As a Digest reader, I'm coming in late again - but am delighted to see we're kicking off the new year with another rousing argument and familiar theme. To me its fine we have such variety in perspectives on evidence. Having worked as a systems designer and evaluation expert in (very) large companies and consultancies before completing advanced education, I'd just include two points of obviousness: 1) Evidence is necessary, but not sufficient, for design teams to win arguments for significant design proposals in any large organization that's preparing for such an investment and 2) We have more choices over the collection and presentation of evidence than we believe. The selection of evidence is itself another argument with stakeholders, based on the types of considerations Don suggests in his first post.
The kinds of systemic design projects I'm working with over the last few years - and that we teach for in OCAD's SFI program - are located in policy and governance, clinical healthcare and population (and mental) health, urban ecologies, flourishing and "sustainable enterprises," require an evolving social argumentation with stakeholders. But at the source of the argumentation is not logical reasoning about multi-causation and effects, but arguments based on different forms of evidence that have meaning for the stakeholders themselves.
Returning to Latour for a moment, these arguments can be seen as different felicity conditions within the various modes of existence exposed by stakeholders. To meet these conditions (designers) might be conversant with the modes/forms of evidence required to proceed with a given "trajectory" or goal. The more stakeholders and participant viewpoints we face in a situation, the more "modes of existence" are challenged (Latour proposes 15). Each of which may have expected crossings or values conflicts that can be at least addressed and represented, if not resolved, with forms of evidence native to each worldview.
Last year when Don proposed a simple ladder of evidence for different problem types, I expanded on it as "Fear and Loathing of Evidence in Design Research" http://designdialogues.com/evidence/ I attempt to frame the difference between EBD (which is a thing, especially in healthcare) and "designing with evidence." I didn't build a Latourian edifice to this model (yet), but just expanded on Don's proposal with inputs and objects, and a new entry called Stakeholder models:
Design Reasoning
Inputs and Objects
1. Craft-based, sharply honed intuition
Design materials and repertoires.
Objects: Cases, forms, precedents
2. Rules of thumb: heuristics
Principles, Frameworks, Heuristics as canonical types. Objects: Cases, frames
3. Best practices (case-based)
Inducing patterns from cases, formalized insights. Objects: Cases, benchmarks
4. Design patterns (modified to account for the current problem)
Abductive, patterns adapted, catalogued and applied in new cases.
Objects: Cases, comparisons, argumentation
X. Stakeholder models
Structured observations by stakeholders in context.
Objects: System maps, diagrams, visual and verbal representations, narratives
5. Qualitative rules of practice
Observations, Categories, Participant data, Non-probability samples. Objects: Emic user data, verbal & video content and protocols, images, user prototypes, constructed, narratives
6. Quantitative rules
Structured data, defined variables, survey protocols, distributions from probability samples. Objects: Statistics and structured summaries, Proportional maps
7. Computer models
Inputs to models defined from hard cases, reference data sources, and statistics databases. Objects: Simulations, Functional models,
8. Mathematical models
Variables, parameters, and reference models (statistics). Objects: Algorithms, Equations
The table might be lost here in text-based email, but is clearly denoted in the article (which is a little long for a post).
Looking forward to learning more from our community in the next digest.
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Norman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: January 2, 2016 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: evidence Based Design once again
the difficulties in addressing the problems of the world in many cases have nothing to do with design or knowledge. Thus, for the difficulties of developing a sustainable earth, there are lots of good analyses, lots of good suggestions for helping move in a better direction, and lots of evidence.
The problem is political. Many countries feel short-changed: the changes asked of them prevent them from moving to the life-style they desire (even though it is unsustainable). Many companies seek short-term profit over long-term sustainability, even of their own company.
Note too that many people in the world simply deny the evidence. To them, evidence is irrelevant (or is probably faked by that conniving, leftest-leaning scientific conspiracy).
Those of us tackling large, complex sociotechnical problems know that although analysis and prescriptions for these problems may be difficult, the difficulties are overshadowed by the difficulties action, of implementing the ideas.
So let us not confound the difficulties of making change in the real world with the argument about the importance of evidence.
Don
(I will now stop: I've said all that I am able to say. Saying it once more will not help.)
On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 2:39 PM, cameron tonkinwise < <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> We live on the same planet in societies that are surprisingly
> unsustainable despite having been dominated by evidence-based discourses.
> What is the difference that Evidence-based DesignX will make - a
> difference worthy of "a radical reformation of design practice,
> education, and research”?
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