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Subject:

Design terminology -- Explicit terms and metaphors -- Response to Birgit Jevnaker

From:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 13:29:34 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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Dear Birgit,

Thanks for your latest reflection. You have brought up an issue that
may lie beneath at least some of the questions and terminological
problems in the debate. This is the question of whether some of us
feel that we are using the term design as a metaphor or an analogy.
It may also be a matter of whether some of us read others as doing so.

Since this question involves an answer concerning personal intention,
I can answer only for myself.

This question raises so many subtle issues that I will attempt to
answer carefully and systematically.

1 What I mean

In this particular inquiry, I am not using the term "design" as
metaphor or analogy. Metaphor, analogy, and forms of sensitizing
concepts are useful ways to approach many issues in the initial
stages. An inquiry on definitions, terminology, and on the
epistemology and ontology of a field requires crisp delineation of
core terms. I have been using careful, explicit conceptual structures
and definitions for this reason.

Even though none of us is asking others to agree with our specific
usage, the careful use of clearly delineated terms allows us to ask
that others understand what we mean in some reasonable way.

2 What some others mean

It is reasonable to believe that Buckminster Fuller and Herbert Simon
intended their definitions in explicit terms. They rendered their
definitions explicit. They repeated and restated these explicit
definitions in publications that spanned half a century. They used
these definitions consistently throughout their writings.

I hope that those who subscribe here will accept your invitation to
articulate their intentions in developing this theme. I would be
curious to know whether people feel they are writing metaphorically
or explicitly.

Chuck Burnette raised an important intellectual distinction in noting
that "analogy, metaphor, etc are tools for relational thinking" in
many contexts. The distinction is that we may think analogically and
metaphorically as we move toward definitions and distinctions without
intending our definitions and distinctions as metaphor or analogy.

3 What dictionaries mean

In offering dictionary definitions as one usage benchmark for the
term design, it was my specific intent to put forward an explicit
definition of the design process. This definition offers meanings of
the verb design used in the English language for five centuries.

The editors and lexicographers at Merriam-Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary clearly intended the
published definitions in an explicit and not in a metaphorical way.
Their goal is to record and capture the primary usages of a term, to
reflect those usages in an accurate definition, and to provide
accurate definitions as a guide to understanding.

While dictionaries have normative uses, these normative uses rest on
the descriptive value of the entries.

4 Three definitions

A restatement of these three definitions may be helpful at this point.

4.1 Simon's definition

Herbert Simon (1982: 129, 1998: 112) defined design as the process by
which we "[devise] courses of action aimed at changing existing
situations into preferred ones." Design involves creating something
new or reshaping something that exists for a purpose. Planning to
meet needs or solve problems are also courses of action toward a
preferred situation. This definition covers most forms of design
process as a high-level general definition.

4.2 Fuller's definition

Buckminster Fuller (1981: 229-231) describes design as the difference
between class-one evolution and class-two evolution. Class-two
evolution involves "all those events that seem to be resultant upon
human initiative-taking or political reforms that adjust to the
change wrought by the progressive introduction of
environment-altering artifacts" (Fuller 1981: 229). In this sense,
design artifacts include designed processes as well as designed
products. Many forms of activity fit this definition.

Fuller (1969: 319) describes the design process as an event flow
comprised of many activities. Within this event flow, Fuller includes:

He divides the process into two steps. The first is a subjective
process of search and research. The second is a generalizable process
that moves from prototype to practice.

The subjective process of search and research, Fuller outlines a
series of steps:

teleology -- > intuition -- > conception -- >
apprehension -- > comprehension -- >
experiment -- > feedback -- >

Under generalization and objective development leading to practice, he lists:

prototyping #1 -- > prototyping #2 -- > prototyping #3 -- >
production design -- > production modification -- > tooling -- >
production -- > distribution -- >
installation -- > maintenance -- > service -- >
reinstallation -- > replacement -- >
removal -- > scrapping -- > recirculation

For Fuller, the design process is a comprehensive sequence leading
from teleology - the goal or purpose toward which the process aims -
to practice and finally to regeneration. This last step,
regeneration, creates a new stock of material on which the designer
may again act. The specific terms may change for process design or
services design. The essential concept remains the same. Fuller also
used the term design science, though he used it in a different
context than Simon did.

It is important to note that some steps within the comprehensive
event flow are not necessarily a design process. They are process
steps that must be designed within a larger flow. These same process
steps are also used in others kinds of process that may not be design
processes.

4.3 Merriam-Webster definition

Merriam-Webster's (1993: 343) defines design as: "1 a : to conceive
and plan out in the mind <he ~ed a perfect crime> b : to have as a
purpose : intend <he ~ed to excel in his studies> c : to devise for a
specific function or end <a book ~ed primarily as a college textbook>
2 archaic : to indicate with a distinctive mark, sign or name 3 a :
to make a drawing, pattern or sketch of b : to draw the plans for c :
to create, fashion, execute or construct according to plan : devise,
contriveŠ"

These definitions are broad. They cover all instances of design
process, and any instantiation of design process will fit within them.

Narrower and more specific definitions cover specific instantiations
of design process. All fit within the large definitions, but few
narrower definitions match each other to constitute a comprehensive
picture of the field. Rather, all narrower definitions together
comprise a range of stated definitions from which the larger
definitions can be developed through inductive reasoning.

5 Explicit versus metaphorical usages

With this as background, I will give my position on the questions in your note.

You started with a question on "conceptualizing design in its more
general meaning: do you also include design used mainly as analogy or
metaphor in this broad conceptualizing?"

In my usage, the largest definitions of the term design intentionally
cover all forms of design activity and all instantiations that enact
or situate design process. I accept as design any act or process that
fits the three definitions stated by Simon, Fuller, or
Merriam-Webster's.

This is not a metaphor or an analogy, but rather a high-level process
description explicitly articulated by a distinguished designer,
scientist, and economist, by a distinguished working designer and
engineer, and by an expert group of lexicographers.

If an instantiation fits these descriptions, I accept it as a design process.

Inevitably, any instantiation may seem quite narrow compared to the
broad definition. This does not mean that it is metaphorical to label
the act a design process.

Consider the instance you give in asking four linked questions, "am I
[1] really a designer when I [2] 'design' a new educational course? I
feel I then rather use the word as an analogy and [3] this kind of
'design' do not seem to belong to the same group of phenomena that we
think of when researching design as a fundamental capacity including
the [4] expertise of designers."

There are four issues to be drawn out from this.

[1] The first involves designation.
[2] The second involves the design process.
[3] The third involves research into fundamental design process.
[4] The fourth involves the professional expertise of designers.

Because it will place the other three answers in context, I will
address the second issue first.

[2] The design process.

Whether or not you consider yourself a "designer" when you design an
educational course, you are engaged in a specific design practice.
Designing a course is a design process. The process fulfills the
requirement of all three definitions stated earlier.

In this, I do not speak metaphorically.

The particular case of course design at the Norwegian School of
Management meets Fuller's definition AND fits within his design event
flow. At the Norwegian School of Management, we offer courses on a
distributed basis across programs on several campuses and through our
regional college system. These courses fit Fuller's definition and
they can be mapped onto the design event flow cycle that includes
prototyping, production design, production modification, tooling,
production, distribution, installation, maintenance, and service.
Because courses must be restructured from time to time for different
purposes, we also engage in different forms of reinstallation,
replacement, removal, scrapping, and recirculation. While these
activities are applied products in a different way than we apply them
to course, but we perform these activities with our services and
software on a regular basis.

Design is a process that is used for many purposes. Human beings
design courses, organizations, systems, processes, and other such
entities - including social artifacts and information artifacts of
all kinds. When we design these entities, we use the word design.

Describing these activities as a design process is not an analogy to
what industrial designers or graphic designers do. It is an
articulate description of a process by which we: "[devise] courses of
action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones"
(Simon 1982: 129, 1998: 112).

To do this, we engage in design process as a form of class-two
evolution involving some of the many "events that seem to be
resultant upon human initiative-taking or political reforms that
adjust to the change wrought by the progressive introduction of
environment-altering artifacts" (Fuller 1981: 229).

In all forms of design - including course design - we "conceive and
plan out in the mind . . . have as a purpose . . . intend . . . [and
we] . . . devise for a specific function or end" (Merriam-Webster's
1993: 343)

This leads to the first question, whether or not someone who
practices these skills should properly be labeled as a designer.

[1] Designation as a designer

Are you "really a designer when [you] 'design' a new educational course?"

Yes and no.

For some of us, course design is a central professional activity. We
consider ourselves course designers. We may not consider ourselves
course or curriculum designers as our PRIMARY professional identity,
but it is an important professional identity nevertheless.

Some of us made it a point during our graduate education to learn
something about education, pedagogy, educational psychology,
curriculum development, and courser design. I am one of these. At the
master's level, and then again during my doctoral work, I studied
these issues. I have worked with them since, both at BI and as a
consultant to other schools and universities.

I consider course design a professional activity, and I know enough
about it to help others address these issues in their work as
professors or administrators. I am "a designer" when I design
courses, but I would not label myself a designer because of this.
Course design is one of the responsibilities of a senior faculty
position at a university or a university-level professional school.

In contrast, there does exist a group of professionals who ARE
"course designers." Course design, curriculum design, and giving
support services to course design and curriculum design is a major
activity for a group of specialists who work in these fields serving
professors and administrators in their work. These professionals are
designers. Some are labeled as such, designated as "course designer"
or "curriculum designer."

The activities these experts perform in the process of course design
- and the activities you and I perform in course design - all fit the
three definitions. The issue is not the process, but the distinction
between design processes of different kinds performed by people who
may not be designated as designers. This includes professional design
processes performed by professionals who are not called designers
even though they perform professional design processes as part of
their work.

For me, these activities involve more than " 'improving' something"
general way. These activities "relate in substantial ways to possible
fundamentals of design" and they instantiate fundamental design
processes.

This leads to the third issue, research into fundamental design process.

[3] Research into fundamental design process.

In discussing course design, you wrote, "[3] this kind of 'design' do
not seem to belong to the same group of phenomena that we think of
when researching design as a fundamental capacity including the [4]
expertise of designers."

I would like to suggest that course design is ONE instantiation of
fundamental design processes. So are the design processes carried out
by expert designers of different kinds.

The issue that obscures this distinction is an epistemological
structure in which the DESIGN PROCESS is being conflated to a
specific range of PROFESSIONAL DESIGN ACTIVIITES.

For reasons that several of us have pointed out, Chuck Burnett most
recently, conflating a general description of design process with
specific instances of professional design activity creates conceptual
difficulties.

Chuck elegantly stated the importance of a clear general
understanding. General understanding at the comprehensive domain
level across the full domain and its fields, and subfields enables us
to understand and work with issues in all areas within the domain.

His articulate note nicely summarizes the value of clear conceptual
structures in this effort.

Chuck wrote, "The problem is that theories of purposeful thinking
(design) need to be integrated across all levels and domains of
application. We need high level theories that address purposeful
thinking across disciplines (which Erik and Harold argue for), but
ones that that are operationally defined in ways that can be
instantiated in concrete situations and domains of interest (which
Lubomir argues for). Both higher-level theories and professional
conduct need a common framework of reference, interaction, and
assessment. Working to address this, I have argued (not unlike Erik
and Harold) that design thinking is a universal discipline, the
instantiation of which depends on its particular intent, context, and
background. Children design as effectively within their frame of
reference as do professional designers (architects, authors,
musicians, poets, scientists, etc.) in theirs. The "common ground"
sought for design theory, research, and practice will never be
encompassing enough if it is focused primarily on professional
competence in the field in which we practice. Nor will it have
practical value if it cannot support situated thought and behavior in
any field or on any subject. As designers, design educators and
researchers we need to reframe our goals to seek a comprehensive
integrated theoretical framework that is operationally
(computationally and behaviorally) defined as well as emotionally
meaningful and personally useful. Computational and behavioral
because the interactive complexity warrants it, personally useful and
meaningful because we are individually (and collectively) human."

If you are discussing "design as a fundamental capacity," it is vital
to ensure that this focuses on FUNDAMENTAL process and capacity.

Researching "design as a fundamental capacity INCLUDING the expertise
of designers" is a far broader and more general form of inquiry than
researching design as a fundamental capacity LIMITED TO the expertise
of individuals designated as designers.

Since these distinctions were the subject of a detailed discussion on
Sunday (Friedman 2003), I will not repeat them here. I will add to
that discussion the suggestion that setting up a visual
representation of the argument in the form of Euler diagrams will
help to clarify these issues.

This leads to the fourth, and final, issue, the professional
expertise of designers.

[4] The professional expertise of designers.

Let me return to you original question: "am I really a designer when
I 'design' a new educational course? I feel I then rather use the
word as an analogy and this kind of 'design' do not seem to belong to
the same group of phenomena that we think of when researching design
as a fundamental capacity including the expertise of designers."

When we speak of the "expertise of designers," it is necessary to
designate KINDS of designers before asking whether a process
"belong[s] to the same group of phenomena that we think of when
researching design as a fundamental capacity including the expertise
of designers."

Does course design belong to the group of phenomena including product
design, graphic design, or textile design? No.

Does course design belong to the group of phenomena including service
design, curriculum design, or editorial design? Yes.

Does course design belong to the group of phenomena including
information design, systems design, or organizational design?
Partially. Some aspects of each overlap important aspects of course
design.

Your closing sentence offers a good distinction.

You suggest "seek[ing] appropriate substantial distinctions also for
the use of the 'professional designer' term thus sorting out when the
term 'professional designer' is used more as an analogy or used
metaphoric."

One of the issues involved in these distinctions has to do with the
emotional attachment that some people feel for the words design and
designer. Some of these emotional attachments are cultural, rather
than intellectual.

Consider the distinctions between the English and Norwegian
backgrounds to the word design.

The word design entered the English language in 1548. Its primary
meaning is "to conceive and plan out in the mind; to have as a
specific purpose; to devise for a specific function or end." All
other English-language meanings are subsidiary to this first and
primary meaning, and any more specialized or delimited meanings have
come into use in the centuries since. This particularly applies to
meanings that conflate the term design to physical process executed
by artisan designers or commercial artists, as well as those craft
guild specialties that have now been transferred from the domain of
craft guilds to the domain of design.

The word design entered the Norwegian language only in the past few
decades. The word is so young that it is not listed as a Norwegian
word in Einar Haugen's (1984, 1986) Norwegian-English dictionary,
considered by scholars and translators to be the definitive
dictionary of its kind.

Where the word is found in Haugen (1984: 138) is in the translation
of the Norwegian word "formgivning (formgjeving)" into English. The
word formgivning means "fashioning, molding: industrial design." A
"formgiver (formgjevar)" is a "designer" or - more specifically - an
"(industrial) designer."

The relation between similar terms is found in all of the
Scandinavian languages.

What seems to have happened in Norway is that the term designer
entered the language as a loan word for English. This shift has
probably taken place for several reasons. The first, and most
important, is that Norwegians tend to speak fluent English. Young
Norwegians travel abroad for work and education, and when they study
design, they study at schools of art and design or in university
design departments. The same fact influences designers and design
teachers who work or do exchange programs abroad.

At some point, design also became a preferred or higher-status term
than formgiver, a term that to many has connotations of haandverk and
haandverkere. Even though designers prize the haandverk and craft
traditions of their profession, they aspire to the status of
architects and engineers. The shift in vocabulary may have something
to do with this. This desired shift in status has been mirror by more
than language. It was mirrored by the physical shift of the Institute
for Industrial Design (IFID) from the old Statens Kunst- og
haandverksskole to the Arkitekthoeyskolen i Oslo. (For those whop do
not speak Skandinavisk, the old school translated its name as The
National College of Art and Design, but the literal translation meant
The National Art and Craft School.)

These are details. The central issue is that to many Norwegians, the
term "design" is closely connected in tone and feeling to the old
term "formgivning," while the profession of "designer" resembles that
of the old term "formgiver." These terms are anchored in physical
work on physical artifacts.

Thus, a Norwegian professor might not consider herself a "formgiver"
when she engages in course design or curriculum design, though she
might do so in a metaphorical sense.

A native English-speaking professor OUTSIDE the physical design
fields recognizes course design as a design process in exactly the
explicit original meaning of the term design in the English language.
SOME native English-speaking design professors also use the English
language in its general sense rather than conflating the general verb
design to the specific professional meanings of industrial design,
graphic design, or other specific design professions. When they speak
of design process, they use the term design. When they speak of
specific professional design activities, they use such terms as
industrial design or graphic design.

This issue is conflicted in design circles for the same emotional
reasons that make it difficult in Norwegian. Many professional
designers in such fields as industrial design, graphic design, or
furniture design often seem to speak as though only those who study
in design schools and hold a designated title as designer practice
design. While they recognize that engineers, mangers, or informatics
specialists are professionals, some designers in the artisan crafts
traditions refuse to accept these other kinds of design professionals
as designers. That is, they insist that the specific artisan craft
skills of an industrial designer professional or a graphic design
professional are the general process skills that designate the
general design process.

This confusion involves a tradition of confused epistemology in which
descriptions of fields and subfields of professional practice are
conflated to descriptions of the comprehensive design domain.

This is where those who are trained in the social sciences or
philosophy as well as in design can perform a valuable service to the
field by helping to clarify these issues.

6 Concluding notes

The importance of the current thread involves drawing out the
distinctions between the specific processes and activities of
professional fields and subfields and the general processes and
activities of the design domain.

This is probably a longer answer than you expected, but I wanted to
draw out clear and explicit issues in a careful way. Without asking
that anyone else agree with me, I hope that my meaning if the term
design as I use it is clear.

When I use the term design to designate any design process, I use it
to designate any one of many possible design processes that fit the
three descriptions found in Fuller, Simon, and Merriam-Webster.

This is a high-level definition. It is reasonably abstract, in that
it covers all possible instantiations of design process known to me.
It is concrete, in that any instantiation of the design process can
be shown to fit.

When I intend to designate the process, activities, or qualia of
specific fields or subfields of the design domain, or the activities
of those who practice them, I generally designate these with
adjectives.

Some processes practiced within fields, subfields, and professions
are common or commonly understood across the general design domain.
Thus, I may not always distinguish a general design process as
bounded simply because it occurs within a specific field or subfield.

I do not use the term design as a metaphor or analogy, but to
describe a specific process. This specific process incorporates a
wide range of possible activities. Many of these activities are found
at the level of field and subfield. When design activities are found
at a lower level than the general domain level, they may or may not
also be seen operating on the general level.

We may speak of some of subfield activities metaphorically or
analogically, linking them to general design activities, or using
such terms to indicate other design activities by metaphor. We may
speak this way, for example, when we speak of "weaving" the elements
of a curriculum together, or "sewing up" a course plan. This is
metaphor.

In contrast, when we speak of designing a course, we use the term in
its explicit, substantive sense.

Best regards,

Ken



References

Friedman, Ken. 2003. "Subject: Definitions and terminology --
response to Birgit Jevnaker." PhD-Design Discussion List. Date: Sun,
13 Jul 2003 14:52:45 -0700.

Fuller, Buckminster. 1969. Utopia or Oblivion. The Prospects for
Humanity. New York: Bantam Books.

Fuller, Buckminster. 1981. Critical Path. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Haugen, Einar. 1984. Norsk-Engelsk Ordbok. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Haugen, Einar. 1986. Norwegian-English Dictionary. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.

Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1993. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
Tenth edition. Springfield, Massachusetts.

Simon, Herbert. 1982. The Sciences of the Artificial. 2nd ed.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Simon, Herbert. 1998. The Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd ed.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

--

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University

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