Dear All,
As I wrote in my note to Ben, tying shoelaces is a complex activity
that is far more difficult to describe than most people recognize.
I've experimented with asking people to do this, and I've found that
nearly no one can describe the process so well that another human
being can tie shoelaces by following only the words in the
description without a demonstration, pictures, or prior knowledge.
When I wrote to Ben that I'd bet he cannot articulately plan to tie
his shoelaces, I was not kidding.
In different workshops, I have offered to pay one hundred British
pounds to anyone who can write a successful description (plan,
design) that enables others to tie their shoelaces by carefully
following the words in the description and only by following the
words in the description. No one has managed to collect.
While I usually use the word design as a verb, I use it here as a
noun for a plan to show that designing a plan to tie shoelaces is a
challenging problem that is not at all trivial. We _tie_ shoelaces
every day, but nearly no one can _explicitly describe_ the action
without reference to gestures, demonstration, or images.
I hereby make this offer to the subscribers of PhD-Design.
--snip--
__Offer__
I will pay one hundred British pounds to anyone who can write a
successful description (plan, design) that enables others to tie
their shoelaces by carefully following the words in the description
and only by following the words in the description.
/Signed/
Ken Friedman
--snip--
At today's rate, 100 British pounds is 1,144-- Dkk, 1,214-- Nok., 153
Euro, 206-- USD, 278-- AUD, 23,600-- Yen, 6,633-- Taiwan Dollars,
187,150-- Korean Won or 8,300-- Rupees. The offer stands for any
subscriber to this list. No one has done it yet.
If anyone wishes to accept the challenge, I'll request two
independent designer professors and a designer who work with problems
like this to review the description. The individuals I will invite to
judge entries, if they are willing, are Prof. Chris Rust of
Sheffield-Hallam University, Chairman of the Design Research Society,
and Prof. Lin-Lin Chen of the National Taiwin University of Science
and Technology, editor of The International Journal of Design. The
designer I will invite is Dr. Per Mollerup of Mollerup Designlab in
Copenhagen. Designlab works extensively to improve assembly
instructions for products. If any of the three declines the
invitation, I will accept his or her suggestion for a substitute.
The first step will be to review the descriptions for plausibility. A
majority vote of the three reviewers will determine plausibility. If
any descriptions seem plausible, I will ask the reviewers to propose
an empirical test at one or two design schools or research centers.
If the description enables a person to tie shoelaces by following the
words explicitly and by doing nothing else, I will pay 100 pounds to
the designer or design team that writes the first successful
description.
In my view, meeting this challenge is sufficiently difficult that I
don't risk paying -- and sufficiently challenging that an individual
or group that manages to meet the challenge will get a rich learning
experience and a good journal article out of the process.
This offer remains open until July 1, 2008 with testing of any
entries to be completed by August 31, 2008. I will present the award
to the winning claimant at the Design Research Society Conference in
Sheffield in 2008, and I will celebrate the award by taking the
winner and the winner's partner or friend to dinner.
Let the contest begin ...
--
Prof. Ken Friedman
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo
Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen
+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
email: [log in to unmask]
"Everything has been done a million times.
Sometimes you use it and it's yours;
another time you do it and it's still theirs."
-- Elizabeth Murray
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