Hi Ken and all,
Apologies for not responding sooner. I get dragged away from my desk on other matters.
I am please that my little conceit of plumbing has struck a chord, or should I say, 'tapped a pipe'!
I'm also pleased that we are in broad agreement. I'd only like to add a couple of important references in my own field that have been seminal in shaping our thinking when doing literature reviews, and which may be relevant to some of you in other design fields.
They both touch on an important issue about the value of research by design (to use Fraylings term). This is material which is often inaccessible, poorly articulated, neglected, and undervalued. It's the accumulated and ever changing craft know-how that emerges out of practice
The first paper is by Michael Macdonald Ross. It is a review of the research on the graphic presentation of numerical information. The nub of his conclusion is that the results of empirical research tends to confirm the advice of experienced craft practitioners.
The second is by the recently deceased and much loved Paul Stiff. It is a paper about a seemingly simple and minor matter: when and why to hyphenate in text. The importance of this paper is that it is a well articulated examples of craft know-how. It is a model of its kind which demonstrates the careful reasoning that has evolved out of practice, that is research by design.
As we move forward, building on the past through critically reviewing the literature in our various fields, we need to think about the systematic ways in which we might value and build on this craft know-how, much of which is not to be found in the research literature.
Macdonald-Ross, M. 1977,
‘How Numbers are Shown: a review of the research on the presentation of quantitative data in texts’. Audio-Visual Communication Review, Vol. 25 359-409.
Stiff, P. 1996
‘The end of the line: a survey of unjustified typography’. Information Design Journal, Vol 8 125-152.
David
ps. perhaps this should be a new thread
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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