This has little to do with the direction this thread has gone so I changed the subject line.
Don,
> On Mar 19, 2016, at 6:16 PM, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2016.01.002
You paper was interesting. In it you ask, "Do the current methods taught in design education, especially considering its emphasis upon traditional craft, prepare designers for work in and with complex sociotechnical systems?" I assume that to be a rhetorical question; I will try not to respond with a rhetorical answer.
Clearly, as you imply, traditional design education of pretty much any stripe doesn't prepare designers for work in and with complex sociotechnical systems. I wonder whether anything could. But I also wonder whether a lot of the current methods taught in design education aren't a pretty good place to start.
Two lessons that seem basic to design education with "emphasis upon traditional craft" are the interaction of objects (corporeal or otherwise) with persons and the problem of meeting the demands and/or needs of multiple stakeholders.
If "traditional craft" emphasizes creating a beautiful finished object above everything else, then your seeming assumption is right. If, on the other hand, the emphasis is on rapid prototyping to answer questions, maybe that's a good place to begin.
You write that "if one looks at the history of large scale sociotechnical systems, the number of failures during implementation is astounding, and even where the system eventually was deployed, most were subject to large cost and time overruns." I suspect that failures and reworking are attributes of almost anything new. Doesn't failure at smaller projects help prepare someone for better failures at more complex projects?
I wouldn't argue that most design education prepares anyone for Design <X (or Design 2 or whatever) or, for that matter, much of anything. I worry, however, that many educational efforts at tackling big problems seem to want to start and end with studying and analyzing big problems rather than learning to tackle problems more generically.
I'm not saying that you are arguing for removing design from design for big problems but too often that seems to be the theme of design expansion efforts.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
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Greenville NC 27858
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