Hello again to everyone,
Professor Holmlid has just made some good points about the different viewpoints and definitions of design and how bringing knowledge and experience from outside the field of design can only benefit the discussion. Professor Norman has clearly defined the constraints within current design practice and, in part, it’s potential to influence society.
To have a clearly organised discussion where everyone is aligned in understanding and viewpoint, we have to define a point of reference.
The viewpoint of profession practice, where you are employed/paid on a regular basis to undertake work that is classified as design (e.g. traditionally industrial, graphic, interior), is one reference point. If the debate is purely academic, we miss the point of how we can help change in society through helping practicing designers.
This leads to the delineation of what a designer would do that other professions such as art, engineering, marketing, human factors and ergonomics don't. My interpretation is that designers realise novel interpretations of the social and cultural function, the perceived value, of images, objects and environments within the constraints of cost and manufacture.
Each of the aforementioned other disciplines do not address all these aspects within their own definition of practice. Practicing designers will draw on these other disciplines and work with them on a new artefact, product or service development.
Accredited professional bodies provide some guidance, but in my view do not make the delineation of what is design and the competencies of a professional designer within each conventional specialism clear enough.
The emerging profession of User Experience designer will soon have a consensus of competencies to enable professional UX designers to have a clearly defined role within commercial practice.
Separate to the discussion of professional competency: Hidden competency.
What is a hidden competency of practicing designers is their ability to manipulate people's perceptions of images, objects and environments to affect behavioural change. This is the power on which Professor Papanek was commenting in the preface of Design for the Real World. The process and principles underpinning this form of manipulation/influence of peoples decision-making are not unique to design. However, the manipulation of colour, form, texture, and interaction to make them desirable to be purchased when the products that are often mass-produced, with implications for pollution and societal well-being, becomes a real issue as Professor Norman highlighted in his last comment.
However, practicing designers are not slaves to a warped form of consumerism. Designers are members of a society within which they live and work to provide for themselves and families. We are all constrained by our personal values and those within our wider society and culture.
This forum has the opportunity to raise awareness of different ways of thinking about design, ethics and values. However, we collectively wish to produce pathways for change, to translate the strategic gap that currently exists between how design is currently practiced and viewed within industry and society to how it could be, we need focused stepping stones to achieve and a plan for change.
Over the last year I have missed many of the discussions and initiatives already initiated by Ken, Professor Norman and others about the design future, but I hope we can align the current debates with these initiatives.
Best wishes
George
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|