Klaus - Thanks for your generosity in responding to the many threads in the
commentary on this thread, which I started about two weeks ago. I have
enjoyed the discourse, and yet have been writing several pieces which I have
not shared with this group, separately conceived but intimately related to
your contributions. Like I said in the first post, I've cited your 1996
article " A Second-order Cybernetics of Otherness" for a working article on
conversation in design. While I am not defining design, per se, I spend
pages exploring conversation, and include your propositions about
conversation co-arising between members in an I-Thou relationship:

Beyond the assumption of intentionality, conversation (but not
communications) infers an empathic, dialogic exchange, seen as essential in
a phenomenological perspective. Krippendorf, building on Martin Buber's
typology of I-Thou relationships, notes that "in I-Thou relations, people
constitute themselves in conversational practices: Neither unilaterally
imposes its categories on the Other." (emphasis in  the original).

I say more and describe other approaches to conversation theory, including
the language/action perspective, an influential view in the late 1980's. One
of the bridges between second order systems and design is the notion of
creating new worlds by conversation, what LAP called ontological design, and
a process facilitated by your notion of re-entry into the system being
intervened. This to me seems the essence of what we call social design, and
is a first principle of social systems. Yet at its core, the intervening act
is a conversation with others to propose a conscious reflection to alter a
system's process, while in motion. This is something designers "do in
language," and depending on the context, we have different ways of defining
the design action. Proposals, observations, suggestions, design
recommendations. 

But one of the problems with the creation of design discourses is the easy
appropriation of discourses into unintended domains. Many people call
themselves designers now, as "design thinking" has rendered design theory
nearly irrelevant in business-oriented practice. As soon as a new practice
has been generated as one's own, and shared, it can be lifted and misused,
virtually immediately. Ingenuity or secrecy is no guarantee of
inimitability. Yet, as you suggest, the views of stakeholders are essential
to the credibility and trust of the discourse. 

We design where we are listened to as designers, meaning clients and
stakeholders, not fellow scholars. Scholarly discourse differs from design
in this way (as well as others). We cannot have every firm as a client,
(regardless of IDEO's success in this regard). This is similar to James
Carse's notion of communitas, wherein a community forms around a spiritual
leader based on the meaning they ascribe to the "leader." The leader does
not find or appeal to followers based on a given discourse that requires
followers. Credible design discourse seems to have this quality of
validation by the communitas.

Peter 

Peter Jones

Founder, Redesign Research
Ontario College of Art and Design
Visiting Scholar, University of Toronto
http://designdialogues.com   


-----Original Message-----
From: Klaus Krippendorff [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On design - again?

I agree with your inclusion and said from the beginning of this conversation
that their stakeholders need to be involved.  As I suggested I may say I am
jesus crist, but if nobody believes me and treats me as such, I am not in
social reality.  Similar for designers, they could claim what they want,
unless they have clients, collaborators that take them seriously, even
ethnographers interested enough to interact with them, they are not
designers.

I want to add that many designers think they need to know a little bit of
everything without recognizing specialized knowledge of their own.  This
entails the danger of not being taken seriously by other experts, such as
engineers, economists, ecologists, etc. who tend to have deep knowledge of
their subject matter. I am suggesting that designers need to become aware of
and develop a design discourse that other stakeholders respect as something
they cannot replicate easily, allowing designers to carve out a field of
exploration and creation of their own.

I would say, it is not merely that design is too important to be left to
designers, design is an activity that resides in the social fabric of
producing culture and cannot proceed without non-designers.

Klaus
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lubomir Savov Popov [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 12:45 PM
To: Klaus Krippendorff; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: On design - again?

Hi Klaus,

Thank you for your comments. I would like to clarify a small detail. I have
never said nor implied that we have to exclude designers from the discussion
on design profession. I said that design is too important to leave it ONLY
to designers. So, using the word ONLY implies that designers are already
considered, but they should not be the only participants. Also, paraphrasing
the adage about war and generals implies that I use its spirit to involve
interest groups outside the profession.

Thanks again,

Lubomir

-----Original Message-----
From: Klaus Krippendorff [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 12:08 AM
To: Lubomir Savov Popov; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: On design - again?

lubomir,

i am sympathetic to the view that design is too important to be left to
designers, mainly based on personal experiences that shifting perspective
often open new ways of seeing.
however, i suggest to go without designers would be a mistake, perhaps an
expression of arrogance and misplaces authoritarianism.  imagine a situation
in which i find a formula to describe the design process but designers are
unwilling to conform to it? whose version should be accepted?  

i would much prefer to see theoreticians of design either have own
experiences designing or at least interact with designers to see how their
conceptions fit the conceptions of practitioners.  if it adds to their
self-understanding or improves their practices than there is virtue to a
theorist's formulations, if it doesn't one has to question the claim.  

there are many examples where an outsider claims to know better, for example
in medicine, where a patient might complain of stomach ache without knowing
a successful remedy.  medical knowledge serves first and foremost the
doctor's task of curing a patient's ills, not so much of informing the
patient about the medical knowledge that goes into decisions among treatment
options.  so, medical knowledge is generated within the medical community of
practitioners, researchers, educators, etc. of medicine and outsiders'
conceptions tends to be shunned by the medical community.

i suggest that human-centered design cannot afford to ignore user
conceptions and this means engaging users in dialogue while designing.

klaus 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lubomir Savov Popov [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 10:11 AM
To: Klaus Krippendorff; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: On design - again?

Dear colleagues,

Even when I follow this erudite and imaginative debate, a primer for
scholarly discussions, I can't help reflecting on my previous proposals. I
still believe that when discussing a profession and the social construction
of a profession, an approach coming from philosophy and sociology of
professions might be more productive. Many of the issues we discuss can
easily be resolved from the position of one of those approaches. And many of
the issues and problems we formulate here might well be reformulated so that
they are resolved productively. 

There is an old adage that war is too important to be left only to the
generals. We can paraphrase this for design and will see that the social
construction of a profession is far more complex that the linguistics
regarding this profession. There are so many parties involved, each one
construing its own version, promoting it, defending it, and actually often
fighting for it. It seems to me that we went too far working only with words
and shying away from the social construction of conceptualizations,
meanings, conventions, criteria and norms for identification of a
phenomenon, and so forth. 

Let's take as an example the current process of social construction of
interior design profession in the U.S.A. It can serve as a great laboratory
for exploring the making of a profession, the making of conventions, the
sharing of conventions, the economic interests, and the politics of
defending economic privileges. It is also an example of use and abuse of
language, languaging and language games, premeditated and spontaneous
distortions of meanings, restricting and controlling the use of words, and
so forth. 

Design is too important to be left only to designers, design researchers,
and even the general public. It evidently needs a coordinated effort from
all parties to negotiate the boundaries of the profession. Actually, when we
talk about design in our tradition on this list, we touch hundreds of
professions. By the way, that is another topic. Design, its many
applications, and the corresponding hundreds of professions. 

Thank you for attention,

Lubomir

PS In the example regarding interior design I skipped many other interest
groups/stake holders. Let's ask architects what is interior design and the
war on words will start again.