Dear colleagues,



I enjoy this interesting discussion and cannot help joining it. I will try to state in brief some ideas and considerations.



You all know that I have particular views about the nature of design and research, making a dissertation by design, doing research by design, and so forth. While many designers believe that design is research and designers are the greatest researchers (sorry for the exaggeration), I stand for my view that design and research are two different realms with very different ways of thinking. I believe that this is the key and the stepping stone for resolving all issues regarding the relationships between design and research.



I particularly rejoice one piece from the original post from Don:



"A piece of work only constitutes an advancement in knowledge when it has been abstracted and generalized into a framework that can be tested, studied, and then built-upon for the creation of an enduring body of knowledge and understanding."



You might remember that at the on-line conference on experiential knowledge in 2006 I talked about similar models, providing examples from the engineering disciplines and suggesting that this might be the way to resolve all these design research problems and conundrums that we discuss in the last ten years. 



The design/project by itself doesn't produce new knowledge. It is our reflection on it, and in particular on the process of its creation, that produces new knowledge. In this regard, I referred to Don's ideas for abstracting and generalizing and producing a framework, etc.



In the engineering disciplines in some cultures, the doctorates (equivalent to Ph.D.) presuppose the design of a new artifact/product, supported by several patents, and in addition, stipulate the reflection on and the explication of the process of creating the artifact. The literature review and the methodology are required as means to externalize better and to support the creative process. The assessment of the artifact functioning is highly encouraged in order to demonstrate that the new design is substantially better than existing options.



My idea is that the same model can be applied in the arts. Paining a great picture is still not knowledge production. Reflecting on the philosophy behind this picture, the method of thinking of the artist (dissertator), and so on, can constitute the philosophical part/dissertation. I have nothing against great artists. Actually, I admire them more than the researchers. However, I have a problem when someone paints a picture and wants to get a Ph.D. Here we face several questions: is it necessary to have a Ph.D.; does it helps in the artistic professions; etc. My personal opinion is that particular types of topics might facilitate the development of artistic philosophy and understanding, while other topics (and methodologies) might stagnate it. We can argue about this. However, let's look at a couple of precedent situations. If Corbusier, Wright, Gropius, and several other landmark architects have reformatted their publications, they could have easily complied with the highest requirements for obtaining a Ph.D. in architecture. They have created a new way of thinking, they have reflected on it, and they have critically analyzed past architectural developments. Even Mies van der Rohe who hasn't published much could have written down on paper all his talks and discussions and could have left us an example of dissertational excellence. 



The problem with the dissertations is much more than the problem with the criteria and standards for awarding the degrees. It is about knowledge production in the core areas of the "creative" disciplines. I can't find now a better term. I am envisaging more than procedural knowledge, but less than the engagement with user needs research or semiotics. These areas involve traditional social science rationality. And between the process and the product reflections we can develop a scale of transitional formats. It is a long talk and I will stop here.



Best wishes,



Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.

Bowling Green State University





-----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 Don Norman

Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 7:07 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: On the PhD thesis



I’m changing the subject of this email thread to reflect the topic upon which it has been converging.



===========================

Executive Summary: Many of you will balk at the length of this, so here are my conclusions:



The PhD Thesis must represent *A Substantive Contribution to Knowledge*.  Once this is recognized as the criterion, the debate becomes much simpler. A great work of practice - whether a symphony, a building, or a design (e.g., a product) — is not a thesis. The thesis is the distillation of that work into new generalizations, new abstractions, that will inform and direct future practitioners and future researchers.



How long should a thesis be? As short as possible to attract the largest number of readers. But long enough that it can be judged by its importance, relevance, and predicted impact. The thesis also has to be judged upon its veracity: has the case been made sufficiently strongly that the conclusions - the generalizations - are appropriate? What matters is that others can repeat the work and get the same conclusions. 

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What got me going was the continued discussion of the nature of a PhD thesis in design, and the weird notion that the number of words or pages was somehow a relevant measure of anything.  So I address that topic, but only after I give sufficient background information. So this is long. No apologies. This is a complex topic and deserves a deeper treatment than short, one paragraph emails can provide.



I have long been bothered by the discussions on this group about the nature of research in design and, in particular, on the nature of the PhD.  I believe the problems arise because of the somewhat haphazard origins of the design profession.



In the academic world, Design (capital D)is mainly housed within schools in the arts and humanities. In many cases, Design is thought of as a subset of art.  More recently, design has appeared within schools of engineering, most especially within Computer Science (driven by studies in human-computer interaction), Mechanical Engineering (both product design and the discipline called “engineering design”), Civil and Industrial Engineering. This leads to problems because the arts and the science/engineering disciplines have very different notions of research and of publication.



There is a second issue: Design as a practice versus Design as an academic discipline. For Design as a practice, the terminal degree is either the bachelors or the masters. For Design as an academic discipline, the terminal degree is the PhD. 



The problems in defining a PhD are not unique to Design: they occur in every practical profession. In every practice I have examined — medicine, law, art, theater, music, writing, architecture, business, design — there is a huge difference of opinion about what is to be valued between the practitioners and the academics. Academics want theory and deep understanding. Practitioners want results.



Worse, in many fields (art, theater, music, architecture come to mind), the main activities of the academics and the main way to get a PhD is to do history or criticism. There is very little theory (before you object: “very little” does not mean “none.” Thus, in music there is considerable theory, for example. Still, most PhDs are in history or criticism.)



Notice that in some disciplines, Medicine and Business come to mind, the PhD in medicine or Business is rare. Instead, people who need a PhD (basically, those who wish to become professors) get them in allied disciplines: Biology, Economics, Management science, … .  

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Engineering design does have a substantive base in theory, which makes the PhD degree relatively straightforward, but most of these engineering designers are academics, not practitioners. I suspect that most of the people on this list would argue that the work that engineering designers do has little to do with the work that we do. Mostly, engineering design optimizes structures, using mathematical and formal methods that are effective as long as the problem structure is extremely well-defined. In general, this means leaving out anything to do with people ("if only people were not present, out stuff would work really well”). Some engineering designers try to incorporate human interaction through highly simplified formal models of human behavior. I applaud the efforts but i also believe that today they are far from being satisfactory.

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What is the PhD dissertation? My understanding based upon almost a half-century of observation, participation, and presence on committees in many of the sciences, engineering fields, literature, art, and music is that the PhD is intended to recognize both a deep understanding of the field plus a substantive contribution to knowledge.  



Let me emphasize that last phrase: 



The PhD Thesis must represent A Substantive Contribution to Knowledge.  Once this is recognized as the criterion, the debate becomes much simpler.



I remember long ago having this debate with people in music: does a performance constitute a PhD thesis? No, we all agreed quickly and easily. Does the composition of a major piece of work constitute a thesis? This is a difficult question and in the several cases i have experienced, can lead to severe disagreement. But the argument has always ben based upon the question of whether or not the composition was a significant contribution to knowledge. In every case I took part in, the conclusion was that composition of an important piece of work was NOT a PhD thesis. 



The PhD thesis is supposed to add to the knowledge. THus, practice is NOT a PhD, no matter how brilliant. And it does not matter whether the practice is a performance, a finished design, a painting, a symphony, a laboratory experiment, or a demonstration in engineering or science.



A piece of work only constitutes an advancement in knowledge when it has been abstracted and generalized into a framework that can be tested, studied, and then built-upon for the creation of an enduring body of knowledge and understanding.



An act of creation is a particular instantiation: it is not a general result. The PhD  — and knowledge in general - is meant to be an abstraction that can then be generalized to other arenas. Part of the abstraction process is to delineate where the abstraction applies and where it does not. And part of the role of people who follow up on the work is to further expand or contract the range of application and the nature of the knowledge.



So how long should a thesis be? Who cares? The only question that matters is the impact. Obviously the work has to be long enough to be understandable, to present the methods and evidence for the conclusions in a manner that other people can both follow and then replicate. But length? Who cares? I have seen works in science that were only 10 −15 pages long and some that were hundreds of pages long. The thesis has to be judged by its importance, relevance, and predicted impact, not on its length. The thesis also has to be judged upon its veracity: has the case been made sufficiently strongly that the conclusions - the generalizations - are appropriate? What matters is that others can repeat the work and get the same conclusions. 



But as an aside, "Norman’s law of writing" is that the number of readers is inversely proportional to the square of the length. So if you want something to have an impact, make it short.



(This essay provides a demonstration of the law: most people will not have gotten this far in this essay: more and more people stopped reading with each added paragraph.)



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All this gets to the point. What is the nature of research in design?  What is design research? For many design researchers, it is about studying designers themselves: how do designers work, think, create. For many, it is studying the population for whom the design is intended. In either case, the results of these studies are useful to the field only if they are generalized in an appropriate manner that they can then useful to others.



In my work (which is only one small part of what design researchers might do), it is about trying to understand how the end result (product or service) meets human needs. Thus, I am concerned with the communicative aspect of a design (the semiotics), with the signals 9signifiers) that the designer must provide to make the product or service understandable, as well as the temporal interactions, the nature of feedback and communications, and the emotional states that the products or services might invoke upon those who use them.  

Whatever the focus of the design researcher.



Other design researchers will focus upon other aspects of design. 



It shouldn't matter what area is covered; what matters is its accuracy, reliability, and the enduring knowledge that results.



Does a great work of art, of design, of music constitute knowledge? No. Does the design and construction of a bridge or great building constitute knowledge? No. These are instantiations. The advance in knowledge comes when someone analyzes what has taken place and develops new generalizations, new abstractions, that will inform and direct future practitioners and future researchers.



Don Norman

Northwestern, KAIST, Nielsen Norman group

www.jnd.org