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Dear Tiiu Poldma (Long Post) and Fil and the list Your note and discussion on "capturing design information" quoted below set off a line of thought that I felt would be worth sharing at the closing stages of this very eventful year. I was invited to speak (this week) to a large contingent of faculty recruits to the National Institute of Fashion Technology which has seven campuses across India and is expanding rapidly their design presence in the textile and fashion domains in India over the past three years or so. I was invited to speak on the topic of Design Philosophy and about issues and perspectives in Design Research in an academic setting for 86 young (new) faculty at NIFT. NIFT is soon to be deemed an Institute of National Excellence in India by an act of Parliament, the Bill is being tabled in New Delhi in the current session. In preparing for my lectures I reviewed a lot of material on this list and many of the active participants are listed in my pdf slide show, snippets of which I am quoting below for immediate reference. Unfortunately the two and half hour lecture was not recorded but I do hope to write it up in full when time permits. Your comments on maps and models have been on the top of my mind for many years now as being at the core of design thinking and action. While reflecting on these roles of cognitive processes and external visualisations, particularly in the early stages of defining the design directions, it dawned on me that design opportunity is an insight that is very different from many forms of insights and perceptions that other disciplines may use in the process of innovation or discovery. I have quoted below my description of what is a design opportunity. In this process I think I have coined a new word that captures the process and helps us describe the act of imagination and exploration that is at the heart of design thinking and action. I call this word "INPLORATION". For me it is the antonym of exploration. My definition of the word is quoted below: Quote “Inploration” *is the act of introspection or inward journey for the purpose of design, Definition: Inploration: “A design act of intentional thoughts, feelings & actions with the use of images, words, materials and ideas (concepts), through mental operations such as juxtaposition, blending, modification, etc., all impacted by memory and sense experiences that interplay with the purpose of creating a new synthesis. The outcome, if captured externally, results in interesting configurations or useful compositions in the process of design” *© 2005 M P Ranjan Antonym: “Exploration” is the act of searching or traveling for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown regions, including space (space exploration), or oil, gas, coal, ores, water (also known as prospecting), or information. (Wikipedia) UnQuote I am quoting a few snippets from my slides on Design Philosophy below and the full pdf file can be downloaded from my website at this link below: <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/ FileSharing83.html> file names "NIFT_Design Philosophy.pdf" (589 KB) and "NIFT_Research_Insights2005.pdf" (4.9 MB) located at the bottom of the page. Quote again: from my slides and talking points... Dominant Ideologies Aesthetics & Style: .......looks can kill, it does Form & Structure: ....the inseparable twins ........(the tangible & the intangible) Substance & Message: ....content is king Language & Semiotics: ....meanings in context Feeling & Emotion: ....motivation & engagement Need & Greed: ...functionalists & consumerism Emerging Ideologies Ethics & Spirit: ....taking the high road Economics & Power: .....trade, exchange & diplomacy Politics & Law: ......art of the possible & the desirable The Design Process (The Design Way) Intentions Explorations Compositions Judgements Innovation Promotion Implementation Nurturing Design Opportunity * When human vision interacts with the context, it produces imaginations that can be termed as “design opportunity”, or insight. This leads to further design “inploration” which brings conviction and then design action that follows is driven by deep conviction. So the term opportunity is not about something that you can find by chance, but it is a product of intentionality and imagination, which explains why it is so difficult to explain an emerging design opportunity till some concrete expression is achieved in the form of abstract models or at a later stage more concrete representations (maps, models and feasibility statements). The Systems Thinkers Bucky Fuller (1895 - 1983) USA Raymond Loewy (1893 - 1986) USA, M K Gandhi, (1869 - 1948), India Stafford Beer, (1926 - 2002), UK, Charles & Ray Eames, (1907/1912-1978/1988), USA Frei Otto, (1925 -), Germany, Some Software Providers (Thinkers) Teilhard de Chardin, Gregory Bateson, Claude Levi Straus, Jean Piaget, Ivan Illich, Arthur Koestler ..... Design Visionaries: Sensing & Research Bruce Archer, John Chris Jones, Charles & Ray Eames, Christopher Alexander, Marshall McLuhan, Victor Papanek, Nigel Whitely, Herbert Simon Contemporary Design Thinkers (1) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - ethical foundations of happiness Klaus Krippendorff - Semantics, semiotics and meaning in culture and language Victor Margolin - Social role of design: Politics of the Artificial Richard Buchanan - Meaning production with design Ken Friedman - Scientific and systematic rigor in design research Wolfgang Jonas - Systems Thinking and the design marshland ..the unknowable Contemporary Design Thinkers (2) Charles Burnette - psychology of excellence through design (iDesignthinking.com) Carma Gorman - History of Industrial Design and significant landmarks John Thackara - new approaches to design for society, the service economy (Dott07.com) G K VanPatter - design as leadership (NextD.org) Uffe Elbaek - management education as design (Kaospilot.dk) Harrold Nelson & Eric Stolterman - The Design Way The Ulm School, Germany Gui Bonsiepe, Tomas Maldonado, Abraham Moles....... The Emerging Heros George Soros, Amartya Sen .......... UnQuote I wish you all a merry holiday season and very happy and productive new year ahead. Greetings and good tidings from NID Ahmedabad. With warm regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 23 December 2005 at 9.05 pm IST Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email: [log in to unmask] web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ On 15-Dec-05, at 9:29 PM, Tiiu Poldma wrote: > Re: concept maps and how design is organized and sorted... > > Dear Fil and Chuck, > > This is a quick note and late as it is.... > > I have used concept maps for many years as a design thinking tool, > both as a designer and as part of design methodologies taught to > students in baccalaureate level design theory and studio courses. > > As Fil notes, some of my own research revolves around concept maps. I > began with considering their value as design tools, as a means of > working out messay thoughts, or as a means of representing and > organizing ideas that were unclear or conceptual in nature.I also like > the 'free form' nature of concept maps, and I like to use them just > to explore, to structure thoughts, ideas or written analysis and to > help make sense of concepts that emerge but are difficult to write > down in a linear fashion. > > More recently I used concept maps in my doctoral work as an analyzing > strategy, not intending to incorporate the maps that I generated into > the thesis. However, I found out two things: 1)There is an interest > in the social sciences for this type of analytic methodology( as a > rough method during the analytic process); and 2)renowned researchers > in education research such as Joseph Maxwell consider these types of > maps useful for working out ideas during the messier phases of an > analytic process of inquiry. > > I am working on developing these ideas as an advanced analytic > research method in qualitative inquiry, as I have found out that in > the social sciences design tools such as concept maps are considered > useful methods to conceptualize the analysis phase of research, and I > am presenting my ideas at a major research education research > conference in the United States next year. > > Best regards, > > Tiiu Poldma, Ph.D. > University of Montreal > > >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Filippo A. Salustri" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: <[log in to unmask]> >> Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 9:46 AM >> Subject: Re: Capturing design information >> >> >>> Chuck et al, >>> >>> Some of my research moves around the periphery of this matter. I >>> like >>> using wikis and concept maps to represent design information. In one >>> currently funded project, a grad student is looking at the use of >>> concept >>> maps for early design information. As people use concept maps, we >>> hope to >>> study the activities they perform and analyse the results to make >>> recommendations on how design activities can be helped with better >>> tools >>> and methods. >>> >>> I like concept maps and wikis because they're very 'free form' >>> compared to >>> typical other tools engineering designers might use. As a result, >>> one >>> hopes that the organisation of the information emerges from the >>> usage. >>> >>> There's many other people working on aspects of this. EG: Rob >>> Bracewell >>> at Cambridge has a tool called DRed for capturing design rationale >>> in an >>> IBIS-like framework. DRed charts can be thought of as examples of >>> what >>> information design engineers use. If snapshots were taken of DRed >>> charts >>> during their construction/evolution, one might be able to "see" a >>> bit the >>> kinds of activities and order of those activities that occur. >>> >>> Cheers. >>> Fil >