 |
 |
Ken, You wrote: "Deduction allows you to rule out any proposed product or service that seems to violate physical, chemical, biological, or technical facts — or facts of other kinds. Deduction also allows you to rule out any proposed product or service that seems to violate well established principles of human behaviour. Where anyone suggests that the facts or principles are mistaken, deductive inference should at least require rigorous testing.” When you use words like "seems to” you are, it seems to me, in the inductive mode. Even if you accept a loose definition of deduction, as you seem to, a formal artifact is needed for a deduction based on it to be tested. The three answers you gave were all premised on such a "formal expression”. Designers restructure their thought extensively before they submit it to tests of relevance, validity, and effect. We should be talking about the nature of such tests which are usually drawn from the social sciences rather than the physical sciences (unless you are an engineering designer of course). Jerry Diethelm implied and I agree that we should be looking at such things as how metaphors are understood and applied during design if we are to gain precision in how we validate designs. Ideally everyone on a design team should test from their point of view in real time as designing occurs. Whenever a designer uses Catia software to develop a form, that software should embody the physics of the materials involved (as for example when plastic is seen to flow toward a joining line in a 3D model while the designer adapts the form to place the line where they want it.) Similarly, when designers are configuring a user interface, its simulation should model user behavior in the context in which it will be used. Framing the problem so that a design can be evaluated and tested as it develops should be of more interest and concern to us than pursuing logical principles that are very likely to miss the nature or complexity of the problem being addressed. By framing thought in terms of kinds of information and ways to process it A Theory of Design Thinking assures that at least seven different points of view are taken about every subject of interest or concern. By doing so it posits tests through formative expressions for recurring kinds of information in all modes. This seems more useful as a strategy for developing both the art and science of design than arguing for formal logics out of context with how we think while designing. Or, so I believe. Chuck > On Mar 15, 2016, at 5:38 PM, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Deductive inference allows you to rule out what will not work, or it suggests that you subject the idea to rigorous testing. Deduction requires a stock of useful background knowledge and information — physical, chemical, biological, or technical facts, facts of other kinds, or a stock of knowledge and information in the social and behavioural sciences. Without this, deduction is difficult. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------