This note is especially directed to the lurkers and the younger, serious
designers who read the postings on this list, but fear to contribute.
Over the past year, several senior members of the list have written
privately tome to say they were leaving. I tried to convince them to stay.
Several younger members of the list talk about their fear of publishing
here because of the reception they will receive. And I am now considering
leaving.
Here is my concern.
My opinion of the purpose of this list (which is not shared by one of the
creators of the list), is that it should be a place for serious, in-depth
discussion of topics relevant to the profession of design, both the
academic side and the practice. The discussion should be civil, aimed at
the concepts, not the personalities of the people. When I say serious, I
do not preclude playfulness and humor.
This list sometimes lives up to this standard. But it more often than not
reflects trivial comments, personal attacks, and oftentimes responses to
items where it is clear the person has not even read the item.
-------
One of the founders of this list, a distinguished scholar, believes that
the list is only for topics related to the teaching of design. In a public
note, he said:
Don, your response does nothing to explain, justify or excuse your "Help!"
post. This is a defined-topic, academic discussion list, not an open-forum
chat room or a personal blog site.
I still believe that my
"help" post
was on an important issue (that an article in the New York Times asked if
design was dead, but in fact equated design with fashion design). I take
that as a serious issue because the confusions that arise in the popular
press and in the world of everyday people about the meaning and scope of
design does serious harm to many of us in the profession. Still, it is
permissible for people to disagree with my assessment.
And then in a private note to me, he said that a note by me:
was no more considered or insightful than a Trump tweet about something he
saw on Fox News that morning.
That's OK for me. I've heard worse. But it is not OK for younger,
less-established people, who might feel their career is impacted by such
comments. Numerous younger, less-well-established people have written of
these concerns, both to the list and in private notes
So this is a call for a bit more consideration on the part of people who
post.
--
I'll use the response to my article in the business Journal *Fast Company*,
as an example. In response to a request from an editor of the magazine, I
sent her a long, unfinished article about the way in which the world has
inadvertently put technology first, people second, that calling the
positive trait of "curiosity" by the negative term of distraction" was an
example, and that we could look at other positive traits (I specifically
discussed mind-wandering) as also being treated as negatives, all because
these positive aspects didn't play well in a technology-centered world. I
also discussed how companies took advantage of these positive traits to
lead to addictive behavior of all sorts, especially in gambling, in social
networks, and video games.
My treatment was long and included scholarly references -- and it was still
incomplete.
The editor liked the piece, simplified and shortened it considerably, and
published it. So it no longer had references, many of the nuances were
deleted, and many of the other topics were discarded (the editor pointed
out that they were interesting, but not relevant to the main point: I
agreed with her). I was given final approval of the article so I did my own
rewriting. I approved of the final article and stand by that approval.
(Remember, it was aimed at business professionals - the sorts of people
that hire designers and tell them what to do.)
I did NOT submit my article to this reading list because to my mind,
although it pointed out serious issues, it was incomplete in many ways.
François Nsenga posted a short note to this list saying he had noted the
article and asked some interesting questions about its implications. My
article was entitled "Why bad technology dominates our lives, according to
Don Norman
“We are serving the wrong masters.” François entitled his post
"Human-Centered Design."
This led to a number of responses by people who clearly had not read the
article, but were riffing off the words "human-centered design."
Keith Russell responded immediately with a poem by Robert Frost, which he
said " gets us past the simple human-centred design gripes." Had he read
my article he might have had a different response, namely:
1. My article was not a gripe about Human-Centered Design (I do indeed
often criticize HCD, but that was not the theme of the Fast Company
article).
2. The Robert Frost poem was, in fact, a wonderful example of the
position I want us to take. The poem basically championed design by people
who understood the ways that tools would be used, the nature of the
materials, and the beauty of something well designed with attention to
details and to the person who would be using it. It was an argument against
machine-produced tools (the tool being an ax in the poem)
So, some people are starting to think about the issues I raised. Wonderful.
(I've received more emails from people who read the Fast Company article
(and who are not designers) than serious responses from people on this
list. That's truly unfortunate.)
We do not have sufficient numbers of serious discussions here. Sometimes
they get started, but then disintegrate into repeated back and forth
arguments between "the usual suspects." (As I have several times stated and
try to follow, I will only respond once to comments. Repeated volleys and
counter-volleys simply disintegrate into repetition and name-calling.) I
wish that in discussions, people would:
1. Read the material under discussion
2. respond to the issues in a way that expands our understanding.
3. Criticism and disagreement are important, for we all learn through
debate, discussion, and understanding the reasons for disagreement. And a
bit of humor now and then can certainly help. But these should be writtn
constructively, without personal critiques.
4. Once a point has been made, stop. Repeating the point in successive
emails does not add to our understanding.
Here is what I do not wish to see: responses such as this one, which in
this case was directed at me:
The article to which our attention was drawn is a slight piece of opinion
journalism, published in a business magazine. It is a '5-minute read', as
the magazine editors themselves tag it, for busy business people. It is not
an academic article and it does not connect with issues of PhD studies and
related research in design. It should be regarded as of no significance to
this discussion list. It touches in a personalised, simplistic way on major
issues of the complex relationships between society, technology and design,
but those are issues that have extensive, long-standing academic, political
and other histories and backgrounds that deserve to be treated more
seriously than they are, and can possibly be, on this list. The article
does not offer new insights. The discussion aound it here is another case
of the Emperor's New Clothes. By all means give it a 5-minute read - and
then hit Delete.
Sigh. All that criticism for an article that was NOT submitted to the list
and that did not pretend to be a serious academic contribution. That
doesn't mean it was worthless. It covered what I thought was an extremely
important observation. That doesn't mean I was correct in my judgment, but
I should be entitled to my opinion. I personally believe that the issues
covered there are important for the members of this list. It is also true,
that the isues deserve a better, deeper, more nuanced treatment -- which is
why i did not submit the item to this list.
Let me close on a positive note.
In a later post, entitled "attraction, distraction, addiction" Keith
Russell presented a nice set of comments based on my Fast Company article
(he had clearly read the article because attraction, distraction, and
addiction were important issues i raised), he concluded with the statement:
So, yes, I support Don’s concerns but I don’t think they are designers’
concerns unless we require designers to be professionals with the ethical
responsibilities of doctors.
Nicely said, with just the proper amount of sarcasm (see, humor is
permitted). Yes, designers should be professionals with the ethical
responsibilities doctors are supposed to have. That is precisely one of
the points I was suggesting.
Thank you, Keith, for the nice summary and discussion points. And for
introducing me to the poem by Frost.
Don
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
