Dear Klaus,
Thanks for your reply. I want to take issue with one section — again, I agree with much of what you say, as I often do, but there are nuances here is which we differ.
My observation is that in many cases, designers work on assignments that have insufficient budgets and insufficient timelines. Or perhaps they have unclear goals, or situations in which the clients are not even clear about what they need. As well, there are design projects such as CD cases (what once would have been record jackets) or posters, or advertisements — and these projects constitute the major part of the money for a design firm that then becomes famous enough in a small region that clients bring jobs for which the firm lacks capacity … and doesn’t even know that they should turn a job away because they cannot do it.
In these cases, designers actually do work *without* “relying on data (observations), available theories (from multiple disciplines), or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes)” While evidence-based design can employ all these ways of gathering and using evidence, it is often new.
For different reasons, a great deal of design practice is traditional. This is a range of professional practices in which significant amounts of practice are traditional practice based on recent norms and traditions of the profession as practiced in a group of firms in a region or field. This is generally the kind of practice seen in a group of designers or partners who come together in the recurring formation and reformation of design firms, especially as firms cannibalise one another or become acquired by other firms that wish to internalise an apparently successful design practice. It is also common among sole practitioners who are recent or relatively recent graduates of design schools. All they really know is what they learned in school, and most design schools place little weight on multiple research methods or any foundation in understanding the sources and varieties of evidence on which they might draw — note even the very reasonable proposal you suggest: “relying on data (observations), available theories (from multiple disciplines), or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes).”
Observing the company culture of different design firms some years ago, I noticed an interesting pattern in many firms. Several firms seemed to bid on the promise of skill, rich project engagement by well known senior designers, and even research capacity. Once the client signed a project contract, however, most of the firms worked in exactly the same way. Senior designers or even a non-design project leader handed off the assignment to junior designers. There was no further work done — certainly not “relying on data (observations), available theories (from multiple disciplines), or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes).”
Following the hand-off, the junior designers might meet with the lead to discuss a brief, but that was the basic sum of information. The junior designers assigned to the project rarely met the client, and did nothing that you would likely consider research apart from seeking sources of information to inspire the sketches that would follow. Then, each of several junior designers uses different personal and traditional approaches to create sketches. After an appropriate time — long or short — the senior designer of project leader returns to the client with three or four sets of different sketches. The secret of this meeting was the ability of the lead designer or project leader to read client response. Whichever set of sketches best pleased the client was the concept that went forward — very often, the pitchman or pitchwoman would make a point of the sophisticated nature of the client response, stating with encouragement that this was the set of sketches that the firm also thought best.
If a designer attended the pitch, it would be a senior designer or a partner, smiling and taking credit on the firm’s behalf for the work in the presentation. It was never stated that all sets of sketches were the work of a few hours or a few days by junior designers. The firm agreed with the client’s choice — and then moved forward based on the key decisions embodied in the sketches.
Artisan craft guild practice takes place where a single artisan or master designer heads a studio and all employees must follow the lead of the master. The cultural differences may be significant, but the effect with respect to the client is roughly the same.
A significant number of firms rely on the artistic skill and intuition of the designer, especially where the designed artefacts involve an artistic or fashion-based market in such field as clothing, fast-moving consumer goods, domestic interior design for wealthy clients, jewellery, bespoke furniture, and so on. In these cases, design often involves creating an imagined future without responding to a problem or a brief. That’s the case with many designers of high-value artisan artefacts. In some cases, there is the equivalent of a brief that may be expressed in a commission: “we’ve just bought Jerry Furbisher’s apartment overlooking Central Park and we’d like you to design it to reflect our lifestyle and Marvin’s new role as CEO of Global Macro.”
Many of the world’s design firms work within cultures based on traditional practice or artisan craft guild practice. This is the case for medium sized and large professional firms as well as for small one-person practices. (For more on the nature of work cultures in design firms, see Byrne and Sands, 2002.) No one has done a large enough study on the work cultures of design firms to describes all the kinds of cultures or the percentages of each culture type compared against the total.
There will also be a likely difference depending on the kinds of design practice any firm represents — a firm that focuses on CD boxes and advertising design will likely work in a traditional way, while a firm that designs tools for surgeons and machines for medical practice would have to work with evidence-based design of some kind. It is clear that some leading design firms use evidence-based practice of some kind — “relying on data (observations), available theories (from multiple disciplines), or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes).” I’m not sure what kind of language they use to express their work culture in relation to research or evidence — they may simply speak of their work as “learning,” or “design.” Again, someone would have to ask the question at some of these practices and firms to find out how they speak about what they do.
When Per Mollerup ran DesignLab, he used the term “research,” and he always used about 10% of the project budget on research to ensure that the rest of the project was what it should be. Mollerup has a strong background in economics and statistics, so he drew on a rich range of research traditions.
In another case, David Kelley says in a forthcoming interview by Maria Camacho that IDEO does not do scientific research — but he states that IDEO projects draw on practice-based research.
The Nielsen-Norman Group is another firm that does a great deal of careful research is. Much of their work involves testing and scientific research.
In the context of general professional practice, this is new. Designers who studied at Ulm were genuinely revolutionary in their time. You are even more radical than most, starting with an engineering degree, and finishing off with a PhD. For you and those few like you, “relying on data (observations), available theories (from multiple disciplines), or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes)” is nothing new at all.
So I’m not arguing that evidence-based practice is “new” for everyone in the world or for everyone in design. I’m saying that it is a useful idea, and I do say that the way that Sackett and his colleagues describe it offers ground for reasonable reflection.
While designers often imagine things that do not exist, few designers work with projects that are totally new. A great deal of what we do involves re-design, a great deal of what we do involves adapting or applying existing facts, technologies, or principles to new purposes. Many of those new purposes are “new” in the sense that we haven’t done them before in this context or situation for this client. Even so, they involve meeting human needs, wants, or desires, and much is known about these. Moreover, even when we serve new clients, there are useful methods that allow us to understand what a specific client, customer, or end-user wants, needs, or desires. All of this involves evidence-based practice of a kind that is not often seen in traditional practice, artisan craft guild practice, or artistic intuitive practice.
In a long-ago book chapter titled “Design Science and Design Education,” I (Friedman 1997) discuss some of these issues with respect to design education. Some aspects of the discussion reach further into professional practice. While I would write some of it differently today, the principles and basic issues remain useful. Those who wish to read it will find it in the papers on my Academia.edu page at URL:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
We agree completely on one point. I do *not* say that one can or should use evidence-based design for all kinds of design. We agree that “insisting on designs that is solely justifiable by available evidence can justify only the conservative part a design.” Nothing in my prior post suggested that I propose this as a universal solution. I was quite careful in stating that my post was limited in intent, neither universal nor total.
But deontic knowledge is only one useful factor in design — deontic knowledge deals with what is permissible or impermissible, obligatory or non-obligatory. Deontic knowledge deals with such issues as “must,” “ought,” and “should,” or “must not,” “ought not,” and “should not.” These concepts do not help us to design effectively. Even though deontic knowledge concerns the value-laden issue of what we should design, it offers none of the guidance in the design process that evidence-based practice affords.
Lily Diaz-Kommonen also points to a form of deontic knowledge, the concept of catalytic validity — what we ought to do. Here, I also agree. But knowing what we ought to do doesn’t tell us how to get it done. These are not competing concepts, but concepts that work together in effect design practice eggier our goal is to serve human beings.
I very much agree with Gjoko’s comment: “My point about evidence-based design was same like Don's - there are particular projects that call for this type of approach.”
Let me conclude this reply by saying again that this is not a total concept or a universal prescription. The concept of evidence-based practice of the kind that appears in the Duke guide. While that guide was designed for medicine, the advice applies to most forms of clinical practice. In design, evidence-based practice gives us a richer repertoire of tools than we had in the past.
The entire point of design research and research training in design is to enhance the repertoire of tools and skills that designers can apply to the work they do. I’m proposing that more practicing designers and design professionals take some of these tools on board and learn to use them.
Klaus, my esteemed friend, none of this is new for you. I’d guess that anyone with an engineering degree, an Ulm diploma (or the equivalent in some field of professional practice), and a PhD from a top North American research university knows much of this already — especially after several decades of advanced professional practice, first-rate research, and major contributions to a range of fields from design and communication to research methodology and statistical analysis. Few of us have such a broad background, and fewer still with the broad background combine this breadth with depth and skill across the rich range of your experience.
As a result, most folks have something to learn from the concept of evidence-based practice.
While I like the idea of evidence-based design as David Durling long ago explained it, I realise that some people use the concept of “evidence-based design” as a slogan. If they do, it’s unfortunate — but it does not change the value and usefulness of the concept of evidence-based practice as contrasted with traditional practice, artisan craft guild practice, or intuitive artistic practice. (I also acknowledge that the forms of practice I indicate by these terms are not well defined. In some cases, they may overlap with one another, and some aspects of any form of practice may also take place in firms that also engage with serious research and with evidence-based practice.)
Rather than speak of “evidence-based design,” I will move back a step to speak of “evidence-based practice in design.”
Let me make this even more precise. It is clear that we can’t use the concept of evidence-based practice exactly as physicians or nurses use it. It is nevertheless possible to learn from the medical version of evidence-based practice. This involves finding ways to assess needs, ask questions, acquire evidence, appraise the evidence, and apply what we learn to the needs we address.
Professional experience plays a role. So do client needs — or customer needs, or end-users needs, along with the values and preferences of those whom we serve when we design. And so does evidence.
In writing about evidence-based practice, I am advocating a rich repertoire of tools. Since no tool is perfect, complete, or comprehensive, no one can reasonably insist on any single method or process.
Let me stop here before the day vanishes completely into this interesting thread.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
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References
Byrne, Bryan, and Ed Sands. 2002. “Designing Collaborative Corporate Cultures.” In Creating Breakthrough Ideas, Bryan Byrne and Susan E. Squires, editors. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey, pp. 47-69.
Friedman, Ken. 1997. “Design Science and Design Education.” The Challenge of Complexity. Peter McGrory, editor. Helsinki: University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH, 54-72. A copy of this book chapter is available at URL:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Sackett, David L, William M C Rosenberg, J A Muir Gray, R Brian Haynes, and W Scott Richardson. 1996. "Evidence-Based Medicine: What it is and what it isn't." (Based on an editorial from the British Medical Journal on 13th January 1996, BMJ 1996, 312: 71-2.) A copy of this article is available at URL:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2349778/
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Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
—snip—
while all designers need to present their design to those who can realize them in convincing terms, relying on data (observations). available theories (from multiple disciplines) or demonstrations (experiments with prototypes) if this is what evidence-based design means, it says nothing new.
insisting on designs that is solely justifiable by available evidence can justify only the conservative part a design. designs that are consequential by introducing innovations into society require different justifications. herbert simon talked about deontic knowledge. i think this is far from sufficient but better than relying on available evidence.
—snip—
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