Erik,
Another thought might be to approach design by the actions that it
produces: intentional design followed through with action and coordination
from a designer produces an intended outcome or several outcomes; whether
intended or not. There are different styles of design out there, different
orders of magnitude and huge variations in projects even within the various
disciplines. Most certainly there are different philosophies, and general
and specific views about design. How about looking at the clients that
designers work for in both the general and specific sense?
In academics, I see that groupings of philosophers seems to occur into
easy to remember ways of talking about general philosophical movements:
Chicago School, Austrian Economics, Keynes Economics, etc. I consider these
the schools of thought.
Instead of looking at Schools of Thought, I am suggesting looking at
design in its productive outcomes.
Look at designers from a designer to project point of view (it's not
perfect, but it's something to think about). This is not the schools of
thought approach. This approach looks at your labor cost to production,
which if you are a business owner makes sense.
To do this analysis, you say to yourself: Engineers are designers, so
what do they produce and what do they do? Architects are designers, what do
they produce and what do they do? (as I am staring at the list below it
seems to flow from tangible to the intangible outcomes)
1. Engineers, Architects, Economists, Artists, Politicians: large civil,
electrical, environmental engineering projects, large and small dwellings
and structures, urban/non-urban planning, systemic economic policies, small
and large exhibits and expressions.
2. Product Developers: small artifacts, objects, automobiles, digital
experiences, personal products or products where we can choose how to
dispose our available income.
3. Consulting and Marketers or Marketing: psychology of persuasion,
insights into what products and services people will want, find new
products and services and business models to exploit, promote consumption
and behavior change, analysis and recommendations.
I'm certain this is open to debate and also that there are more and varied
ways of looking at this. But I was thinking that schools of thought are not
as important as what people do with their thoughts to create productive
actions; hence, design. Thanks!
*Stephen Matthew. WISNIEW*
*Stephen Matthew Designs*
*Task Force Vetrepreneur*
*Strategic Planning / Economic Development/ Human Centered Design*
www.stephenmatthewdesign.com <http://www.stephenmatthewdesign.com/>
www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmatthewwisniew
www.facebook.com/stephenmatthewdesigns
business email: [log in to unmask]
Cell Phone: (561) 866-9468
On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 9:45 AM, Erik Stolterman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> Thank you all for commenting. I really like the position that most of you
> took, that is, a position of inquiry and conversation. To me, this is
> encouraging. My initial proposal was exactly that just a first proposal
> with an open invitation for conversations, suggestions with the purpose of
> initiating a scholarly exploration, not a debate that has to 'won'.
>
> So, I am very happy to see additional ideas for school of thought suggested
> and also ideas for how to go about identifying and clarifying such schools
> of thought. By doing both, we could potentially develop some kind of
> categories that could be useful. Even though the idea why such
> categorization is useful or not, also need to be an open question.
>
> I will take the ideas and keep working on this, but I also invite the
> conversation to go on, all suggestions or comments are useful, it is an
> explorative adventure. I am imagining a situation where we can have some
> kind of 'map' of the fields philosophical, theoretical and practical
> aspects similar to what we can find in more established fields. I see this
> as primarily useful for educational purposes.
>
> These maps are of course constantly challenged (and should be) but they can
> provide some structure to anyone who is eager to learn more about the
> field.
>
> Anyway, that is all for now, back to reality....
>
> Erik
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Erik Stolterman
> *Professor in Informatics*
> *School of Informatics and Computing*
>
> *Indiana University, Bloomington*http://transground.blogspot.com/
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 5:25 AM, Ken Friedman <
> [log in to unmask]
> > wrote:
>
> > Dear All,
> >
> > It’s a chilly late winter morning here in Kalmar, bright and sunny after
> a
> > week of overcast weather. I woke up to find the list bubbling with
> replies
> > to Erik Stolterman’s propositional inquiry into schools of thought about
> > designing. Comments by Terry Love, David Sless, and Kari-Hans Kommonen
> > caught my eye.
> >
> > Terry asked, “Isn't the primary role of this way of categorising design
> > activity to provide a self-justification framework for the existence of
> > design educators?” I’m uncomfortable about suggesting that a question
> such
> > as this is merely self-serving. Terry’s comment addresses the motives of
> > someone asking the question rather than considering the question itself.
> >
> > It is difficult to see how categorizing design activity provides a
> > framework for justifying the work of design educators. Education policy
> > determines the justification for design education. If we are to have
> design
> > education, we need design educators to teach design. Educators do not
> > provide the justification framework for their own existence.
> Justification
> > frames begin with political decisions. The effects of these decisions
> > devolve downward from the elected government. Education ministers and
> > senior civil service set policy and establish priorities. University
> > councils and senior management at universities or other schools implement
> > policy on the ground. It’s the same in all fields — design among them.
> >
> > To suggest that examining schools of thought is an attempt for design
> > educators to justify their work is a bit like suggesting that examining
> > schools of thought in mathematics is primarily a way for mathematics
> > teachers to justify their jobs. Examining the major schools of
> mathematical
> > thought — f.ex., realism, formalism, or intuitionism — has interest and
> > value in its own right. This interests philosophers or mathematicians
> with
> > a philosophical interest more than it interests workaday mathematicians
> or
> > people that use mathematics to calculate — say, accountants or bond
> > traders. But it is not an attempt to justify the work of math teachers.
> >
> > The question of “schools of thought about designing” involves a typology
> > of how different groups of designers frame their own understanding of
> their
> > activities and work.
> >
> > This is not simply — or only — a question for designers or design
> > educators. Many people inquire into the schools of thought of different
> > professions. Anthropologists, ethnographers, and sociologists ask these
> > kinds of questions, especially those engaged in sociology of knowledge
> and
> > sociology of the professions. Philosophers also ask these kinds of
> > questions.
> >
> > David wrote, “I have found these approaches, however categorised and
> > differentiated hollow, because they rely on their own internal logic and
> > plausibility to justify themselves. There need to be strong external
> > criteria by which these methods, processes, or ways of thinking—schools
> of
> > thought—can be judged. Internal coherence and plausibility are not
> > sufficient. … There are many social practices which meet strong criteria
> of
> > internal consistency and plausibility, but which provide no strong
> external
> > criteria. The one I often use by way of comparison is rain making
> > ceremonies. It only has to rain once in a while after such ceremonies for
> > the belief in the practice to be validated. I suspect (though I have no
> > systematic evidence to support my suspicion) that the same is true of
> > designing. What I do know, is that we have no systematic criteria by
> which
> > to judge the outcomes of our work, whichever of the three schools we
> > follow.”
> >
> > To the degree that a school of thought is a world-view, it doesn’t
> require
> > criteria. It merely requires that people in a profession work from within
> > the framework of their school of thought.
> >
> > As I see it, Erik was floating a proposition to ask how we might
> > understand the different schools of thought or approaches from within
> which
> > we engage with design. That seems interesting and useful. Without making
> a
> > strong argument for the value of any specific answer, asking such
> questions
> > serves a valuable purpose in any profession.
> >
> > How valuable is any hypothesis? In the sense that any hypothesis can lead
> > to better questions in the right mind, even problematic hypotheses may be
> > useful. In his first attempts to understand the laws of planetary motion,
> > Johannes Kepler inscribed the solar system in a model based on the
> Platonic
> > solids of ancient Greek geometry. It was a false start, one of many. But
> > through many years of careful work, Kepler developed the three laws that
> do
> > describe planetary motion, a breakthrough in physics that paved the way
> for
> > crucial developments.
> >
> > Erik’s question is a question in the social sciences about design — I
> > doubt that it will lead to the kind of breakthrough we saw with Kepler’s
> > laws, but I think that it can shed light of the kind that George Herbert
> > Mead or John Dewey would have found interesting.
> >
> > Kari-Hans described something extremely valuable, writing, “*the 0.
> school
> > of thought* - which may be the largest one - the practicioners and
> > educators of design whose ambitions focus on deepening their and their
> > students' and disciples' abilities to design in their own field of
> > expertise and see little need to expand the field or its concerns beyond
> > what they believe to be its somehow natural professional and ethical
> > boundaries.”
> >
> > This seems to me quite right. Kari-Hans describes the school of thought
> > that we see in the artisan craft guild tradition. This is indeed the
> > largest tradition. Somewhat like dark matter and dark energy, this
> > constitutes the vast and often unseen school of thought around which the
> > design universe still takes shape. If one considers the sociology of
> nearly
> > all professions, Kari-Hans’s model applies in many fields outside design.
> >
> > The only way to know more about what we want to know is to ask useful
> > questions. To know what schools of thought predominate, we need empirical
> > field work. It is nevertheless possible to understand the nature and
> > constitution of different schools of thought *about* designing through
> the
> > inquiry that Erik proposed.
> >
> > Yours,
> >
> > Ken Friedman
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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