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Dear Andy, Thank you for your message, and thank you for the reference to your work. You wrote, ' Designers have a method, but because it is poorly articulated we have problems speaking with, relating to and selling the value of synthesis to those aforementioned people (not to mention teaching it).' I'm suggesting, with an overview of the last 50 years of literature on design and design research, that the approaches that have been attempted in de design field to understand and theorise about design activity have neither been successful in the above, nor in improving design practice significantly. The exception has been the scientific design research which has focused, in an engineering research fashion, primarily on the properties of problems and the characteristics of solutions. This latter has been successful in improving design activity primarily by taking design activities out of the hands of designers and automating them via computer software. From that perspective on the design literature, I'm suggesting the central foundations of design research and explaining design practice have not worked. The result has been a design literature unhelpfully digging a deeper and deeper hole in the wrong place. The questions of the moment, therefore, are to ask: 1) which foundational theory perspectives that are currently used in design research and descriptions of design are fundamentally unhelpful? 2) Why? And 3) Is there a foundational theory perspective that offers more potential in rebuilding from scratch a new body of explanation and theory about how design activities can be understood and the behaviour of their outcomes can be better forecasted? For such a new theory frame for design research to be successful, the primary criteria of its comprehensiveness is whether it can explain and predict mistakes and failures in individuals design activities and in the development of designs that fail. For some time now, I've suggested that there is a need to move away from a 'self'-based body of theory-making with its attendant focus on 'emotions', 'psychology and cognition' , 'design thinking' and the romance of self; and that Ethology in combination with other perspectives that focus on understanding human designing in the way that we would observe the complex behaviours of a relatively unstudied animal, offers a better starting point for a rebuilding of design theory and the literature of design research. This differs from simply digging a deeper hole by trying to explain a process that you see is the 'black box' of creativity in the terms of 'our' (self-focused and interpreted) 'decision making process'. The problem I've sketched above also applies to the current body of theories in fields such as business, management, policy-making and engineering. It is, and these areas face, the same problem. Hence, arguing that design researchers should address things the same way, which hasn't worked for any, is not obviously helpful. An example of the above issues, you already identified on your website in relation to the concept of 'play'. The above approach offers a way to resolve the problems you identified with that concept. Best wishes, Terry ____________________ Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI Senior Lecturer, Design Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask] Senior Lecturer, School of Design and Art, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia Director, Design-based Research Unit and Design Out Crime Research Centre Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK ____________________ -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Polaine Sent: Tuesday, 5 April 2011 2:21 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: The false dichotomy of theory vs practice in desgin [was:NASA,Hasmat, etc.] @Terry - If you're talking of a phenomenological account of our design processes, then I'm with you. I spent the last few years researching and writing on this in terms of understanding designing for and interacting with a range of interactive interfaces, artworks, etc. More here: http://www.polaine.com/2010/12/28/understanding-interactivity-through-play/ But I'm not sure it helps with regards to the point I was making. I'm not arguing that designers have to find out *where* their decision making happens on a cognitive psychological level. It could happen in their left big toe, entire body, mind or both. I'm arguing that the problem we have is in articulating our decision making process that moves us on from the "creative flash" black box. I'm saying the black box where the "magic" happens is a process that is explicit and externalised, but poorly articulated. I don't see business managers, policy makers, politicians, engineers (or even many scientists outside the fields concerned with these areas) discussing whether their thinking processes are in the mind, the body, the mind/body, etc. The external numbers and/or method are entirely what count, not the internal workings of consciousness. Designers have a method, but because it is poorly articulated we have problems speaking with, relating to and selling the value of synthesis to those aforementioned people (not to mention teaching it). Cheers, Andy - Hochschule Luzern Design & Kunst Sentimatt 1 | Dammstrasse, CH-6003 Luzern T +41 41 228 54 64, F +41 41 228 56 99 M +49 151 1964 2581 Skype: apolaine Twitter: apolaine http://www.hslu.ch/design-kunst/ Dr. Andy Polaine Forschungsdozent Service Design Research Fellow / Lecturer Service Design T direkt: +41 41 249 92 25 [log in to unmask] Co-author: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/service-design/