Dear Heidi,
Thanks for your reply. Two quick comments.
It may be that I state the obvious in pointing to the fact that systems are not things. One of the remarkable things about research is how often people do not notice the obvious until someone points it out. Albert Einstein’s (1998 [1905]: 85-98) article on Brownian motion is a case in point.
Albert Einstein demonstrated the physical reality of atoms with an argument built on physical and chemical facts that were widely known and accepted by all trained scientists. Prior to this article, the physical reality of atoms had been a matter of controversy. Einstein built his argument on well known facts, carefully restated and organized in a deductive argument demonstrating the physical reality of atomic theory. The facts first began to emerge in the 1820s when botanist Robert Brown first observed the phenomenon known as Brownian motion. In 1905, Einstein used physical and chemical facts that were obvious to every working physicist. The article convinced most physicists that atoms were, indeed, real. What made the article so interesting is that Einstein based his revolutionary article on physical and chemical facts that had been observed and described for nearly a century.
The obvious is not obvious to everyone.
I should note that I was not describing the organization of bank tellers. The tellers did what they had always done, and teller service desks did not change position. What changed was the organization of customer traffic.
I agree with your point on kitchens. There is some kind of ambiguous quality that makes it difficult to decide which parts of the kitchen are things, and which parts are a system or a process. My wife and I have been through two major kitchen renovations. One was in a house from 1895. The other was in a modern townhouse. All the physical things in each kitchen were the same before the renovation and after. Despite this fact, the way we reorganized the kitchen enabled us to use the things in new and more effective ways. As with updated versions of the iPhone operating system or new versions of computer software, the algorithm makes a big difference to how the thing works.
Yours,
Ken
--
Reference
Einstein, Albert. 1998 [1905]. Einstein’s Miraculous Year. Five Papers that Changed the Face of Physics. Edited and introduced by John Stachel. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
—
Heidi Overhill writes:
—snip—
I think that to understand the kitchen it is necessary also to include money, food packaging, and recipes, whether written or held in memory from Grandma. These semi-tangible items form an important part of the inventory. Ken states the obvious in concluding that a system for organizing bank tellers is "not a thing," but in the kitchen such a distinction is not pragmatically useful. There seems to be no clear cut-off in which systems go on one side and things on the other (NOTE: suggestions welcome here!) There is also the disciplinary conclusion that the purview of design includes both systems and objects, and often both at once.
—snip—
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (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 ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
