Dear Chuck
I have read your papers and your website iDesignThinking that was used by
my students at NID for several years since I had recommended it to them as
a credible source for design thinking approaches and strategies that
overlapped closely with what I was teaching them through my course titled
"Design Concepts and Concerns".
In your theory you use seven modes of thought for design thinking and I too
have a model developed over three decades of teaching design thinking that
has recognised seven distinct styles of thinking and my terminology is
different but there are clear overlaps and concurences.
In my Design Journey model and paper of 2007 I have spelt these out and the
paper can be downloaded from my blog or from the academia.edu site at this
link.
<http://academia.edu/3609717/Design_Journey_Think_Report_NID_2007>
My course that was developed at NID from the 80's evolved from teaching
Design Methods that started with a discussion of Bruce Archers model but as
we improved our understanding of the complexities of the design thinking
processes through trial and error and through application in real design
tasks that we were fortunate to encounter in the hundreds due to the nature
of practice and education pedagogy that was being practiced at NID through
the 60's 70's and all the way into the 90's — Learning by Doing — as it
was called. It was only in 2002 that I wrote my first paper about that
course and this was done at the invitation of the guest editor of Design
Issues but my paper was not accepted by the Journal editors, perhaps they
did not find my claims palatable at that time. This was the Avalanche
Effect paper which I posted to the PhD Design list at this post on 1st
December 2003.
<
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind03&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R180559&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&I=-3&J=on&X=2C964052B18722B834&Y=ranjanmp%40gmail.com&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4
>
My theory of Design Thinking was finally published in 2005 at the peer
reviewed conference at Bremen University at the EAD06 conference. The paper
was titled "Creating the UnKnowable:....". download at this link here
<http://academia.edu/3609796/Creating_the_Unknowable_2005>
Design is indeed creating the unknowable, no knowledge precedes original
design action, only insights that are gleaned from particular experience
and experiments, science fails us here, and I believe the science processes
too will fail us here. However, as Klaus Kripendorf tells us in his paper
"Design Research - an Oxymoron" — early stage science is indeed design like
but it is conveniently forgotten in the later stages of rigorous
documentation and peer reviews etc — after the fact.
My course developed assignments that could help student grow into (learn
thought processes and attitudes) that corresponded with the seven styles of
thought that constituted design thinking when taken in its totality. These
assignments were refined and explored year after year till it was near
perfect for the needs of our students both at the undergraduate level as
well as in the PG programmes level at NID and this is documented in great
detail but not yet fully published except on my blog "Design Concepts and
Concerns" blog at this link here.
<http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.in/>
I believe that we should look at both cognitive and affective capabilities
that are informed by feeling and ethical positions that would need
discourse on attitudes and values, and not just abilities and economics.
This search for finding the right balance in attitudes was a long journey
and it is still work in progress. Many more thoughts come to my mind but I
will pause for now and welcome suggestions and other thoughtful inputs from
the list.
I am now working on a course module that ca be introduced to non-design
students at Ahmedabad University as well as CEPT University, both of which
are looking to introduce Design Thinking for their students across
disciplines. More on this later, but soon, since the task is time bound,
any suggestions?
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my Mac at home
27 June 2013 at 12.55 am IST
-------------------------------------------------------------
*Prof M P Ranjan*
*Design Thinker and author of blog -
www.Designforindia.com<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>
*
E8 Faculty Housing
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India
Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
email: ranjanmp@g <[log in to unmask]>mail.com
<http://www.ranjanmp.in/>blog: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com>
(current and with downloads)
education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com>
(archival)
education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com (archival)
Page on Facebook <*http://www.facebook.com/Designforindia*>
Academia.Edu <http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP>
<http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------
On 26 June 2013 23:31, Charles Burnette <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Terry and colleagues,
> Thank you for your understanding. I think the following brief summary of
> how my theory developed over time might illustrate points Terry made. The
> summary is a slightly edited version of one I sent Ken off list in a more
> civil exchange off list .
> _____
> We go about things differently. I have practiced architecture and
> industrial design and have taught design at several levels. I built my
> theory out of a PHD dissertation in which different kinds of information
> communicated during an architectural project were identified and
> psuedo-coded in a computational list processing format to demonstrate the
> feasibility of such an approach. I found it easiest to explain how the
> system would work by recasting it as a role oriented approach to problem
> solving through which people could experience the roles and how they
> interacted when pursuing shared objectives. This was tested through
> workshops at many universities in the 80's and later at the K-12 level for
> design based education in public schools. It was adapted for various
> purposes: teaching design team management, documenting design cases, studio
> teaching, the design of informations systems for hospital planning,
> interactive simulation of human factors during design, etc. always with a
> practical or educational objective. A Teaching Resource for basic education
> is still online thanks to Terry. A book was prepared for publication in
> Korea documenting the use of the theory there. At that point I decided to
> explore the implications of the theory in domains such as Philosophy,
> Emotion, Cognitive Science, Communication, Morals and Ethics, etc. The
> range of this investigation precluded exhaustive immersion in each field
> but readings have been extensive as the Bibliography Behind A Theory of
> Design Thinking indicates. (I know what literature I'm interested in. I'm
> not looking for gaps) Since I have a theory grounded in its application I
> am not trying to justify it but am exploring its potential and referencing
> work that seems to support its interpretations. I do not believe that one
> can fabricate a theory of such scope your way, nor do I wish to. I am
> content to do my best at making sense of what I have tested and I am
> pleased with some of what I have uncovered. At my age, I am happy to keep
> my mind at work, and pleased that some others might see something of value
> in what I post. I will attempt to self publish if I can't find anyone
> interested when and if a book gets done. On other topics I can be poetic.
> Who knows?
>
> So relax, stop being judgmental on your terms, and follow the dots.
> _______
> Thanks to all,
> Chuck
>
>
>
> On Jun 26, 2013, at 11:28 AM, Terence Love wrote:
>
> > Chuck suggested some concepts relating to intuition, imagination and
> insight are not theoretically defined and Ken responded with counts of
> items from search engines.
> > This points to an issue not yet well addressed on this list or in the
> design research literature - the epistemological quality of publications as
> they relate to theory.
> > Many research publications are ‘atheoretical’ in the sense that they are
> not grounded in, and tested and proved against predictive scientific forms
> of theory in which concepts are tightly defined. Instead ‘atheoretical’
> discourse focuses on making a more limited kind of sense or representation
> of phenomena that is not so tightly justified in terms of scientific theory.
> > Many disciplines are predominately atheoretical in their discourse,
> although it is relatively rare that this perspective is widely discussed in
> them. Examples of predominately atheoretical disciplines and their
> literatures include Business and Management disciplines, the Social
> Sciences, much of Economics, Political Theory, Law, Psychology and
> Neuroscience, and almost all of the Design research literature. There are
> exceptions such as the role of Operations Research in Business and
> Management and the development of scientific theories about Design such as
> those developed in AI (although many remain intrinsically atheoretical).
> > Limitations of atheoretical discussions include reduced ability to
> analyse new theories and concepts in a scientific manner, lack or
> inaccuracy of prediction, poor justification of relationships between
> causes and effects, lack of agreement across the research and professional
> communities, faulty reasoning leading to incorrect assumptions and
> overarching lack of clarity, prediction and usefulness.
> > The literatures and conceptual definitions and discussions relating to
> ‘intuition’, ‘imagination’, ‘insight’ and ‘design’ are typically
> atheoretical. The lack of agreement and lack of clear delineating
> definitions to date of each is a strong indicator they are atheoretical.
> Chuck seemed to be attempting a less atheoretical approach to representing
> the relationships between these concepts.
> > My reading of Chuck’s analyses and publications over the last decade is
> Chuck is attempting to move the bar towards developing (scientific)
> theory-based concepts and improve theory by moving it away from
> atheoretical foundations . On one hand, this requires defining concepts
> and relations in a non-atheoretical manner. On the other hand, it requires
> being aware of the extent and limitations of atheoretical literatures and
> the atheoretical discourses within them. This seems to be the succinctly
> put essence of Chuck’s opening sentence in the paper he posted.
> > Others, including Don Norman, Tim Smithers, Phil Agre, Vladimir Hubka,
> Ernst Eder, Buckminster Fuller, Herbert Simon and John Gero appear to be
> following a similar path away from the atheoretical discourses and concepts
> and towards sounder theoretical footings for design research.
> > Ken, in his comments on Chucks paper pointed to the large numbers of
> publications resulting from searches of keywords in areas and disciplines
> that are substantially atheoretical. Ken did this without reference to
> whether the disciplines, publications, concepts, analyses and discourses
> were atheoretical or not. Instead, Ken seemed to be assuming that any and
> all publications in an area were of relevance.
> > This seems to be at the heart of the situation. An awareness of the
> problems of using atheoretical publications as the basis for scientific
> theory means there is little or no need to prove each atheoretical
> publication irrelevant. Instead, the requirement is only to point to the
> issue, which Chuck has done. Ken, whose research and writing is typically
> in disciplines in which atheoretical discourse is dominant, has responded
> to Chuck apparently assuming Chuck’s intentions were also atheoretical.
> > Best wishes,
> > Terry
> >
> >
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