Dear João,
Thank you for your question. This is a different topic from the Design Studies and Design History debate but I've left the subject line the same as it is an aspect of that debatre.
The idea that designers should be responsible for the outcomes of their work is something graphic designers have avoided for a long time. Part of this avoidance has been by not including the skills that would facilitate such responsibility in graphic design education or the literature of graphic design. It is easy to apply. It simply hasn't been done unless buyers of design services insist on it.
In most other areas of design such designer responsibility for outcomes is taken as normal. For example:
* If a product designer designs a toy that chokes young children they are seen as responsible for that design outcome due to the design they produced.
* If a design team producers a design of a bridge to carry 7000 vehicles per hour and individual vehicles up to 60 tonnes then if it doesn't satisfy, the designers are seen as responsible for the failure.
* If a design team designs a nuclear power station to be safe, then if it fails in particular conditions and spreads radiation, the designers are seen as responsible.
The idea of responsibility depends also on being able to measure and predict that the design will achieve the intended outcomes. The skills to do this is part of design education in most design fields.
In graphic design, it is similarly easy to assess whether a design is effective and fulfils its intended outcomes. In fact it is trivially easy. If I want a new book cover to increase sales, I can ask a graphic designer to produce a book cover that will (say) result in a 20% increase in sales. Similarly, I can ask a graphic designer to produce diagrams that 80% of readers can understand. These are measurable outcomes - and the whole purpose of the design.
Such outcomes are trivially easy to measure and test designs against, and by using them the graphic designer can take responsibility for their designs.
For graphic designers to stat to take responsibility for the effectiveness of their designs requires two minor elements of curricula to be included in design education and practice.
The first is for designers to change: to move from the subjective responsibility escapes of qualitative specification and move to identifying clear measurable criteria of outputs. This requires moving from creating an image that 'looks good' to identifying measurable outcomes that they can test whether a proposed design will satisfy or not. This is easy and only requires doing.
Second, is for graphic designers to have the skills to measure and conduct research to identify whether proposed designs will be effective and guarantee the measurable outcomes. This requires design educators to teach basic design research and analysis methods for design practice.
Any design buyer can insist on responsibility of graphic designers to be responsible for and guarantee their work. To do so is the sign of a responsible professional.
Best regards,
Terence
==
Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E
School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia
Honorary Fellow, IEED, Management School, Lancaster University, UK
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask] +61 (0)4 3497 5848
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
==
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of João Ferreira
Sent: Thursday, 9 April 2015 11:26 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: Re: Design Studies and Design History
Hello Terry,
May I be so bold as to ask what do you mean by "evidence" and "effectiveness here":
"Sure - I pay graphic designers to produce graphic outputs that result in particular outcomes. They don't need to know history of design movements to do that. In fact, from experience it often seems that the kind of understanding of design that focuses on design movements and famous designers is an indication of a lack of ability to use evidence about effectiveness or be responsible for the outcome effectiveness of design outputs."
I have a masters in graphic design and I have worked as a graphic designer; anecdotal as my experience may be, I have never seen any of my peers, or former teachers, refer to their work in those terms.
--
*João Ferreira*
00351 967089437
0031 0619808750
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