Greetings Don (and all),
Just to clarify, I was not trying to "sell" Archer's thesis. To be honest, when I first read it I thought it was faintly mad. For several of its chapters, I thought Archer was saying that design is a linear and perhaps even algorithmic process. But as it progresses the model is refined and (I would say) close-to undermined by acknowledging the complexity and messiness of real designing.
On the question of whether Archer's work was any use to practising designers, Archer's series of articles ‘Systematic Method for Designers’ in Design magazine -- which presented many of the same ideas but with all the algebra suppressed -- was highly valued by readers (which included a lot of practising designers). A note in Design issue 38 (1965) p. 73 says: ‘The unprecedented demand for this series of articles has made it necessary for DESIGN to publish them as a bound reprint, revised and extended by the author’. I guess there was a hunger for something that could make design seem less intuitive and more controllable at the time.
Later, Archer reflected that he had "wasted a lot of time trying to bend the methods of operational research and management techniques to design purposes" Archer, L. B. (1979). Whatever became of design methodology? Design Studies 1(1), 17-20.
Simone and I have developed a less anecdotal and more rigorous take on the same question for Design Studies (for those who can afford it) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X17300893
Stephen Boyd Davis
Professor of Design Research
School of Design
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore, London
SW7 2EU
Office direct line 020 7590 4343
www.rca.ac.uk
On 25/02/2018, 01:20, "PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of Don Norman" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thanks to Stephen's note, I have read his paper with Simone Gristwood and
the PhD thesis by Bruce Archer.
Terry will really like the thesis. I did too, but I have an important
reservation and distinction to make.
Boyd Davis, S., & Gristwood, S. (2016). The Structure of Design Processes:
Ideal and Reality in Bruce Archer’s 1968 Doctoral Thesis. Paper presented
at the Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary
Conference. from https://drs2016.squarespace.com/s/240-Boyd-Davis.pdf
Archer, L. B. (1968). The structure of design processes. Royal College of
Art.
http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/2949/1/Bruce_Archer_Structure_of_Design_Processes_1968.pdf
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