It is more than evident from the ongoing discussion that designers and
researchers have different understanding about theory and research. What
designers see as a benefit of the language, researchers perceive as
shortcoming. How much fuzzy and how precise -- this evidently is
interpreted every time according to the professional culture a person
belongs to.
Probably the best thing is that designers and researchers hold discussions
in separate groups rather than getting frustrated by the views of the
other group.
After all, design is design. The result is important.
Regards,
Lubomir Popov
On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Derek Nicoll wrote:
> I disagree with Chris Rust on a couple of points. As an acedemic I have
> long argued that the value that we offer is the ability to consider, then
> name, taxonomise and otherwise redefine. What is in a name is important if
> your work is, for instance, helping industry realise benifits in theory.
> Our recent work for the Design Council of the UK, has been largely about
> definition. In this case what 'smart' or 'intelligent' products are or
> could be. In order to settle on defnitions we worked closely with
> practitioners and others in order to define what was and was not in this
> category, and to reach some consensus about the category itself.
>
> In a sense this links quite directly to the issue of context, and my second
> point of disagreement. "context is all there is."
>
> Things define and are defined by contexts. Any study or theory of context
> is only relevant by defining limits to contexts, or deciding which elements
> are relevant for a particular project or goal. How much is a particular
> context relevant to defining meaning in an act or object? This is the aim
> of contrasting the particular to the general, or the instance and the
> category. Contexts within themseleves are potnaitlly infinate, and
> therefore not defining them and their relevance to an act or thing is
> surely a regressive frame of analysis. This surely confounds any sensible
> disscusion of their relevance.
>
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