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PHD-DESIGN  2002

PHD-DESIGN 2002

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Subject:

Re: design methodologies vs. research methodologies

From:

Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 29 Mar 2002 13:08:48 -0800

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Terry,

>Perhaps the biggest difference
>in perspective between us is that my focus in these posts is on creating
>the foundations for a coherent body of knowledge about designing, designs
>and human interaction with designed outcomes - a prerequisite for offering
>PhD programs.

Thanks for the clarification.

I guess I'm still a couple of pages behind you. I think that others
may be as confused as I am since there seems to be considerable
variation in the way people on this list talk about design, design
research, and design PhD degrees. Many of the noteworthy
accomplishments proudly stated by design PhD programs strike me as
the domain-specific knowledge you're excluding. I don't know if it
was collegiality that kept people from saying "Wait; that's not
-design- research; that's domain-specific materials engineering."

Maybe the issues of design research topics and design knowledge for
the sake of defining a field need not coincide precisely.

I don't disagree with Ken's definition of design as a process
(although I'd quibble about the use of the singular form) nor do I
disagree with his claim that design is about strategy toward a
desired outcome if we define both "strategy" and "desired outcome"
broadly. (Ken--I hope I haven't done too much harm to your claims in
my summarizing. An i will try to get to your question about my
definition later in this post.)

I do think that imposing one manner of thinking as the arbiter of a
field (or is that fields?) that has other ways of thinking and other
processes as strong points is, to say the least, somewhat problematic.


It is the pragmatist strategizer of desired outcomes in me that gets
confused here. I haven't quite understood why the various proponents
of design PhD programs want such programs. I suspect that there is a
range of motivations. I'd feel better if the desired outcomes and
strategies were more clear to me.

Ken and others have made a broad call for the increase in knowledge
about design. A great ideal but my notion of desired outcome is
somewhat more mundane. Let's examine some strategies and their
plausible pitfalls:

One strategy for increasing knowledge about design is to support
design centers where designers and people from various fields would
cooperate on various studies regarding design. That could include
anthropologists, business analysts, materials engineers,
semioticians, voodoo priests, or whoever is suitable for the
particular centers.

What are the problems with this approach? Assuming that many such
centers would be university-based, if design is remain central then
some significant problems could arise with the politics of who has
what degree. I suspect the politics of who has what money might be
more significant. I'm sure others could see other pitfalls.

I'm not going to speculate right now about the social outcomes of the
center approach. Both my time and the indulgence of those still
reading are beginning to be strained.

I suspect that we could come up with other designs for the increase
of design knowledge. The one assumed one this list is a PhD degree in
design. (This, of course, could be distinct from PhD degrees in the
individual design fields but need not be.)

So what are the plausible pitfalls? Another way of stating the
question is to affirm that, if successful, design PhD degrees will
transform both design and design education. The question is what sort
of transformations are likely to be caused and are they our desired
outcomes?

The particulars of the PhD programs will, of course, significantly
affect what sort of impact they have. If such programs are
large-scale and do not somehow develop large-scale non-university
research opportunities, I have little doubt that design PhD holders
will put themselves forth to universities as the people with the most
expertise in design, thus the people who should teach and control
design education.

Ken assures us that design PhD holders will first be significant
practitioners and that practitioners will be favored to teach classes
in practice but both arguments are implausible. Jacques tells us that
faculty with MFA degrees may not be sufficient in a research
university but he says that practice classes would be taught by
practitioners. That implies to me that the regular faculty would be
interested in research and that those teaching practice would be
marginal. I think the implications of that are obvious. I don't think
that design programs are likely to stop telling prospective students
and their parents that the outcome of their hard work and large
expenditures will be a job in design practice.

>I strongly suggest that it is unhelpful in building a body of theory about
>designing and designs to classify most of the knowledge, information and
>data used by designers as 'design knowledge'.

I strongly suggest that speaking of design in the singular is, at
best, troubled by problems and contradictions. Choosing which
practices are central and what features or actions are centralized is
primarily a political rather than a factual problem. Pretending that
objective knowledge of an objectively distinct phenomenon is the
point strikes me as contrary to the pragmatic, realistic, strategist
"design thinking."


Ken's request that I provide a better definition of design than his
is reasonable but I cannot provide one. As I said, I'm not certain
that "design" in the singular is a useful term unless we acknowledge
that we are talking about one particular sort of design and are
careful to not pretend universality.

The strength of many design fields of practice is the range of
approaches they comprise. This doesn't argue against promoting useful
approaches nor does it argue against warning against the pitfalls of
less useful directions. It does seem to argue against a generally
accepted, clear, concise theory of design if we use the term "design"
broadly.

I agree with Jean that "craft" is common and very important path to
knowledge in many design fields. I would not argue that craft
replaces other forms of knowledge growth nor would I embrace Ken's
dismissal of the possibility that it could have similar value. I
think that many of the distinctions argued are as political as they
are factual.

I think I agree with Jacques when he writes
>Designers and design educators have for too long focused solely on
>design knowledge at the exclusion of designing knowledge, that is,
>design as a verb and not as a noun. As long as designers do not see
>beyond the limits imposed by the materiality of the artifact they
>will not comprehend fully their total contribution to design. They
>must also include the act of designing, an area that encompasses
>methods, principles and other doing activities that are implicit to
>design.
although I would be more comfortable with the statement if "solely"
in the first sentence were italicized.

I am active in an organization dealing with "experience design" and
have long designed and taught design in a manner that integrates many
points of view. In one sense the designed object is beside the point.
It is the effect of the object that is most important, not the thing
itself. But like so much in design, there's a little Zen joke: The
fullest experience of the object is dependent on the people designing
it taking the object itself seriously.


Ken,
An aside re: "design science"--I recently attended a conference where
Alan Kay was the keynote speaker. In the discussion he was asked
whether computer science was really science and he suggested that, if
the model for science is biology and physics, science is about
studying a system that exists rather than trying to create a system.
He suggested that a "real science" computer science would specialize
in studying a computer system that had already been developed,
probing what makes it tick, treating it almost as a natural entity.
Then another system could be built and studied.

I'm not sure I buy his definition of science and am confident that
you won't. I do wonder how much your ideal of design research fits
his notion, however.

Gunnar
--
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
536 South Catalina Street
Ventura CA 93001-3625
USA

+1 805 667 2200
[log in to unmask]

http://www.gunnarswanson.com

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