Dear all on the list. I have not forgotten about Wittgenstein, but felt I
would like to add something to the above thread.

I don't want to get into the details of McGovern versus Graphic designers,
except to say that I am not persuaded by either.

What I would like to do instead is cast the discussion in a different light.
I think there are some better, and as yet unarticulated (on this list) ways
of characterising the oppositions and antagonisms that erupt from time to
time on this subject.

One of the primary things that graphic designers, and indeed other
designers, learn to do is to ritually celebrate and make manifest their
clients status and standing within our society. That is often why designers
are hired--to make the client look good, important, worthy, prosperous,
friendly etc etcŠ

Many organisations have web sites for these very reason and no other! They
want to be seen, and they want to look beautiful. As an example from pre-web
days, it is not surprising that a new chief executive of an organisation is
often quickly followed by a new corporate ID. It's as simple, and as
important a ritual, as nailing ones colours to the mast. Ritual display is
an ongoing and legitimate activity in our society.

Of course, viewed with the eye of rational enlightenment, such rituals can
seem empty, even sham--like rain making cermonies to a meteorologist. But
that would be a serious mistake, and indeed it is the serious mistake made
by people such as McGovern, Neilsen, and even at times Agre. Within their
rational discourse there is no place for the magical properties of ritual,
for display, self agrandisement and power. But it is these things that make
a large part of our lives go round and it is these things that graphic
designers are so good at making mainfest.

It is all too easy from the discourse of rationality to see designers'
preoccupation with the appearance of things--the aesthetic--as 'mere
styling' without substance. But one can only take such a view by dismissing
or devaluing the central role of ritual in our lives. And indeed many of
those preoccupied with usability in a narrow sense do so. I often quote Ben
Schniderman, another usability 'guru' on this subject. (interesting how in
the promiotion of so called rationality people use the term 'guru')

>The social and political environment surrounding the implementation of a
complex information system is not amenable to study by controlled
experimentation...The experienced project leader knows that organisational
politics and the preferences of individuals may be more important than the
technical issues in governing the success of an interactive system.
(Schneiderman 1987 p 393)

Schneiderman is clearly aware of the issues. But he is also aware that these
issues are outside the range of the rational discourse that he uses.

When our usability 'gurus' rail against the seeming irrationality of their
clients, web designers, or graphic designers in general, they miss the point
by a long way. I also suspect that there is a kind of envy. A good designer
can make something look good, even if it doesn't work terribly well. But a
usability guru cannot make something look good whether it works or not. Why
should the design get the credit for 'mere styling'.

I think that one of the things that design research is about is studying and
articulating the ways in which the rational discourse of the enlightenment
can be integrated into the more enduring ritual discourse of life, without
destroying it. When I listen to or read graphic designers railing against
usability advocates, I sometimes feel that they too are missing the point.
What designers are protecting, and rightly so, is the magic and ritual of
life, the beautiful display, the celebration of success, sometimes an excess
of decoration for its own sake--or at least for the sake of display saying
"look at me and marvel"!. "I have done this beautiful thing because I can!"
However, the usability advocate is only a bit player in this grand theature.
In the end they can only offer advice, and some of it is good, but it takes
a designer to make that good advice mainfest through designing it into
something whether it's a web site or something else.

Those of you familiar with the history of ideas may find some resonance in
what I have just said with Vico and the tradition of thinking that was in
some areas, though not all, marginalised by the enlightenment. I don't think
we need to go back to Vico to recapture this sense of humanity. It has
always been there, even if the academic world tried to ignore it or devalue
it. I hope those amongst us who supervise post graduate students don't allow
the rationality of the hypothetico deductive method to overide some of our
other rational and human capacities.

So, to sum up. I wonder whether it might be more productive to see
McGovern's arguments as those of a person struggling to make rational sense
of web design by using a very limited intellectual tool kit. If he expanded
his intellectual focus, it might not all seem so irrational.
(ps I have written this very naughtily during time I should be doing other
things, so I cannot spend longer on it. I haven't checked it for typos,
silly sentences etc. Sorry.)
David