i am glad, ken, you found a common ground.

i wanted to add something about the last word. 

i agree that markets provide insufficient criteria. you gave the example of medical drugs:

" While medicine consumers are required to take medicine, they don't choose the medicine they take. Because physicians prescribe medicine based on medical properties rather than patient understanding, there is a market mismatch between physicians and patients. Physicians are the customers who choose pharmaceutical products, and pharmaceutical companies work toward that market. Patients are the end-users who consume pharmaceutical products. The frequent failure of patients to understand medicines and how to use them leads to major adverse consequences. I won't describe them all, but these include problems that occur in the form of epidemics, drug-resistant diseases, and massive environmental damage. The simple expedient of better patient understanding through careful testing and evidence can demonstrably improve a major public health problem for which markets offer no appropriate response."

You are right, of course that patients tend to rely on doctors to prescribe medication. but patients are not the end user. there are hospitals trying to open beds for other patients, families who want their beloved ones to function. drug companies who want to define their drug to be used widely. suppliers to institutions. doctors to get freebees from drug companies for prescribing their products. producers interested in squashing reports of undesirable side effects, etc. 

now, you can test a design for all situations in which the drug figures. do patients get better? what are the risks of side effects, what are the interactions with other medications or conditions, does the information to doctors compel them to prescribe the medication? does the producer of the drug make enough money to develop a next drug? is the packaging sufficiently attractive to be featured on a tv commercials. what are the costs to drugstores of short shelve lives. can the drug containers be opened by unauthorized individuals, e.g., children. and much more.

the final criteria of a design rarely is the marked (at the point of sales) or the desirability or usability for an arbitrarily chosen end user. a drug needs to survive the dynamic of a network of stakeholders who have diverse and often conflicting stakes in a design. i do think, they have the last word

any test provides (or fails to provide) evidence regarding what can be observed. unless a design is limited to mere appearances or add only a few features to an existing product, tests can never reveal what cannot yet be observed. 

ken tries to be conciliatory by suggesting "we need both." i would say that evidence obtained from tests root a design in the observable presence viewed from the limited perspective of an interested party paying for the test.  groundbreaking design is innovative, its social use is always emerging, not yet observable, but venture to suggest that its reality is somewhat predictable from the commitment of a sufficient number of its stakeholders to provide the resources needed to realize the design. 

so, i agree, the last word is not that of the market but i suggest it is of the network of stakeholders that connects multiple perspectives and resources in support or opposition of a design.

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 Ken Friedman
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 3:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ulm and Evidence: We Need Both

Dear Klaus and David,

Klaus Krippendorff wrote, "all i was saying:  while testing is important for designers to convince people who could make a design happen it can rarely ever have the last word."

David Sless wrote, "In which case we are in furious agreement."

I thought the header - "we need both" above - made it clear that I did not write in opposition Ranjan, but rather to say that there are ways to learn what markets do not disclose.

Sometimes designers create or invent products for which there is no market demand whatsoever - such famous examples as the Sony Walkman and the personal computer are cases in point. Other times, markets sort things reasonably well. It is worth noting that from time to time, designers and others seek answers to questions that neither stakeholders nor markets care about before the answers emerge.

No one process, no one institution (f.ex., markets, governments, the manufacturing sector, etc.), and no one group of people ever gets the last word. So rather than saying "we need both," I could have done better to say that we need several ways forward, depending on the context.

So I say "yes" to Ranjan, "yes" to David, "yes" to Klaus.

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | University email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Private email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia



-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------