David, Charles, Ken, Gunnar, Rosie et al,

In my three decades of experience in design education, split between and
among schools of art, engineering, and architecture, the use of evidence as
opposed to intuition in the design process appears to reside with the agency
doing the validation. In the school of art, example, form trumped function
every time -- something that we continue to see with chairs that look great
but that do not conform to any evidence found in ergonomics. Not
surprisingly, the school of engineering had the opposite take on design.
Function was extremely important, even at the expense of a visually pleasing
form. The school of architecture, where I am now (although it is called a
college of design, the 600 pound architecture gorilla is always in the
room). Recently, for example, when a student of interior design commented on
the inappropriateness of a design feature in an architecture project because
the feature did not conform to known human behavior, he was put in his
place. "What," he was told, "do people have to do with architecture?"

In all three cases -- art, engineering, and architecture -- the ethos or
culture of the place had a great influence on whether evidence-based design
was leading design education or took a back seat to it.

Much the same appears to occur with the validation process in agencies
outside of academia. Museums have collections of design objects that would
most likely not meet functional design criteria (i.e., evidence-based
design), but contribute immensely to our visual vocabulary. Popular design
media rarely focus on evidence-based design, but rather to statements of
visual form. Stories of evidence-based design are more likely to appear in
business and scientific journals. Professional associations also provide
their own kind of validation by the conference themes that they select. I
can remember some ten years ago when a group of us suggested to the IDSA
(Industrial Designer Society of America) that the society should consider
the issue of sustainability a top priority for industrial design, just to be
told that IDSA members would not attend a conference where sustainability
would be the theme (fortunately, things have changed at IDSA and
sustainability is now perceived as important).

Design occurs for many reasons, some obvious and others not. Intuition is
certainly part of the equation, much like evidence is. However, the
validation of design is contextual. Normally, it is not an explicit part of
the designing process although it can subconsciously drive it. As a
consequence, a design considered as an exemplar by one community can easily
be considered as irrelevant by another. One person's meat is another
person's poison.

Isn't life great!

Jacques Giard, PhD
Director and Professor

Cross-College Programs
BA/MSD/PhD
College of Design
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2105

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