Dear Terry
I am not a doctor but it seems that our diagnosis are quite different.
I don't think the patient is that ill but some mild antibiotics would do.
I've been in the field since late 80-ties and in design research since 95 and I think things have greatly improved since then.
I think the only cure for improvement is to demonstrate good examples.
What is bad and what is good about design and design research will be disagreed on in the future as well.
Different positions will continue to thrive beside each other and grow in different pace. Luckily we are in a dynamic field where things are not nailed down.
Thanks for always being thought provoking :)
All the best
birger
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Fra: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] på vegne av Terence Love [[log in to unmask]]
Sendt: 29. mars 2012 13:18
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: arbitrage
Hi Birger,
Thank you for your reply. My apologies for the delay. We seem to be looking
at what is needed for healthy fields of Design with a different focus.
If I understand it right, you are offering heath advice along the lines of
for health is necessary to 'eat well, get some exercise, and keep a positive
attitude'. Good generic advice.
In contrast, I've been focusing on identifying appropriate prescriptions for
situationally specific maladies of fields of design
There are similar significant differences in advising best practice for
general health and recovering from situationally specific ill-health whether
health of individuals or fields of study.
Advising for general heath is typified by platitudes, e.g. 'eat well, take
exercise, relax and sleep before midnight' or, in the case of Design might
be ' combine skills, arts, theories and reflections, use balanced
viewpoints, embrace input, align with historical development'.
These generic platitudes are useful in general.
In the case of pathological acute or chronic ill health, other more specific
temporary prescriptions are neededtodisturbthe system to enable it to evolve
into a more healthy state.
Two key aspects of such remedies are:
1. They disrupt the system in ways that encourage a change in development
towards a more healthy state
2. They are temporary.
A doctor might tell a patient who has unwell to stop eating, or to take
certain medicines, or to exercise in a particular way.
This doesn't mean the patient should never eat, or should take medicine or
exercise 24 hours a day for ever. The prescription is a specific remedy to
a specific ailment. The ailment or ailments are in turn indicated by
particular characteristics of the problem.
Thus to achieve a cure involves three tasks: identifying specific
characteristics of the patient, diagnosing the ailment, and designing a
limited intervention that will assist the patient recovering their health.
I've had the privilege to watch the field of design grow from the late-1960s
(working off the notes of John Chris Jones and Nigel Cross at UMIST in
Manchester prior to Jones writing 'Design Methods') . I've been a designer
and design researcher since that time across multiple design fields divided
almost equally in time and effort between the 'Art and Design' fields,
information system design, engineering design, social/organisational system
design, socio-technical design and built environment design.
Over that time, I've seen the health of particular aspects of design fields
have waxed and waned and common ailments are:
* The segmentation of the field into three almost incommensurate groupings
of sub-fields These are: a) the 40 or so 'Art and Design' fields; the 300
or so technical design fields that require high level skills in
mathematics; and the 300 or so 'Other' design fields that typically depend
on knowledge different to that available in 'Art and Design' and
'Engineering design'. The design education in each of these groupings does
not yet facilitate easy movement or team collaboration across them yet most
larger scale design problems span all three groupings.
* Obsessive parochiality. This is revealed by the ways 'design' and
similar core concepts are defined exclusively to individual fields,
particularly in ways that exclude other design fileds. For example, the
literature of the field of 'Chocolate-mint biscuit design' would define the
term and concept of 'design' to ensure that the design field does not
include those designing 'Chocolate-Orange biscuits'. This is found across
all design fields but is especially so in the 'Art and Design' group.
* Weakness in reasoning and theory across the broader design field,
particularly when they involve core concepts. In 2000 at La Clusaz, I
offered to critique any design research paper or book section that delegates
submitted to me to identify any that did not have serious errors of
reasoning. No one has taken me up on it ( I seem to remember offering a
bottle of wine for the first one I found - perhaps the delegates didn't like
Australian wine). Since then I've reviewed and read hundreds of design
research papers and not yet found any that depend on the theories and
concepts common in the broader design field that stand up to critical
scrutiny. Again, this is found across all design fields but is especially
so in the 'Art and Design' group.
* Weakness in understanding the almost unbelievably large benefits for
design creativity, quality and productivity that have resulted from design
research, particularly scientific design research, and the almost
insignificant improvements that have come from design practice and design
research-based on practice. This has been a bit like a story in which the
patient gets better as a result of the doctor insisting on better food and
more sleep and exercise , while the patient believes the improvements are
due to increasing the cigarettes they smoke and drinking more whiskey. Again
the lack of awareness of the benefits of design research and the way that it
has been embedded in software rather than human design skill seems to be
found most strongly in the Art and Design fields.
* Avoidance of using knowledge from other fields. This extends to insisting
that only knowledge from other fields that is simple is included and then it
is reified.
* Promotion of particular fashions of design that are typically
oversimplifications of single ideas.
* Delusion in ability to address complex socio-technical systemic design
situations ( in particular inappropriate application of 'simplification'.
* Lack of understanding in relation to behaviours of design outcomes ( as
distinct from design outputs)
* Weakness in design in areas in which the behaviours of the design outcome
change during the life of the design.
Please see my suggestions in my previous posts as time-limited prescriptions
to help address these and other maladies, pathology and illness in Design.
As all prescriptions for this kind of purpose, they offer temporary
disturbance intended to disrupt the situation in ways that encourage change
and evolution towards reducing the more obvious maladies in the field of
Design.
Best wishes,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
Praxis Education
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask]
www.praxiseducation.com
==
Birger> my experience design becomes very successful when it operates in a
combination of skills, arts, theories and reflections.
... we need to develop the different inherent aspects and discourses of
design on the other we need to welcome and embrace people from other fields
who have an honest intention in the field of design, one that reaches beyond
playing verbal power games (something that is unfortunately seen
frequently). Those we can learn a lot from and strangly enough they can
learn a lot from designing, especially from the "art and design side".
Terry> In the spirit of design creativity and radical disruptive innovation,
how about design journal editors having a ban for a year on all articles
that draw on, or are from, the traditional culture of design? That would
provide some incentive for arbitrage driven insights into the design
literature.
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