaiting responses to some of the questions with great anticipation. Despite this being a hot topic on the List, I have been disappointed that you have not received any replies to any of your questions.
I am afraid that I cannot answer your questions as, on a personal level, ’the jury is out’ as to what design thinking is and how it impacts on education and practice (design and/or beyond). In fact, to help me get my head around the issue I have had to recruit a PhD student and would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the List (academics and practitioners) who have been very gracious in responding to his requests for interviews. The responses collated to date indicate both consensus and conflict.
By replying to your post, I hope to rekindle your questions which I have slightly re-phrased and those marked with an asterisk being of particular interest to myself:
1. How do you develop capability in design thinking?
2. How do you know when someone does or does not have capability as a design thinker?
3. Is design thinking a purely innate and intuitive capacity that you have or do not have?*
4. Is design thinking something that can be taught, developed and even assessed?
5. Can we legitimately say it is unique to the field and can we prove it by being able to specify and isolate what it is as
well as being able to articulate a specific pedagogical approach for its development?*
Thanks
Dr Mark Evans
Reader in Industrial Design
Design Practice Research Group Leader
Loughborough Design School
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