Dear Ken, Keith, Don, Luke, Gunnar and all,
Keith captured part of the gist of what I was intending. Luke provided a
good review of the discourse. Don proposed a balance. Ken provided deep
insights, and Gunnar provided high performing inspiration. Thanks to all and
everyone.
I'd been proposing something different.
More I was suggesting our aims for designed outputs and outcomes are
changing to the point our human biological limitations on using and
feeling, intuition, emotion are becoming no longer sufficient. This applies
especially to the design fields that have depended most on these human
attributes.
Science and mathematics offers a way past these human biological limitations
to our ability to create complicated design outputs intended to have complex
outcomes.
An allegory,
There is a limit to how high humans can jump (an everyday person
doing design)
Special training can help humans to jump higher (conventional
design training and experience)
There is a biological limit to the height of jumping (biological
limits on use of feeling, emotion, intuition and meaning making in design)
Humans can use a ladder to get higher (use of simple maths and
science in design to enhance use of feeling, emotion, intuition and meaning
making)
Humans can fly to almost any height and go beyond human abilities
(use of advanced maths and science in design to enhance use of feeling,
emotion, intuition and meaning making)
Humans can do space travel and time travel (use of mathematical and
scientific modelling in design to enhance use of feeling, emotion, intuition
and meaning making)
The biological limits remains, of course in terms of users' use of designed
outputs. For most users, design must have meaning, usability, attraction and
interprebility within biological constraints. Hence on one hand, the
superficial interaction/appearance of designed outputs must be within
biological limitations regardless of their underlying complication.
For the future of design, this suggests in three possibilities:
1. A return to the model of design activity as being undertaken by
engineering designers and stylists
2. Increased computerised automation of the creation of designs so
that designers use emotion but are hardly involved in the creation of
designs
3. Increased levels of education of designers across multiple
disciplines including maths and the sciences (as Don has suggested)
The reality, I suggest, is this latter is practically possible only with
two additional conditions. The first is a strong basis in mathematics that
enables concepts and ideas to be viewed and remembered in an abstract
manner. Second is the teaching of concepts in a domain-independent manner
along with the information as to how the same concepts are used in
different disciplines. I've a book half written on this. Taken together,
these potentially provide the learning efficiency necessary to keep the
higher education process down to a handful of years. Bear in mind many
engineering institutions now specify that qualifying engineering degrees
must include an amount of humanities, history, art and business education.
The result is the basic engineering design degree qualification has extended
out to 5 years in university plus 2-10 years professional formation before
certification. And this is with the mathematical skills of abstraction of
concepts. Without improving the efficiency of the education, one would
expect adding to the disciplines taught will increase the time further.
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Honorary Fellow
IEED, Management School
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
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--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Sunday, 29 December 2013 7:34 PM
To: PhD-Design PhD-Design
Subject: Re: In defence of BOTH: (rational thinking, rigor, data) AND
(emotion, metaphor, rhetoric, associative thinking)
Dear Keith,
Thanks for the explanation. You wrote, "significant shifts have taken place
in design and that we need to attend to these shifts and adjust our
understandings. . Terry seems to be urging us to do an inventory of just
which tools remain relevant.
"Change is promoted by rational argument but it is only achieved by
emotional engagement."
Gosh. If THAT is what Terry meant, then I agree.
I must have been distracted by Terry's comments on my reasoning capacity, by
his attribution of motives to the rest of us, and by his assessment of our
character flaws. Silly me.
Since Terry was simply asking us to renew our understanding of the design
field, there is no need for me to analyze the thread or concern myself
further.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor |
Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia |
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830
462 | Home Page
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<h
ttp://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page
http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University |
Shanghai, China
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