Dear Klaus,
Being able to explain and predict how things work is important .
I suggest it is especially important in design.
Being able to explain and predict how things work is the way designers can identify which solutions are better. It is the way designers can justify to sponsors that designs will achieve their intended outcomes (and hence are worth paying for). It is how designers can ensure that designs will improve user's lives rather than cause them problems. It is the way designers can create designs without having to follow the slow, inefficient and costly path of having to physically make every idea and test it.
Designers being able to predict and explain how designs work, and accurately predict the outcomes that will result is what identifies those designers as professionals.
Some design fields are further down this path than others.
The benefits are easy to explain. The prediction is all design fields (and design education) will need to go down this path.
It will involve mathematics, not least because it is the most useful language and most abstract thinking basis for explaining and predicting - http://xkcd.com/435/
Best wishes,
Terence
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Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, PMACM, MISI
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
[log in to unmask]
www.loveservices.com.au
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Klaus Krippendorff
Sent: Monday, 23 November 2015 3:54 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SPAM] RE: Science does not explain how things work, nor change how things work. And DT is a useful myth
sorry don,
science indeed explains how things work.
in my characterizing science that way, i merely used a convenient shortcut to highlight the critical difference between science and design.
of course scientists observe what they theorize.
of course they develop consensus on what it is they observe repeatedly and theorize verifiably certainly, a theory explains observable phenomena but it goes beyond observables by predicting what else could be observed.
naturally, scientist engage systematically with what they seek to describe.
when you say science studies the structure and behavior of nature, this implies looking at how something is doing what it does - the solar system, an autopoietic system, river systems, the ecology, the internet, mechanisms yes, classification does not explain how something works, but it offers (i would say imposes) a convenient conceptual system that structures distinct natural phenomena during the last 300 years, biology has moved far beyond linnaeus' classification (e.g. darwin's theory of evolution).
yet most sciences have their taxonomies. i would say all sciences start by distinguishing phenomena (things) and seek to relate them causally, statistically, behaviorally, or teleologically.
all of this is obvious to me.
the point i made (in shorthand) is well supported in herbert simon's the sciences of the artificial, who observed science and design to have unlike epistemologies.
creating something new that theories cannot (yet) predict and others may not have anticipated is what defines designers, whether they make timid or revolutionary differences. the emphasis is on the making of difference not explaining the differences others have made.
i agree with you that design thinking is a myth, a sales pitch, a way to impress clients to get a job, by claiming to have mental qualities they don't have.
to me, this utility is not a good enough reason to perpetuate that myth or broaden it by attaching to it other mythical constructions.
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 Don Norman
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2015 7:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Science does not explain how things work, nor change how things work. And DT is a useful myth
Sorry folks, but this is not the definition of science:
On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Klaus Krippendorff < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> i said:
> "*any science explains how things work*. designing means proposing
> something that changes how things work."
>
Here is one-- far better -- definition
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. (Courtesy of Google: "define:science")
THis, by the way, is why mathematics is not a science.
Biology, the science, started out by classifying life forms.
Classification is not explanation.
Science is actually a process by which people come to consensus by making claims that are verifiable and repeatable. Over decades, consensus is arrived at. (The current crisis in experimental fields in the bio-sciences, social sciences and medical sciences is because many results cannot be
repeated: note that this does not invalidate science -- it simply says that promotion pressures caused people to do bad science.)
My theory of science is that it is layered. Each level of description has a layer below it, which is both descriptive at its level and explanatory of thye level above.
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And while I am at it:
On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Klaus Krippendorff < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> i said:
> "any science explains how things work. *designing means proposing
> something that changes how things work."*
>
Designing does not necessarily change how things work. I can design things to change what you believe, or give you a new framework, or ... . (OK, maybe that means I change how your brain works.)
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*Design Thinking as a Useful Myth -- A Public Relations Term*
Someone else in the long, fruitless discussion about Design Thinking wrote that everything happens in the mind. Well, that depends upon your definition of mind. To me, that is correct, because to me, mental phenomena are most subconscious. Some disagreed because they said not everything is conscious. OK, if you want to define mind that way, say that everything takes place in the brain. Of course, much knowledge comes about through social interaction, group processes, and the use of artifacts, which is why designers like some (or all) of the following: creativity sessions with multiple people, post-it notes, making things, and drawing.
For me, *Design Thinking is a valuable Public Relations term.* I don't care what it means. The reason I like it is because it helps non-designers recognize that design is more than physical appearance.
You can read my writings about why I once argued that "Design Thinking is A Useful Myth." (Just Google the phrase in quotes)
Don
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego [log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/ www.jnd.org <http://www.jnd.org/>
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