dear Klaus,
I agree with your argument, having problems with the dichotomy between 'goal oriented' and 'not goal oriented'.
But what about the distinction between 'centralised control' and 'decentralised control' (by design).
Managers are used to give orders, not to inspire interpretation. Artists invite for interpretation, they don't order. They leave it to the individual to interpret.
Both might be 'goal oriented'.
Diane
________________________________________
Van: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] namens Klaus Krippendorff [[log in to unmask]]
Verzonden: zondag 5 januari 2014 17:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Re: Non-goal-directed design
dear arjun,
i like your project.
i have some problem with the binary distinction you are pursuing -- goal oriented or not goal oriented. i the reality of design practice, this distinction is fuzzy.
I have distinguished and pursued three motivations for designers to offer their expertise:
* challenges: troublesome conditions, problems, or conflicts that have escaped (re)solutions. this motivation stems from trying to get out of situations deemed undesirable. solving problems is a legitimate starting point for design. sometimes problems are defined by an employer, e.g., by a design brief, sometimes recognized by a designer, e.g. after an ethnography of real situations. often the problems given are not the problems that can be solved and one art of design is to redefine problems so that something can be done to improve a condition deemed undesirable. the latter is what links designers to therapists.
* opportunities to realize a vision: visions need not be related to problems but are motivated by the perceived possibility to do something new that often adds a new dimension to practices of living. for example. the cell phone did not solve an existing problem - traditional phone worked just fine - but technological developments made it conceivable to combine numerous familiar practices that relied on similar technologies into a device that also was much smaller. or facebook did not arise out of a problem but added the ability to connect with people in ways previously not known (and not missed either).
* possibilities to introduce variation into the world that others may not dare to consider, but once available, can lead to unintended transformations. this is what poets, painters, composers, and children do while having fun. it employs aimless random variation that may well end up being realized in ways not intended by designers.
these ideas have been further developed in my "the semantic turn, a new foundation of design" taylor and francis 2006.
while the distinction among these starting points - problems, visions, and play for short - made sense to my concept of design, which is not as narrow as some like to have it, practicing designers may overtly justify their work in terms of one perspective, they tend not to ignore the others in their actual work. even engineers who largely subscribe to and justify their designs in terms of being a technical solution to one or more functional problems, may not reveal to their client their motivation of doing something novel or having simply played with possibilities for which they are not paid for by their employers.
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Arjun Dhillon
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 3:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Non-goal-directed design
Hello all,
I am writing a book on design with a handful of colleagues in strategic design, professors in the emerging design program at Georgetown University, friends in analytic philosophy, and partners in my design design consultancy, Mighty. I'm hoping to use this list to source existing work that we missed on our topic (and later, as we get closer to completion, feedback on our work).
We are exploring an understanding of design that contrasts with the existing, broadest definitions of design - those that describe design as a variety of problem solving, or as an activity to move from an existing state to a preferred state. These definitions fail, we argue, not (only) because they are too broad, but because they are simply inaccurate. They are based on a mistaken assumption that design is, at its core, a goal-directed activity.
Our research and collaborative experience spans psychology of goal-directed behavior, sociology of action, philosophy of intentions and practical reasoning, research on creativity, research on problem solving, artificial intelligence research, and a variety of other areas.
Our foremost interest in these areas, and my purpose of posting here, is to find literature that provides a direct treatment of the assumption that all human action is goal-directed in nature. In some fields this is referred to as practical reasoning (of the instrumental variety), teleological / means-ends schemas (in sociology, mainly), problem solving (in a variety of fields influenced by what we call the paradigm of problematization), human intentions (not to be confused with intentionality, in the philosophical sense), and so on.
Our position is this: design is not a goal-directed / ends-focused / teleological activity. We are looking for literature or people who have formed similar or adversarial positions, or those who would like to form either position now for discussion.
Please feel free to reply off-list if you prefer.
Thanks,
Arjun
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Op deze e-mail zijn de volgende voorwaarden van toepassing :
The following disclaimer applies to the e-mail message :
http://www.nhtv.nl/disclaimer
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
