Ken,

I agree with you completely about evidenced based medicine. I also would, I suspect, agree with you on an enormous amount of design (including a large amount of graphic design) that just plain doesn't work.

I do believe that there are cases where client needs trump all other issues but think that it is rare that it needs to be the case that "the artistic 5% competes with or makes the rest less usable." The job of designer is to incorporate answers to a variety of needs. If either the 95 or the 5 fails, then the design and the designer has failed.

My main question has been with your assertion that "Much research goes unused because practicing professionals simply don't want to use it." In the case of graphic design, I stated that I was more aware of research issues than most graphic designers but would be hard pressed to offer "specific examples of important semi-recent research" in my field.

It is no more surprising that Karel offered important research in information design than that I used graphic design as an example. (I suspect that everyone in this conversation has long since figured out that I am a graphic designer by trade and that Karel is an information designer.) I was familiar with most of what Karel listed (in one case through Karel's past sharing of the information on another listserv.) But little of his list corresponds with what most graphic designers do.

I would argue that the sort of design that Karel does (particularly in the realm of prescription pharmaceuticals) falls closer to medicine (evidenced based or otherwise) than to most of what most graphic designers do and should be considered in much the same way that we look at the rest of the medical field.

But "bridging a difference between research culture and professional guild culture" implies building a structure with two-way traffic. Since we aren't looking at specific cases, I have no idea how your 95%/5% examples play out in real life just as I don't know how Karel's statement that "Designers still design 'creatively' and according to the 'corporate brand'" fits. Your statements seem to be dismissive of those 5% concerns. Whether intended or not, that attitude helps make working designers suspicious of design research and design researchers.

A part of my job -is- to design creatively. Another more important part is to design according to the corporate brand. Another is to make sure that the corporate brand is based on things working in as many ways as possible for as many people as possible. (I often have less control over the latter than I do over other aspects.)

I'm glad that Simon Lawry brought up Oxo Good Grips as an example. I wish I could offer many more (and more recent) examples of more inclusive design increasing both functionality and aesthetic experience for mainstream users (and subsequent financial success for the client.) Most examples are not so dramatic. That may be an important point for designers and design educators: If we do our jobs right, nobody will notice some of the most important things we do.

Charlotte Magnusson's statement: "Accessibility is not generally a sales argument - many things that are supposedly 'cool' are designed for the young white male who can dangle from a finger on mount everest;-) - it does not really 'sell' to say that the device is easier to use for people with disabilities (or old people)" may be accurate. But that calls for holding design and designers to higher standards and reframing client conversations. It strikes me that the young male on Mount Everest shares more physiologically, psychologically, and experientially with disabled or old people then he does with other young males at sea level. It is part of the designer's job to notice that.

I have seen many people overcome bad interface design for various reasons but I have never heard anyone suggest that they wish something were harder to use, more difficult to read, or more confusing.

Yes, many designers do their jobs badly. All sorts of people do their jobs badly. I started the morning in conversation with the guy who measured wrong when ordering new windows for my house. After first installing several so that they sit below sill level, he now wants to raise them to the proper level  for the bottom of the window and tear apart the trim on the windows so that the house will fit the windows instead of the other way around. 

In the case of replacement windows, it's easy to say that the windows should be built with an understanding of the house and that the house doesn't need to understand the windows. In the case of design and design research, the relationship isn't as simple as designers being spoiled children who don't follow the sage advice of Mother Research.

Gunnar
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ps:
Karel  says that "[g]raphic designers who have to design road-signage, typographic software, global symbols, cigarette packaging or hospital signage should consult these [research studies]" and I suspect that we all agree that effective highway signage and error-free prescription dispensing and use are vitally important. I know Karel's intent was more in the realm of David Sless' development of regulation but i n my world, designing cigarette packaging means enhancing a brand and making the purchase more appealing. I don't have to do that and I don't think anyone has to.