Dear Ranjan,

Your elaboration of the design practitioners viewpoint on method, in
your first 9th April post, was well put and makes eminent good sense.
The need to move between levels('parts' and 'wholes') is, I think, well
appreciated, but it is our understanding of 'wholes' which is in dynamic
change at the moment.  As we develop the skills and conceptualisations
to work effectively at ever 'higher' levels of complexity, so our
understanding of 'wholes' changes.  To put it not too finely, I feel as
though we are in an 'arms race' with ourselves, trying to generate
methodological contextualisations for the increasingly complex
frameworks that we are now able to create.

I refer also to your second 9th April post, which elaborates on the use
of scenarios in design education.  It brought to mind a former working
life in environmental and technology assessment and, I suppose, together
these underline the increasing diversity of methods and methodologies
becoming available to us.

While 'high level' methodologies such as those of Bela Banathy and
Kemmis & McTaggart nest these diverse methods into their broad
conceptual frameworks, it is unclear to me whether the epistemological
basis for doing this has been well considered.  Should we invite
epistemological pluralism, which is the sense I have from your first
post, or is epistemological alignment preferable?

I guess this approaches my own interests more closely, which are on the
usefulness of evolutionary systems thinking as a worldview for design.
I suspect that this worldview is fairly accommodating of methodological
diversity, but it is a matter which I have yet to work through.

Best wishes,
John Broadbent



Prof. M P Ranjan wrote:

>Some more reflections on emerging design methodologies - M P Ranjan
>
>In February 2004 Eunkyong Baek had asked the list for information on methods
>relating to naratives of meetings and design sessions in industry and I had
>responded to this off-list with a couple of personal examples that may be
>useful in the context of the current discussion on design methodologies. I
>am therfore quoting part of that message below for views and reactions from
>the list.
>
>quote:
>
>You ask for examples of narratives used by designers for presentations
>and design review meetings and it is an interesting question. The
>discussion thread has however covered much ground to include processes
>for observation and recording of all meetings (on design) and their
>analysis and extraction of appropriate findings which are also
>interesting from the point of design research.
>
>I would share with you a couple of personal examples that cover both the
>above questions.
>
>I use the term "scenarios" for the visual depiction of a complex image
>based representation (in many styles) that captures the essence and the
>flow of a design proposal which could be pretty abstract at an early
>stage of development and far  more detailed and explicit at a more
>advanced stage of evolution of that representation. These images are
>supported by texts that forms the narrative part of the discourse and I
>find it particularly effective and useful when dealing with design tasks
>at a strategic level.
>
>To cut a long story short I will quote one particular example. In 1998 I
>was invited by the UNDP in Delhi to conduct a survey and propose a
>course of action for the development of the Bamboo sector in India. This
>invitation was based on my previous published work on the bamboo crafts
>of the Northeastern region of India done in the 80's. My report to the
>UNDP submitted in February 1999 formed the basis of the three year
>National development project that has just been concluded. My report
>titled "From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a Sustainable Human
>Development Resource for India" uses six "scenarios" to outline the
>framework for a multi-tiered multi-sectoral project of integrated
>development. Each "scenario" captures the key concepts and directions
>needed in  a particular sector and these diagrams were used repeatedly
>to brief partners and officials and these are easy to grasp and accept
>for further action.
>
>I will be happy to send a pdf copy of the report if requested off the
>list. Two versions are available a 72 dpi version is 500kb and a 300dpi
>version is 1.4MB in size.
>
>I teach scenario thinking (which I used above) in two courses at NID, one
>at the Foundation Level course titled "Design Concepts and Concerns" and
>the other at the senior level titled "Systems Thinking & Design". Here I
>conduct the courses in camera and document all the assignments and
>presentations made by all the students using a digital still camera to
>record the work and the typical moods and interactions amongst groups of
>students working in teams to develop a deeper understanding of some
>complex subject that has been assigned to them for study and subsequent
>representation in visually rich presentations to the plenary session of
>all groups. This form of "contemporaneous documentation" provides us
>with a rich visual resource that can be revisited later to refresh ones
>understanding of the presentations as an aid to deep learning in an
>academic setting. I have been using this medium for four years for all
>my classes and as a result have a massive collection of digital images
>which I use in numerous ways to effect education and to conduct
>research. The idea of using such contemporaneous documentation was suggested
>by Prof. Bruce Archer of RCA during his visit to NID in early 80's but we
>could only fully implement the concept once the digital means was
>practically available. It is a very powerful medium and I am able to give my
>students one CD-ROM with reduced versions ( 800 x 600 pixel at 150 dpi) of
>all the images from each course, which is an aide memoir and a new pedagogic
>tool for design education since we are constantly dealing in visual
>discourses that tend to get lost due to shortage of storage space. I use an
>Apple Mac and very simple sharewares to catalogue and retrieve over 250,000
>images that are part of my archive today.
>
>I would be eager to see the progress of your research into the use of
>narratives and I do believe that this will be increasingly used by
>designers and "industry" who are using design at a strategic level.
>
>unquote
>
>I would be eager to know about other visually rich methodologies that are
>being used by list members and others in induatry for design or design
>research tasks which could put in context the opportunities represented by
>new digital tools that are now available in IT enabled design processs and
>in people related observation and research at an affordable cost.
>
>With warm regards
>
>M P Ranjan
>from my office at NID
>9 April 2004 at 10.10 pm IST
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>Prof. M P Ranjan
>Faculty of Design
>and
>Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
>and
>Faculty Member on the Governing Council
>National Institute of Design
>Paldi
>Ahmedabad 380007
>INDIA
>
>Email: <[log in to unmask]>
>Fax: 91+79+26605242
>Home: 91+79+26610054
>Work: 91+79+26639695 ext 1090
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Note my telephone numbers have changed as above. Number 2 is prefixed to the
>660, 661 and 663 for Ahmedabad city.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>


--
UTS CRICOS Provider Code:  00099F
DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain
confidential information.  If you are not the intended recipient, do not
read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments.  If
you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the
individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority,
states them to be the views the University of Technology Sydney. Before
opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects.