If the situation in product design is that severe as pointed out in the article, I have to fully agree that the curriculum has to be changed.

On the other hand I have to agree with Jonas, on drawing as well as on studio work and skills training.

That does not imply that reflection on people, the design process, stakeholders and evolving techniques is not necessary.
It is very welcome, and in our studio teaching we take it for granted that our students of architecture (who have sociology & other classes)
take society for which they design into account (we are designing for people, not for architectural magazines).
In design education, we should teach about design, and our language is drawing, modeling and writing. 

As for the (probably provocative) claim that there is no evidence that designers think by drawing: please search for sketching and creative discovery and there are plenty of papers offering insight in that matter and which provide more than just intuitive evidence. 
I agree one has not to be a perfect drawer, but one has to be fluent, as in handwriting, be it calligraphy or "doctors writing". If one is not fluent, thinking will be hampered severely,
so yes, we have to train a lot, like for any skill (it takes circa 3 years to learn writing and reading for four hours a day, compare that to the time students spend learning drawing, modeling etc...). 
Students have been trained in writing (and reading) for 12 years before entering our education. For drawing and modeling I am in the first year after kindergarten (sometimes I wish I would be, as the students would remember more vividly what possibilities drawing, imagery, modeling, etc... offers).
As a result the strange thing in teaching and practice is that skills training takes nowadays a seemingly larger effort than before.
Students entering higher education are very digitally (and orally) developed, but sometimes rather unhandy at simple & fine motoric skills.

And yes, design is developing, I am convinced education will develop as well. I also agree that designers should understand "the fundamental principles of human and social interaction, of how to assess the validity of a claim." That design education wouldn't be open to that seems very strange to me.

On the other hand, we don't start education in higher education, so secondary schools can offer assistance here as well, by for instance training
all students basic drawing, modeling, envisioning skills, so we can take these for granted and continue from there on. This can also be applied to the social & business sciences.

Next to that, calling the 20th century "simple" is a strange thing to do in my mind. Probably 22nd century scientists will call us simple as well. The sentence "The technologies are more sophisticated, involving advanced materials, computation, communication, sensors, and actuators. The products and services have complex interactions that have to be self-explanatory, sometimes involving other people separated by time or distance. Traditional design activities have to be supplemented with an understanding of technology, business, and human psychology." can be applied to any age, or am I wrong?

I have to agree with both of you, I understand both claims very well, and probably the claims have to do with geographic differences as well.
Provocation is good for designers, they will be teased by it. I certainly am :), as always the truth will be in the middle: Brilliance without Substance, Substance without Brilliance or Substantial Brilliance?


All the best from Belgium,

Iwert

________________________________

arch. iwert bernakiewicz
PHL University College
PHL Arts & Architecture
Universitaire Campus, Gebouw E
B- 3590 Diepenbeek
Belgium
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www.phl.be


Op 5-okt-2011, om 09:24 heeft Löwgren Jonas het volgende geschreven:

> Funny; my position seems to develop in the opposite direction.
> 
> I have a solid background in academia, arguably understanding the concepts of method, theory and grounding quite well. I have been teaching first HCI, then interaction design for 22 years now. The trajectory of my teaching has been distinctly going from "application of theory and proven methods" to "studio-based craft plus reflection."
> 
> As my experience grows, I am becoming increasingly convinced of the value of craft skills and, even more importantly, of knowing the design materials of the digital realm. This is based on my anecdotal perceptions of resulting student capabilities and employability, as well as on my ongoing contacts with the local and international interaction design industry.
> 
> It might seem as if I am moving backwards in time compared to the rest of the world. I do not think this is the case, however. Comparing my position with the one Don proposes in the recent Core 77 column, I think the resolution might lie in the question of what craft skills we are talking about.
> 
> In the educational settings I am active in, the topics are all about multidisciplinary design of "the interface between technology and people" (as Don puts it). My point is that it seems more effective to teach such topics using studio-based learning methods, treating the subject matter as craft skills to be acquired through apprenticing and scaffolding (on the making as well as on the reflecting/articulating).
> 
> The scope of interaction design is undeniably expanding from digital products to services, environments and societal processes. Importantly, this does not necessarily mean that the discipline of interaction design needs to grow accordingly. I tend to find it more important than ever that the interaction designer establishes an identity in terms of craft skills and material knowledge. The designer-generalist seems to me to be an inferior aim. Doing a little bit of everything entailed in a contemporary design project necessarily means doing most things quite poorly. Better, then, to know your strengths and be trained to work with specialists from all the other fields involved.
> 
> One last comment: My students are required to draw all the time. However, not many of them could draw a decent still life. They "draw" in pencil, of course, but also in language, photography, collages, video, enactments, cardboard, Arduino and software. Drawing is not a simple category, when it comes to contemporary design education.
> 
> Jonas Löwgren