To all:

Since my post initiated this discussion of principles in designing, I’ll add two and a half cents more:

Both David and Don gave examples of how they use principles in designing.  In both cases they were principles as highest level foundational guidelines for their practice.  Be human centered.  Work with people.  Understand their circumstance, technology, and culture.  Be kind and work to improve the interactive process and outcomes etc.

Susan didn’t think human-centered went far enough.  Neither do I.  But she offered criticism of Don’s chosen principles not a further discussion of what role principles play in designing.

I think Terry’s observation is a good starting point.  Principles are primary positions, starting points.  They’re easy to recognize as such in medicine, e.g. premum non nocere (works also for education). 

In religion: Mosaic Decalogue; golden rule; “If I am not for myself, who will be for me, if I am only for myself, what am I?”

In science, C, the speed of light; thermodynamics, etc.

In designing, principles have typically been the starting points for valuing arrays.  Planning programs in the 60s used to teach the organizational structure of intent as: principles, goals, objectives, standards.  Principles were the highest level of valenced intent; “ With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Goals were both more specific ways and means but also targets; all of which had their related implementing objectives, and standards were meant to deal with the performance and quality of embodiment and expression.

From an embodied design thinking perspective, such a valuing array is an experiential whole that links the highest level of intent to the reality of formative expression and action.  Heuristics, of course, play an important role in the process.

From this perspective, both David and Don were setting forth their principle valuing positions for their work. And more generally, principles in designing are primary concepts in the modeling of intent.

Best to all,

Jerry

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 5:14 AM, Mauricio Mejia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Susan,
> 
> Thanks for bringing the idea of heuristics to the discussion. I found a
> good reference (Terry, from engineering design) that is a review and
> analysis of the concept of design principles (Fu, Yang, & Wood, 2016). The
> authors analyzed definitions in the literature and found differences
> between heuristics, guidelines, and principles in four dimensions:
> "- Supporting Evidence or Validation Dimension: the degree of supporting
> evidence tends to be ordered as heuristics, guidelines, and principles, in
> increasing evidence.
> - Granularity or Specificity Dimension: the degree of granularity or
> specificity tends to be ordered as heuristics, guidelines, and principles,
> in [decreasing specificity] [in other words, principles are more broadly
> applicable and heuristics are more context dependent].
> - Formalization Dimension: the degree of formalization tends to be ordered
> as heuristics, guidelines, and principles, in increasing formalization.
> - Prescriptive-Descriptive Dimension: the nature tends to be ordered as
> heuristics, guidelines, and principles, progressing from more [descriptive]
> to more [prescriptive]." p. 101103 5-6.
> They explain that evidence could come from experimental studies or expert
> designers. They report that the experimental evidence is weak (even in
> engineering design!), so design principles usually come from expert
> designers.
> 
> They also offer an interesting list of requirements for a design principle:
> "- Is stated in the grammatical imperative form.
> - Includes a prescriptive action for a designer to take
> - Increases the likelihood of reaching a desirable consequence, which must
> also be explicitly articulated
> - Is situated within a particular context and point in time, so as to
> provide information regarding the scope of the area of
> application/relevance and current state of the art in the field." p. 101103
> 10.
> 
> I spent some days reviewing other references because I am writing a piece
> related to design principles and behavioral biases (I could share a draft
> with anyone interested). Generally in design fields, design principles are
> rarely based on experimental research; they are often positioned in a
> process of critique and discussion in design communities. Commonly,
> practitioners pioneer design principles and sometimes scholars document and
> provide validation in multiple ways (with no particular research methods).
> 
> Susan, I agree that heuristics may be a better word for what designers and
> design researchers understand for design principles. Design principles are
> proposed as practical strategies of expert designers, and adoption depend
> more on the reputation of the expert designers rather than evidence (ethos).
> 
> Best wishes.
> Mauricio
> 
> Fu, K. K., Yang, M. C., & Wood, K. L. (2016). Design Principles: Literature
> Review, Analysis, and Future Directions. *Journal of Mechanical
> Design, 138*(10),
> 101103 1-101103 13. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4034105__;!5W9E9PnL_ac!SNKV_4SwHLIrvAt4Q0UE2r7iqi5rqn0EfJCGwfvq7EifzVtJ72FaNvrSAiOP9cjNpZo4-N8Uzw$ 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 8:40 AM Susan Marie Hagan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Mauricio, I wanted to jump in with your introduction of the term
>> heuristics. I keep coming back to the idea of heuristics. In rhetoric, it
>> refers to practical strategies for exploring an argument
>> 
> ...
> 
>> Until principles are identified, when practical and useful strategies
>> emerge, heuristics, while an odd word on the tongue, could do a lot of good
>> work.
>> 
> ...
> 
>> On Aug 14, 2019, at 11:51 PM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]<mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>> 
>> Its hard, looking through the design and design research literatures to
>> see anything that has the nature of being a principle. This applies even to
>> the engineering design literature, where authors can at least go back to
>> axioms as the basis for design models (if you ignore Godel).
>> 
> 
> -- 
> G. Mauricio Mejia, MDes, PhD
> Assistant professor, The Design School
> Senior Sustainability Scientist, Global Institute of Sustainability
> Arizona State University
> See my research in the Transformation Lab
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://web.asu.edu/transformationlab__;!5W9E9PnL_ac!SNKV_4SwHLIrvAt4Q0UE2r7iqi5rqn0EfJCGwfvq7EifzVtJ72FaNvrSAiOP9cjNpZoz8qWUOw$ >
> 
> 
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