charles,
I have nothing against informal talk and I could see myself saying that designers think differently than accountants or sales people. my point is that design should not be explained in "self-serving and subjectivist tautologies". explaining design as a certain kind of thinking doesn't explain anything more what is already known of design. educating designers can hardly be reduced to a change in mentality.
you mentioned lawyers. would you go to a lawyer who claims to have a legal mind or study law at a place that says it turns out legal thinkers? nobody would deny that lawyers think. but how they think is private. what matters is whether they can write legal briefs, actively participate in court proceedings and represent their clients when challenged legally. these are some of the skills that lawyers learn at law school and good lawyers are able to handle legal writing better than their clients could.
by analogy, whatever designers think, they must be able to prove the value and potential reality of their designs to their stakeholders. this presupposes the ability to handle numerous design moves, some of which I mentioned. design education needs to familiarize students with these design processes not teach the illusion of having become a design thinker.
designers need to demonstrate their competencies by the contributions their designs make to the lives of others (producers, users, critics, and the communities affected).
if someone claims to have mastered "design thinking" I would say: ok, show me.
klaus
Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 27, 2014, at 7:57, "Charles Burnette" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> On Aug 20, 2014, at 16:14, Klaus Krippendorff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> if "design thinking" becomes a phrase we adopt to distinguish us (designers) from non-designers, we are stuck with a non-descript designation. what would be added to a conception of physicists if they were to claim that their uniqueness comes from thinking physically; or what would we learn about lawyers when we are told they think legally. these are self-satisfying and subjectifying tautologies that work only where and as long as these attributes are fashionable social constructions.
>
> Klaus, Ken, and all
> Some of us see more than " self satisfying and subjectifying tautologies" that depend on fashion. We recognize the need for a descriptive designation that others can understand and use in the same sense that lawyers benefit when people grasp, more or less, the scope of their enterprise. Since the scope for designing is vast we must find its definition in the form of a generative metaphor that works in the mind of all thinkers. I believe Herbert Simon nailed the essential nature of design thinking when he distinguished it as thought that seeks to improve the subject or situation it addresses. How "designers" seek this improvement remains open to definition, belief, skill, and all the other personal attributes and social norms that pertain to individual and social acts. People need to acknowledge the core value motivating practice before they can distinguish what it is or should be.
>
> Or, so I believe,
> Chuck
>
>
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