Dear all,
catching up in a rush, but feel I must post. Hence the possible terse
note and flat tone... here's the apt rant:
I have always believed that if we were unable to train designers
knowledgeable in various fields that have real links to human usage
and interaction, we will fail. Human factors are not confined to just
user interaction with products but the social economic context that
tags with it. Designers who want to have a stand in this heavily
political and economic based society and make this profession
important, must be trained in subjects that are crucially important,
and not live in our own world where others either refuse to understand
us or too abstract to understand us. In this case, we would be
behaving far more like artists who live in homesteads learning far too
few real world ideas and mechanisms. Subjects that convenetional
design education usually lacks in, typically Math (calculus etc);
applied material science ( the way we need to understand chemistry and
physics, not just recognizing the formula etc. ) , economics along
with applied engineering. I have stumbled upon the University of
Philadelphia some time back via an outstanding graduate who has a
strong line of products that are useful. I believe this college in the
US has made a bold move towards radical change where arts and science
truly merge. How can a designer be innovative when one is short of
science and math is beyond me. We are not short of humanities and
philosophy in the arts sense; but what comes to the surface of real
importance is the humanities and philosophy of understanding humans
like us and them, about what and how humans live and behave. Design is
a method. A method to design products that fit to human and nature and
let it go on sustainably. The role of designers could be big in the
way we see the humanity of why products and services exist
(humanities). We should be one of the most holistic group of
professionals who can see beyond issues of real need because of our
practice based multidisciplinary education strong in both hard core
science and humanities that focuses on innovating objects that really
matter and does not add to the ruins of this planet. Hope this quick
post explains well.
Right time to run after time again...
Karen Fu
your' incorrigble' yet most enthusiastic little elfin from the equator...Cheers!
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> On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 7:33 AM, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> A quick response to Terry
>>
>> 1. Terry puts far too much emphasis on so-called "design decisions"
>> made by software. I don't know what planet Terry resides on (somewhat
>> south of Australia?), but I don't see that kind of intelligence, real
>> or artificial, in the computer programs used by most practicing
>> designers.
>>
>> 2. Terry says we ought to train people to design the programs. Um, we
>> already do. Where has Terry been living? In my world, which is Silicon
>> Valley, design programs are designed with the aid of User Experience
>> (UX) folks, who do study how stuff is used and do contribute to the
>> development of the programs. Now, the fact that UX people are mostly
>> educated in departments of computer science and in HCI (Human-Computer
>> interaction) classes rather than design schools does not change the
>> fact that there is training and experience on how to do good
>> human-centered design.
>>
>> The fact that design schools play only a small role in the training of
>> U professionals says a lot about design schools, but not about the
>> perceived inadequacies of the computer programs. I see no evidence
>> that design-school trained designers would do a better job than the
>> existing UX people.
>>
>> Don
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