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Hi Jude, You wrote, <snip> 'There are a lot of valid definitions of the word design so we confuse ourselves by arguing about the word rather than the specific meaning.' Drawing attention to multiple apparently 'valid definitions of design' This suggests two root causes of the lack of agreement and, perhaps more importantly, suggests we have omitted a step we should have undertaken prior to creating any definitions of design. The first is a matter of inadequacy in conceptual terms. The claimed definitions may not be definitions. In fact most 'definitions' of the word 'design' are not definitions. A requirement of a definition is it defines a boundary that completely includes 'everything that must be included' and simultaneously completely excludes 'everything that must be excluded' (the 'necessary and sufficient' condition. Most definitions, like that of Simon are partial. There are other aspects of design activity that some might see as essential that are not included in Simon's definition. In other cases, there are other activities that are included that some would argue unhelpfully include overmuch. For example, 'rem sleep activities' would fit within Simon's definition of design. As in 'design is everything' the problem then becomes that of lack of precision and sensitivity: by including everything one defines nothing. Similarly, Simon's definition does not effectively distinguish between design and art. The second root cause is a cause of the first. Different realms of design and different perspectives on design regard design as including different activities and knowledge. Its obvious but perhaps needs restating that the view of design by Engineering designers is very different to that of designers from the Art and Design traditions. In parallel to those differences is the newer spectrum of different perspective on design from the expanding body f design practices that are not in either the Engineering nor Art and Design traditions. Examples include Educational Program design, Business Strategy design, Social Program design, Government Policy design, and Complex Systems design. These differences in perspective and differences in understanding about what design activity 'includes' and 'excludes' shape the creation of definitions of design. More importantly, however, they shape the testing of the validity of the definitions as definitions. A definition that is intrinsically valid as a definition in one realm, may be only partial or even completely incorrect when viewed from a different realm. For researchers and theorists, I suggest there is a step that needs undertaking first in this context. First it is necessary to test whether ANY design definition is possible. That saves a lot of time compared to blindly creating and testing multiple potential design definitions. The test is simple: map out the different aspects of incommensurability between and across the different realms of design. If, for example, there is not complete overlap of what is regarded as 'essential aspects of design' and what is 'not design' between the perspectives of Engineering Design and Art and Design, then creating a definition of design that is acceptable to both is simply *not possible*. This then requires a change of tack to address the situation in other ways. It blows apart the 'design thinking' endeavour. If design is not a unified field, it destroys any possibility of the idea that 'design thinking' applies more generally. This is on the basis that if design, and hence design thinking, is incommensurately different between different realms of design then there does not exist a single design thinking that applies more generally outside design. This issue is something I worked on in the 80s and early 90s. I came to the conclusion there is a solution. Many, however, do not like it. The differences about what should be included in design and what should be excluded relate almost exclusively to *activities*. The one issue for which there is general agreement across all realms of design is the output is a 'design'. This is not about the content of the design but the design qua design. That is the concept of a design as a recording of how to produce the object, service, strategy or whatever that has been designed. I humbly suggest, at this point, we are in a position where the incommensurability test indicates there are no possible definitions of design as an activity that fulfil 'necessary and sufficient' conditions of validity. There appear to be two ways forward create local parochial definitions of design specific to particular fields. Alternatively, and I suggest better, is defining design activity in terms of the production of a 'design'. This latter appears to offer a valid definition of design across all realms of design. The implication for design thinking of incommensurability between design fields is that the different views of 'what is design activity' means 'design thinking' differs between design fields. This leaves the promotion of design thinking with the requirement to specify in each situation the *type* of design thinking. For example, 'design thinking as done in graphic design', 'design thinking as done in human computer interface design', 'design thinking as done in mechanical engineering design' etc. Best wishes, Terry -- Dr Terence Love PhD (UWA), B.A. (Hons) Engin, PGCE. FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI Honorary Fellow Management School Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Director, Love Services Pty Ltd PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks Western Australia 6030 Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848 Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629 [log in to unmask] -- -----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 Gunnar Swanson Sent: Monday, 2 September 2013 9:47 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Design Thinking Unique to Design? On Sep 2, 2013, at 2:16 AM, "CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS)" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > And perhaps it has to do with this skillful doing, rather than primarily scientistic cognitivism (whether rationalist or empiricist): in that sense a theoria, (not theoretical thinking), but a kind of unconcealing doing - the gazing at the gods who gaze back at us (thea harao). It seems to me there a kind of abductive thinking, a kind of creativity. See note on thinking through making below. > I'm still trying to get a more complete sense of why amongst the professional Design community is this rejection of Simon's thinking and employment of the word design to cover the things he does. [snip] > Also the question whether design thinking is unique to design is important for another reason (not just for recognition of the specialist knowledge professional designers have), and is one we have to unpack further. My problem with this (and so many discussion here) is that there are a lot of valid definitions of the word design so we confuse ourselves by arguing about the word rather than the specific meaning. Maybe we need some sort of code to indicate which we're talking about: "SimonizedDesign," etc. > One of the exciting things, Simon says, is that design is something common in various arenas outside of say graphic or furniture design, and so relevant in ways that graphic designer may not envisage, and THEREFORE a case may be made for the university to TEACH DESIGN (specially design focally understood, not design willly nilly) AS part of the Core of the curriculum, say as part of one's liberal (arts) education in a university. This seems to me a very exciting idea: not merely design that makes one a graphic designer, but design that if focal or normatively abstracted, that is taught and reflected upon, and relevant for students generally. This helps broaden up the potential and relevance of design as a discipline. Certain design disciplines and art are two of the few places where thinking through making is still promoted. It's an important way of understanding that used to be widespread in our culture and is dying. The nature of our artifacts and the nature of our manufacturing and distribution conspire to separate us from the act of making, an act that promotes particular aspects of thinking. That sort of thinking is valuable to anyone. I don't know if bicycle repair and wilderness trail building would be as effective as design but I think that design (i.e., the sorts of design where you make lots of prototypes) for people who don't specifically want to be designers (i.e., professionals in the design field being taught) could be very helpful as part of an effort to rediscover what "liberal arts" means. Gunnar Gunnar Swanson East Carolina University graphic design program http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm [log in to unmask] Gunnar Swanson Design Office 1901 East 6th Street Greenville NC 27858 USA http://www.gunnarswanson.com [log in to unmask] +1 252 258-7006 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------