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Summary
I agree with many of the substantive needs that Rob and Klaus describe for
our field. I disagree with them on their feeling that this debate is
irrelevant to design practice. I will suggest here the importance of
research to practice and the vital significance of this debate to the field
of design.
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I agree with Rob Curedale's comment that quality of education is important.
I agree that education for practice is important. Moreover, I agree that
design is very much to the point.
I also agree with Klaus Krippendorff about the need for active
responsibility in design, and I agree that design involves proactive
efforts to change the future. (See endnote 1)
The issues we debate here don't contradict these points of agreement.
I'm going to offer a few ideas and support them with a bit of demographic
and statistical evidence to show that this is so. I'll also suggest how all
these concerns fit together.
Every growing field operates on many fronts. The field of design is no
exception. In addition to a concern for professional design practice, we
must be concerned with design education and design research. Design
research involves three ranges of concern, basic research, applied
research, and clinical research. Industry and education require all three
kinds of research.
Research requires researchers. Consequently, we must consider education for
all three kinds of research. Education in research training takes place in
programs for research master's degrees and the Ph.D. (See endnote 2).
These three kinds of research are all vitally important to design practice.
Design practice in today's information-intense, knowledge-based industrial
economy grow ever more complex. Consequently, design schools require a
teaching staff with expertise in fields other than design practice. We need
design teachers with more kinds of training than practical training and
broader experience than practice alone afford. We still have a need for
design practice teachers, for art and craft practice teachers and for
studio practice teachers. We also need other kinds of teachers and more of
them.
The staffing and curriculum development of today's design schools point to
the research doctorate and the professional doctorate both.
All of this explains the importance of doctoral education in design. It
also explains the value of the DRS debate on the practice-based Ph.D.
Let's put this in perspective. This debate has gone on for roughly two
months. On a listserv list that goes back for many years, two months of
concentrated, focused debate hardly suggests that we spend all our time
considering issues beyond the realm of practice. (See endnote 3). It
suggests that we are serious enough to give two months of time to an
important issue.
Let's set this against the larger background of our field.
In the 1960s and 1970s, I carried out several broad, long-term studies on
art and design education and on the art and design professions. I served as
an editorial advisor and consultant for the fine arts reference books of
Jacques Cattell Press (Jacques Cattell Press, 1973, 1974, 1976a, 1976b,
1978a, 1978b, 1980a, 1980b, 1982) and St. Martin's Press (Emanuel et al.
1983; Friedman 1983a, 1983b).
My work gave me the opportunity to study the art and design offerings of
most of the accredited college-level and university-level art schools in
the United States and Canada. During doctoral research in the sociology of
art, I also had the opportunity to visit nearly three hundred art
departments. Most of these departments had some form of design course and
many had full programs.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I reviewed the course catalogues of
nearly every college and university in the United States and Canada for a
large publishing project that transformed doctoral dissertations into
books. I also examined the offerings of doctoral programs. These studies
form the background to the comments that follow. (See endnote 2)
The vast majority of design faculty and design professionals lack serious
research training. This is not merely a problem for the design schools. It
is a problem for the profession.
The ability to conduct research - at least clinical research - and to
evaluate research by others is increasingly important in design practice.
Consider, for example, the failure rate on innovation new products. Despite
all our efforts to shape innovative, useful products, most efforts at
innovation and product development fail. Designers of some kind are
involved at some point in the development of every new product, whether or
not they hold the title "designer." the ability to pose serious questions
or the failure to ask them is often the difference between failure and
success. This is precisely where the role of designer as generalist and
future-oriented activist should be helpful. How helpful are designers in
this role? Consider the evidence of new products of all kinds.
A study by Mansfield, Rapaport, Schnee, Wagner, and Hamburger (1971: 57)
showed that only 57% of all product development attempts achieved their
technical goals, only 31% got to market, and only 12% yielded a return.
This is a one-in-eight success rate. Seven new products of every eight
fail.
The world has grown more difficult, more costly, and more competitive since
this study was conducted in 1971. Recent studies show no better success
rates (Power, Kerwyn, Grover, Alexander and Hof 1993; Maidique and Zirger
1984; Bailettyi and Litva 1995). The evidence of Web-based dotcom
businesses, software firms and other information technology firms suggests
that we have entered a period of greater competition and turmoil than ever
before. If we include these industries, we probably have an even more
troubling failure rate.
On the one hand, we have an accelerating economic cycle and a ponderous
failure rate. On the other, we have a lag rate between innovation and
adoption that runs from two years to fifty years, depending on the field or
the industry (Fuller 1981: 148).
The cost to society in failures of development is astonishing. The free
market provides vital mechanisms for choice and growth. The market also
wastes resources and leads to occasional competitive failures of good
products and services. The market is poorly suited to the creation and
distribution of many important social goods. Despite the well-known
failures of the free market, dirigiste or central-control economies are
worse and more wasteful than free markets in the allocation of resources.
Our lack of knowledge on how to bring innovative research into practice use
makes this worse.
In the caldron of opportunity and threat, a good sense of research and an
understanding of analytical, synthetic and even scientific thinking can
make an immense difference. Designers who understand research use a rich
combination of analysis and logic with intuition and artistry. These
designers create great advantage for their clients. If they are ethical,
these designers also contribute to a better world.
How does a sense for research contribute to better design practice in the
field? I'll offer one example among many, and I'll choose an example where
we normally don't consider research very important.
Consider the corporate identity program as an example of the relationship
between research and practice.
A corporate identity program represents a massive investment of time and
money. It involves huge costs in the planning and designing. It engages
additional massive costs in execution. These run from staff time in shaping
and implementing the change to production and inventory costs on stationery
and livery to production and capital investment costs for signage and
architecture. A corporate identity program that must be done over or
discarded represents a huge waste of resources.
It sometimes seems that the average corporate identity program will last
roughly three years before it must be changed. In developing corporate
identity programs, most design firms do some form of research. Between 1987
and 2000, I had the opportunity to study several dozen corporate identity
projects by successful design firms. These firms all sold their projects
with some form of what would be labeled a research component. This research
component was part of the offer of competence.
The offer of research was a mechanism designed to assure potential clients
that design work would be based on genuine needs. This research was
sometimes called research. Sometimes the research component was subsumed
under the rubric of strategy. It was sometimes given other names. The idea
was a robust solution to the problem that would then be executed in an
artistic way.
All of the firms I studied were successful as design firms. That is,
whether they succeed in their client work or not, they were themselves
successful and profitable. Some were the largest in their sector or market.
All were skilled at art. Most were weak on research. I began to feel that
the notions of research these companies put forward involved a mix of
artistry and intuition coupled to skilled sales efforts. Some of the
research involved sheer fakery, and some of the so-called research efforts
I witnessed were faked to the point of fraud. In other cases, the attempt
at research by designers who have no idea of research was sincere in its
intent but close to voodoo in its substantive character.
Two design firms I studied stood out in contrast with these other firms. I
will describe one of them, and explain the attributes that made it
outstanding.
This exemplary design firm includes in its staff an award winning designer
with has a solid background in research techniques and management studies.
(At one point, he taught statistics and research techniques at a
university.) His firm insists that clients spend 10% of their project
budget on analysis before commissioning the job. In some cases, his firm is
actually hired to do an analysis that is then handed over to other firms
for the final project. The corporate identity programs of this firm have
longevity far beyond the average.
One of the most interesting aspects of this designer's practice is the
relationship between research and intuition. A serious engagement with
research builds a repertoire of analytical skills allied to a strong sense
of genuine craft issues. Investing in research seems to shape better
intuition. Consequently, designers in this firm avoid wrong turns and
wasteful investments. They often save time and money for clients.
The most important aspect of the design programs from the company is that
they always solve the client's problem. The problem comes first. From a
range of possible problem solutions selected to meet client needs, the firm
develops what they feel is an optimal or sometimes a satisficing artistic
solution.
The solutions are often excellent in artistic terms. The firm's long list
of awards and honors shows that many design groups, professional
associations, critics, journalists, and other experts agree on this point.
Even so, the most important issue is the firm never produces a solution
that fails to meet client needs. Some cases might benefit from a different
artistic solution, but I have never seen this firm deliver a poor design
solution. This is very different than the many examples of splendid design
programs from firms whose first-rate artistic solutions fail because they
fail to meet client needs.
Research training for designers and the use of well trained researchers in
design firm shapes robust practice.
Not all design firms can afford this. Not all clients want to afford this,
even when they can. Many SMEs can't afford the extra time for thorough
research. Since the majority of the world's companies are SMEs, including
almost all entrepreneurial firms, this means that the majority of the
world's companies can't afford thorough design research.
This is exactly why solid research training during a design education makes
an important difference to the quality of work designers deliver when they
are obliged to work under time pressure and the economic constraints
imposed on them by clients.
This, too, makes clear the need for solid research training. It also
explains the vital importance of design school faculty with a solid
research background.
It would be silly to suggest that all design school professors need a Ph.D.
It is even sillier to suggest that design schools can afford to continue
with professors untrained in design research (See endnote 5). As silly as
it is, that is the situation today.
We have a crying need in design education for well-trained researchers. The
specific research area hardly matters. The subject field depends on the
needs of the school. The general ability to educe good thinking habits,
good research intuitions, a solid foundation of knowledge is central. This
will not replace professional practice and it will not replace artistry.
Hands-on practitioners and artisans dominate art and design schools today.
Where they are not the only staff, they remain the dominant majority. This
leads to a design education that is relentlessly pragmatic, often at the
final cost of good artisans who are poorly trained designers (Friedman
1997).
The challenge is the need to add to these schools a repertoire of knowledge
and skills that the current faculty members tend to lack. (That also
includes the people who write the solid foundation textbooks in most
fields. Rob has noted this gap in our field. I suggest that the absence of
basic textbooks at the foundation level is directly related to the
shortfall of qualified researchers. When we have produced enough properly
qualified research doctorates, we will begin to see the development of the
practice-oriented teaching material that these people produce in other
fields.)
While I agree with Rob on his central points, I'll disagree with him on the
nature and meaning of this debate.
This debate has not been divorced from what design is. Rather, it concerns
an important part of the design task. Design is concerned with the future.
This debate also concerns the future of the profession. Understanding some
of these issues from the past is part of shaping the future.
The debates on medical education in North America during the first decade
of the century have something to teach us about educating professionals. .
The debate on graduate research at MIT during the presidency of Karl Taylor
Compton in the 1930s has something to teach us. This involves far more than
the name of the degree or the uniform graduates wear.
The difficult work of establishing foundations in a field is always
painstaking and it takes time. It is not the kind of project that engages
those who want, more than anything else, to get to work in the clinic. It
is not as immediate or as exciting as the interactive give and take of
professional practice. It is vital to the future of our field.
The issues of this debate are important. I don't say every debate on DRS
should focus on this issue or take this form. There is a need for this
debate, in this form, at this time, and it is important. This is a research
debate, a debate about several issues in design research. These issues are
central to the concerns of both the Design Research Society and the design
professional at large.
-- Ken Friedman
Endnotes
(1)
I'll disagree with Klaus on one minor point. Natural science does more that
study the records of the past. Scientists as well as designers must offer
surprising hypotheses in an effort to create new knowledge. There have been
good arguments from scientists such as Feynman and Einstein on this point.
Such differing philosophers of science as Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend
support this view. Some scientists see a need to intervene in the future.
Others merely want to know things and let the knowledge be put to use by
others. Even biology and other historically contingent disciplines do more
than study past records.
(2)
Some research training also takes place in specialized industrial programs,
but this involves either expensive professional conferences or proprietary
courses that don't concern us. Some training also takes place in research
seminars and post-doctoral study, but these generally involve schools that
offer doctoral work.
(3)
I sometimes wonder whether the members of this list who advocate
practice-related research take their own call for practical relevance
seriously. Lengthy debates on theory, philosophy, science, or criticism
often elicit calls for greater attention to practice and to
practice-focused research.
Where are the contributions on these topics?
I have done a brief survey of list archives going back two years. In this
time, I have occasionally seen questions for help in research on
practice-related issues. I have nearly never seen the kinds debate posted
here that we have seen in theory, philosophy, or curriculum. I have only
rarely seen contributions on practice-related research.
Research requires researchers. Those of us who post here have developed our
research interests and our method of contribution.
During our debates and reflections, we see calls to make this list a place
for design research oriented around practical issues. I'd propose research
contributions rather than mere complaints to support these calls.
If you are active in design research that directly addresses or studies or
contributes to practice, share your work. If there are seriously, specific
debates to be undertaken on practice-related research, raise the issues. If
there is good literature to be read that examines practice-related research
or specific research methods, post summaries and give citations.
It may be argued by some that practical research tends to be tacit, and
that it therefore can't be discussed as we discuss philosophy and theory. I
don't believe that. From my experience in design research and other fields,
I can say that good practice-oriented research can usually be rendered
explicit, reported and shared. This takes work. Not everyone who enjoys the
hands-on activity of practice likes to do that kind of work.
This poses an issue to be considered.
Those of us who post here know what kind of research we want to do and we
are doing it. There's no point in complaining about our interest in theory
and philosophy. If there are to be other kinds of discourse here, those who
wish to see it flourish must contribute.
(4)
Until mid-century, it was uncommon to find art departments or design
departments in universities. In North America, the growth of programs in
the fine and applied arts in the body of established universities and
colleges paralleled the growth of colleges and universities from the early
1950s through the late 1960s. The explosion of colleges was fueled first by
the demand created under the education provisions of the GI Bill, and then
by the baby boom.
The massive growth of college and university level education paralleled a
series of public policy decisions on the right of all capable citizens to
higher education.
Growth in faculty members was equally significant, a fact that is
inevitably reflected in the demand for doctoral education, an issue to be
discussed below.
In the last year, I studied art and design faculty as a separate
population, there were roughly 15,000 college-level teachers of art and
design. Of these, only art historians and design historians in most
programs had third-level higher education and research training.
If we allow for population growth, let's say we have 18,000 college-level
teachers of art and design in North America working full-time. Let's be
conservative and merely double that for the rest of the world. That would
yield a global population of 36,000 college-level teachers of art and
design. To be accurate, we must add to this the vast population of
part-time teachers who in many programs outnumber full-time, tenured staff.
Here, too, I'll be conservative and allow one to one, for a total of 72,000
teachers of art and design on a comprehensive, world-wide basis, 36,000
working full time and an equal number part time.
Compare these figures with the total population of the DRS discussion list.
Our population is under 600.
This means that fewer than 1% of all college and university-level teachers
of art and design take part in the free dialogue open to all on DRS. If we
compare this with membership in research-related societies, journal
subscriptions and the rest, this figure may be high.
Consider, however, the membership of DRS. We number here a significant
group of people who do not teach art or design. We number here researchers
and teachers in engineering and engineering design, in software and
software design, in information science and information studies, in
architecture and urban planning and half a dozen other fields.
Considering this, the population of designers in industrial design, graphic
design, and other fields on this list is quite sorrowful.
Even more sorrowful is the fact that so few of our colleagues enroll their
own colleagues and students. In Milan, several people referred to this list
as an outstanding source of information and ideas. One professor from a
Nordic design school asked why he didn't know about the list and wanted to
know how to subscribe. During the break, I informed him that faculty
members at his college subscribe to DRS. I mentioned that we invited them
to inform their friends and fellows about DRS as recently as last fall. No
one informed him
(5)
Most art and design schools have an historian or two on staff. This is,
indeed, an area of design research. I refer here to the many other areas of
design research that we must consider today, including those forms of
research that directly address design practice, as well as basic research
and generalizable applied research.
References
Bailettyi, Antonio J. and Paul F. Litva. 1995. "Integrating Customer
Requirements into Product Designs." Journal of Product Innovation
Management: 12: 3.15.
Emanuel, Muriel, et al., eds. 1983. Contemporary Artists. London and New
York: St. James Press and St. Martin's Press.
Friedman, Kenneth S. 1983a. Art and design programs in North American
colleges and universities. Unpublished study. Questionnaires and notes
filed in the Ken Friedman Papers, Alternative Traditions in Contemporary
Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Friedman, Kenneth S. 1983b. "Mis-Education by Degrees." Art and Artists
(New York), vol. 12, no. 4 (March 1983): 6-7.
Friedman, Ken. 1997. "Design Science and Design Education." In The
Challenge of Complexity. Peter McGrory, ed. Helsinki: University of Art and
Design Helsinki UIAH. 54-72.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. 1981. Critical path. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1973. Who's Who in American Art. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1974. American art directory. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1976a. Who's Who in American Art. New York:
R.R. Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1976b. American art directory. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1978a. Who's Who in American Art. New York:
R.R. Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1978b. American art directory. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1980a. Who's Who in American Art. New York:
R.R. Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1980b. American art directory. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Jacques Cattell Press, eds. 1982. Who's Who in American Art. New York: R.R.
Bowker.
Maidique, Modesto A. and Billie Jo Zirger. 1984. "A Study of Success and
Failure in Product Innovation: The Case of the U.S. Electronics Industry."
IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management, 31 (November): 192-203.
Mansfield, Edwin, J. Rapaport, J. Schnee, S. Wagner and M. Hamburger 1971.
Research and Innovation in Modern Corporations. New York: Norton.
Power, Christopher, with Kathleen Kerwyn, Ronald Grover, Keith Alexander
and Robert D. Hof. 1993. "Flops." Business Week, 16 August, 76-82.
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
+47 22.98.51.07 Direct line
+47 22.98.51.11 Telefax
Home office:
+46 (46) 53.245 Telephone
+46 (46) 53.345 Telefax
email: [log in to unmask]
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