Dear Terry and all,

I think of this rather as the (slow) change from regarding design of  
"objects", more or less physical entities, to the design of  
"services", which can be material and/or non-material. Normann argue  
that in service thinking the key is what the service allow its  
customer/user to achieve, rather than a focus on the object’s/ 
product’s qualities as such.

The iPod/iTunes store is a good example of how what people may want to  
achieve drives the design of material and immaterial artifacts.

In the example I gave I regard the city as a service to its citizens  
and the urban planning process as a service to the stakeholders. The  
value of a city is its affordance, if you will. It is what you can do  
and be in New York that makes it fantastic. The buildings, planning,  
business, people, culture and other elements work together in creating  
this affordance. If you built an exact replica of Manhattan in the  
Saudi desert, would it be the same?

In my view usability thinking is a very important step towards this  
service view, and IT and other technologies have greatly expanded our  
repertoire in designing artifacts that allow people the possibility to  
achieve in unprecedented ways.

Of course this raises the demands on designers and design teams.  
Especially in IT/IS the problems of managing such design processes are  
evident in the abundance of massive failures.

I can see two increased or changed demands on design following this:

1) People-centered design that allows the design of achievements,  
before the design of the artifacts that will support them. In  
architecture this may be thought of as “content before container”.

2) There is a need for cross-disciplinary design teams in a wide  
sense; experience design, engineering, construction, etc etc, and of  
course the stakeholders.

A lack of this  or an abdication by designers from taking on these  
challenges risks reducing design to "putting lipstick on the pig" as  
one engineer once put it to me.

In my view some writers were concerned with this already in the  
60-70ies; for instance Jones, Churchman and Ackoff.

Ackoff even wrote: "A good deal of planning I have observed is like a  
ritual rain dance; it has no effect on the weather but those who  
engage in it think it does. Moreover it seems to me that much of the  
advice and instruction related to planning is directed at improving  
the dance, not the weather."

/Lars

Normann, R., & Ramírez, R. (1994). Designing interactive strategy:  
from value chain to value constellation. Chichester, England ; New  
York: Wiley.
Glass, R. L. (1998). Software runaways: Lessons Learned from Massive  
Software Project Failures Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR.
Churchman, C. W. (1968). The systems approach. New York,: Delacorte  
Press.
Ackoff, R. L. (1981). Creating the corporate future : plan or be  
planned for. New York: Wiley.


.........................................................................
LARS ALBINSSON
+46 (0) 70 592 70 45
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AFFILIATIONS:
MAESTRO MANAGEMENT AB
CALISTOGA SPRINGS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
UNIVERSITY OF BORÅS
LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY
.........................................................................





Vidarebefordrat brev:

Från: Terence Love <[log in to unmask]>
Datum: må 12 okt 2009 17.07.05 GMT+02:00
Till: [log in to unmask]
Ämne: Re: current Trends in Design Research, where are we going ?
Svara till: Terence Love <[log in to unmask]>

Dear Fils, Lars, Klaus and all,

Some of these discussions echo much earlier debates from the 60s and  
70s.

Since that time, products have become more sophisticated and design  
terms
have changed. I'm wondering, however, if many of the current arguments  
are
at heart arguing for a return to the homely idea of Art and Design as
'styling' as distinct from 'engineering' - using the new terminology  
remake
the old anew.

Since the 60s, the 'technical design' aspects of designs have become  
more
sophisticated. We use terms such as 'intelligent' solutions,
software-driven, 'responsive', 'informatic' to refer to some of the new
developments that were previously lumped under 'engineering design' or  
what
some called 'engineering'.

Similarly, the external form aspects of designs became more  
sophisticated.
We use terms such as interface design, usability, emotion-based design  
to
refer to some of these new developments that were previously lumped  
under
'style' and 'styling'.

The current arguments that attempt to argue for 'Art and Design'  
fields as
being very different  leaves me wondering whether those who are arguing
'interface design', usability and the like against 'engineering' are  
in fact
arguing for a return of  the 'Art and Design' fields to a role of  
'styling'.


I welcome others thoughts on this.

Like Fils, I've been hoping the world has moved on and that it is  
possible
to make a seamless bridge between the technical design fields with their
radical new approaches to design that can build on expertise in  
mathematics
and systems, the traditional Art and Design fields with their newly  
evolved
subfields such as interaction design, and the new kids on the block  
such as
organization design, services design and complex systems design.

Best wishes,

Terry


-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and  
related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of  
Filippo
A. Salustri
Sent: Monday, 12 October 2009 9:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: current Trends in Design Research, where are we going ?

...  A good solution has no disciplinary boundaries, ...  The problem  
(at
least here in North America)
is that the separation between specialities has led to a separation in
aspects of the products.

Insofar as the new 'design process' designer being a specialist, I would
suggest that even being a generalist, like me, is a kind of  
specialization.
I specialize in generalism. :)