Dear Terry,

While I don’t have the time to unpack and respond to all the issues in your post, it is possible to respond to two comments.

1) You are making an unwarranted assumption about domain dependency based on the responses to your earlier comments. You write,

“Responses to my earlier post indicated I was wrong assuming design research knowledge is shared across design fields. I’d also assumed members of this phd-design list held a view of design as‘domain independent’. That seemed to be a reasonable assumption for a couple of reasons. Firstly the idea that design activity is intrinsically ‘domain independent’ is the original perspective of design research from the 1960s. Secondly many posts of members of this phd-design list strongly indicate that they assume domain independency of design is the many posts that define design generally (‘Design is ….’) rather than seeing design in a domain specific say e.g. ‘The word ‘Design’ in communication design means … which differs from how it is used in XXX in the following ways…’. Taking a ‘domain independent’ view of design necessarily implies understanding of design theories across all design disciplines. On this basis I’d assumed that readers were aware of design research developments and findings across all design fields. The feedback indicated I was mistaken. The feedback indicates it is more common on this list for researchers to be domain-specific with their design research knowledge. It means that design research knowledge is limited to what is available in the design domain in which they work. There are many fields of designers and different knowledge about design from design research is available in each.”

There are too many assumptions in these comments to permit a long reply. Simply put, there are many people on the list who are aware of issues in design research and design that are not specific to design fields. There are also list subscribers who are primarily focused on specific issues. The fact that people from both groups did not respond to you doesn’t justify any assumptions about a list population with over 3,100 subscribers. Many list subscribers don’t respond ever — the list has become more of a bulletin board for announcements than a forum of inquiry and debate.

From time to time, a topic seems so interesting and inviting that people respond. Your comments on design history didn’t inspire many replies. The entire thread headed “From 'design' to 'design studies’ curriculum” involved about two dozen replies from just over a dozen people. One cannot draw inferences on a population of more than 3,100 people from around 12 participants.

It’s also the case that some people refrain from debating with you. Even people who have the capacity to discuss design theory independent of specific domains may not wish to unpack the many assumptions you layer into any set of comments.

2) Not everyone shares your view on the nature of design research. You write,

“The primary role of ALL theoretical aspects of design (including Design History and Design Research) is to provide better prediction of design outcomes resulting from design decisions.”

This may be true for you, but it may not be true for everyone. Enabling greater predictive power for design outcomes is a legitimate and important purpose for design research, but it is not the only legitimate purpose and it may not be primary for everyone engaged in serious design research. This is especially the case for people who have the training and skill to engage in different forms of design research independent of domains.

You seem to be assuming that everyone shares your assumptions and interests. Much of your commentary suggests that you have a specific and narrow view of design research and its purposes. This, in itself, is a reason for people with a broad foundation and wide interests to avoid these kinds of debates. It involves too much work with a relatively small payoff.

Your interests and ideas are legitimate, but quite specific. Other people have other interests. Few people want to get into a debate that requires them to defend the legitimacy of their interests, let alone debate the assumptions on which many of your arguments rest.

I’m sorry about the fact that relatively few people want to debate with you, but I support the rich pluralism of viewpoints among list subscribers. It would be great if more folks felt like engaging in debate and commentary here.

If you want people to engage with your ideas, you’ve got to explain yourself more clearly — and perhaps make fewer assumptions about what the rest of us do and don’t know.

Yours,

Ken

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 ||| Eminent Scholar | College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning | University of Cincinnati ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn








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