Hi Terry. I think that was an interesting post. Maybe part of the problem is the idea to BASE design on evidence rather than SUPPORT design by evidence. This mental switch solves all problems for me.....
Sendt fra min Sony Xperia™-smarttelefon
---- Terence Love skrev ----
Hello,
Ken has been for some time arguing for the use of evidence as the basis for
design.
I suggest it is better to move beyond this position. Perhaps more
contentiously, I suggest the idea of 'evidence-based design' is unhelpful to
the growth of design fields and disciplines.
There are a few reasons. First are the reasons that have been raised on the
thread on evidence-based design by Birger, MP and others in terms of
practical design processes, practices, outputs and outcomes. In addition, I
suggest focusing directly on evidence as a basis for design practice is
flawed epistemologically and ontologically. In practical terms, this can be
seen in what I identified some years ago as the Design Guideline Gap*. It
is also evident in the reasoning Don put forward at the DRS conference in
Korea about the gap between new technology and design research.
Evidence-based design as design activity based directly on evidence either
happens later, after things have been designed, or it trivialises and bounds
design activity and outcomes. Both of these points have been already put
forward in the previous discussion on evidence-based design. Ken's reference
to using evidence in the design of web pages, e.g. by A and B testing, is
an example of evidence being brought in after the designing has occurred. In
essence, the role of evidence, there, is to choose between items that have
already been designed. Evidence-based design also potentially blocks
creativity and the creation of new, novel and disruptive design outcomes
because we don't yet have evidence on things we haven't yet conceived.
We can do better than evidence-based design.
What is needed is guidance before and during designing. What is needed is
guidance before and during the processes of creating or identifying design
concepts and the decision making about design details. It is important that
this guidance can be tested, critiqued, validated and built on both by
designers and design researchers.
Engineering design fields, information systems fields and many other fields
of design have this guidance.
The achieve this by focusing on 'design theory development supported by
evidence' NOT 'evidence-based design'.
In these fields, design guidelines (which are open to creative
interpretation and extension) are based on design theories and NOT based
directly on the evidence. This is an important distinction. The development
of the theories interposes a conceptual explanation with predictive power
from which a wide variety of new design pathways can be inferred, discovered
and reasoned by thought and intuition etc.
The result of this different approach focused on reasoning and design
theories in which evidence is secondary is a focus in design research
theories and related design guidelines that act as advice to designers to
find new and better design outcomes.
It points to more than a world of difference between this 'design theory
based on evidence' ('evidence-based design theory') as used in engineering
design, (and IS and architecture) and 'evidence-based design'. They are
ontologically and epistemologically different.
Importantly, evidence-based design theory gives more freedom to designers,
aids creativity and guides the development of better design outputs and
design outcomes
David has asked for concrete examples of 'evidence-based design'.
Instead I'll offer four examples of 'evidence-based design theories' that
support creativity and improved design outputs and outcomes:
1. The design of beautiful elegant bridges that are economical to
build depends on understanding the limits of how the minimum of material can
be used. There is a body of design theories that describe the relationships
at this boundary.
2. Xerox (if I remember rightly) some years ago drew attention to the
simple size of text relationships for projecting words onto screens at a
distance to provide suitable information hierarchies and include the
necessary correction factors due to air pollution (smoke in the old days!),
aging eyesight etc. This resulted in a small body of theories and guidelines
for designing photographic and later PowerPoint slides. The design theory
was the important part. The theory was based on evidence but the evidence
once used for making the theory became secondary.
3. A major problem for early vehicle and bicycle designers was
choosing the gear ratios for gearboxes. Careful reasoning referenced to a
small amount of evidence gave rise to a body of design theories linked to
modified geometrical progression, that in turn gave rise to design theories
about designing engines to give appropriate fall-back torque curves. Again,
the design theories was what gave designers creative insights and the
freedom to run with those insights. The small amount of evidence was used
only in developing the design theories. After that, the evidence became
secondary and almost irrelevant.
4. Moving beyond A& B testing of websites to develop design theories
that indicate WHY some designs are better and provide the basis for
designers to reason and intuite their way to more creative designs. In
this, the evidence is left behind and becomes secondary when the design
theories are developed
I suggest better design practices and outcomes come from focusing on design
theories and human use of those design theories through reasoning and
intuition in which evidence has a secondary role only to support the
development of the design theories.
And my reasoning supporting this position? The reality that this design
theory-based approach is how most major improvements in design practices
and research have occurred to date, evidence being secondary to that.
And a challenge. What is the process by which 'evidence-based design'
supports and guides new and novel creative design generation??
* <http://www.love.com.au/docs/2010/Terence_Love_DE2010A.pdf> Love, T.
(2010). Design Guideline Gap and 2 Feedback Loop Limitation: Two issues in
Design and Emotion theory, research and practice. In J. Gregory, K. Sato &
P. Desmet (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Design and Emotion Conference 2010
Blatantly Blues. Chicago: Institute of Design and Design and Emotion
Society. Available
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2010/Terence_Love_DE2010A.pdf
Best wishes,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
