Dear Terry,
Looks like you are once again collapsing all design activity into
something similar to operations research.
Design is not history, but neither is it minimax.
Designers are supposed to create stuff, not just follow orders.
What you are advocating is that designers simply need to know "how to do
stuff".
You are taking away all the context.
You are right in saying that if you want to learn database design you
don't need to know the history of the telephone.
But you DO need to have some context if you want to do database design
right.
That context doesn't include your strawman-telephone but includes, for
instance:
-Signal processing essentials
-Data processing essentials
-Character encoding issues
-...
The above issues are, to a non-negligible extent, historical issues
(compatibility problems related with Big Endians and Little Endians, or
the world-famous millennium bug come to mind).
In order to make informed choices you need context. That is provided by
"historical issues".
Would you trust a database designer that never heard about signal
processing?
Or a graphic designer who never heard about De Stijl?
Or a product designer who never heard about Charles and Ray Eames?
Or an architect who never heard about Le Corbusier?
And would you trust a designer or an architect that has heard those
names before but can't place them in context?
The "historical issues" vary not only in subject but also in breadth and
depth, according to your design field.
On 2015-04-09 08:31, Terence Love wrote:
> Another collection of serious questions:
>
> How would design education look if you removed all aspects of history
> from all the subjects in which it has any role?
>
> Would design education be better or worse for it in terms of producing
> innovative useful designs?
>
> What would a subject of Design Studies look like?
>
My serious replies to the above questions:
1. It would look like plumber education.
2. Much worse. History-blind people will keep reinventing wheels.
3. A prescription.
Best regards,
Carlos P.
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