Hi Lubomir,
Whoa.
Ken asked me for a pathway to starting teaching mathematical approaches in
design. That was what I described in that post. I described is a simple
starting path that can easily be implemented. I know that many design
educators already do this, though many design schools do not push it as far
as they might.
The real aim I proposed (in previous posts) is to get to the position that
student designers are taught to mathematically and computer model the
likely dynamic behaviours of outcomes of their designs. Not the behaviour of
the outputs (i.e. their designs themselves) but the behaviours of the
effects their designs have on the real world.
That requires a little more maths than I described, but is easily and
quickly taught in a separate unit to design students with school level
maths. I've suggested it takes less than 20 hours.
It is important to be able to do that. Being able to predict the effects on
the world of what one proposes is a core part of being a professional.
In addition, the same approaches with a little more work give design
students the skills to model the dynamic behaviours of socially and
physically defined factors that shape design solutions. This gives an
ability to identify areas of solution space of best design solutions and
areas of likely failures, particularly for wicked problems.
Best wishes,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
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
[log in to unmask]
--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lubomir Savov Popov
Sent: Monday, 5 May 2014 1:27 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Hours for Expertise
Dear Terry,
I probably should have used the Subject "Re: Maths, the language for
everyone, including (fine) artists?" but the discussion about math has moved
to the "10,000 hours..." subject.
After reading a number of examples that you provided in several mails, I
realized that you and me are talking about different things. Sorry for that.
I take responsibility for my part. Your initial expressions made me assume
that you believe in the possibility for mathematical modeling of all
phenomena, including sociocultural phenomena. However, your examples are
very different, narrowing the field to arithmetics and simple computational
operations. I don't see here mathematical translation of theories about
complex phenomena. This is OK with me. Considering the examples you provide,
I have no problem with the domain of application. I am doing that staff
since my student years although I have never considering it mathematical
modeling. Calculating proportions, simple operations to calculate the
strength of a heel, and going to more complex calculations to find out the
size of a billboard font are OK with me. These can be done. Most of them
should have been taught in Junior High school. Designers need to know that
staff, I agree.
I was objecting the notion that designers can be taught how to model
mathematically non-stochastic phenomena and outcomes. That was my concern.
Currently, even the top scholars in mathematical modeling of sociocultural
phenomena offer us computational products that are reductionist and very
often irrelevant to practice.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
-----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 Terence
Love
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2014 12:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ten Thousand Hours for Expertise
Dear Ken,
Thank you for your message.
There is a problem in what you ask. When you ask and interpret, you do so
from a particular point of view.
Your questions presume a particular outcome and your comfort at comparing
things with a particular way of proceeding you see as normal. Its better
if I don't answer your five questions and instead try to answer the spirit
of what you were asking.
The reason is the situation is a bit like me proposing someone might like to
try avocadoes and having responses such as: ' Avocadoes are the same colour
as the cabbage I like. Please tell me why I should eat them as they don't
have leaves' or 'Explain exactly how long I should boil the avocado'.
Instead here are sensible suggestions.
Simple arithmetic is simplistic viewed from the level of the school student.
The roles , understanding and usefulness of 'simple' arithmetical
operations becomes much more powerful as mathematical understanding
increases. This is much the same, but very different to, the way the same
words might be used to make a simple children's story or an advanced
allegorical teaching story. The difference depends on the understanding of
the creator.
As a more practical alternative to that presented in your 5 questions, I'd
suggest incremental inclusion of maths in conventional design courses,
starting with simple arithmetic examples and support in 1st year and
building mathematical conceptual richness and skill over the program, whilst
using an operationally -limited palette of mathematical concepts.
Probably the easiest starting point is simple proportions and ratios.
An example: What size typeface does a headline of a billboard have to be to
be read at 150 metres? (ratios from on-screen eye reading distance to 150
metres)
Second example: For largest percentile of individuals, how much stronger
does the heel counter of a shoe have to be relative to the anthropometric
norm? (ratios of leverage due to different scale of bones (1:1) and muscles
(square law))
Simple use of proportions can become quite complex.
Third example: As screen size decreases, information density increases for
a fixed web display, and cognitive effort increases in due to changes in
multiple factors (e.g. Fitts Law, font size, element size and proximity,
reduction in resolution etc). Using proportions estimate the differences in
properties of a webpage elements and content that need to be made to
maintain equivalent cognitive effort reducing from a Macbook Pro 15" to an
iphone 5 display.
Additionally, using proportions might be beneficially extended to simple
first order predicate logic (for avoiding basic fallacious reasoning),
combinatorics for visual element combinations (see www.designtheory.org ),
morphological analysis for design structures, and thence to simple
non-dimensional analysis for scaling successfully off existing design
solutions.
This would simply require some ongoing continuing professional development
for design educators. Something that one would expect as a matter of course?
All in fun and in the fullness of time in course development.
Incidentally, I was surprised about your comment about the guidelines for
design thinking I listed. The guidelines I gave for design thinking are in
common use in many areas of technical design (the largest group of design
fields) and used by all who use graphic design software as they are embedded
in e.g. Adobe products. They were earlier described by authors such as John
Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander, Nam Suh, Henri Petroski, Michael French,
Archer, Asimow, Nigel Cross, Dasgupta, W Gordon, and many others and are
explicit in codes such as VDI 2221. Hardly just my way of designing?
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, 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
[log in to unmask]
--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Sunday, 4 May 2014 7:01 AM
To: PHD-DESIGN PHD-DESIGN
Subject: Re: Ten Thousand Hours for Expertise
Dear Terry,
While your reply to my post restates your views, you have not made any kind
of effort to answer the five questions.
The book chapter on functional costing is an example of relatively simple
functional mathematics. Since all designers cost products and services, I'm
willing to concede that this skill might be useful to most designers -
though not, perhaps, vital to anyone with someone in a consultancy, firm, or
design team who handles the costings.
Your Guidelines for Design Thinking (Love 2010) apply specifically to your
own kind of design practice. This is a unique and narrow slice of design
practice.
My post on Monday (Friedman 2014a) addressed what I see as a problem in
these guidelines: "As I see it, you are making claims for your own specific
tradition of engineering design. But you are not making the claim that this
level of mathematics is solely for high-level engineering design. You are
arguing for mathematics as the foundation of all design. . You have
explained what sorts of skills fluent mathematics can enable, but you
haven't explained why most designers need these skills. . It seems to me
that you are essentially saying, 'Design would work better if everyone were
able to work as I [Terry Love] work.' "
This thread grew from your claim that designers require high-level
mathematical fluency, not workaday costings mathematics. You describe this
high-level fluency (Love 2014) as a capacity for "mastering abstraction and
meta-abstraction along with predicting dynamic behaviors in
multi-dimensional spaces, going beyond linear four-dimensional understanding
of the world, understanding and using limits and disjoints, moving between
discrete and continuous, combinatorics and design theory (different from
what is known as design theory in the design industry), understanding the
calculus of change and feedback, and moving between set and metrological
mapping of concepts."
Francois Nsenga, Martin Salisbury, and I have all asked you specific
questions. You haven't answered our questions, but merely restated your
original point in different ways. Once again, you've offered a specific
example of a workaday mathematical tool at a far lower level than the
fluent, expressive language of mathematics that you described. Then you
pointed us to your own guidelines. These do not make an argument for the
mathematics you describe. They are a statement of your approach to design.
These are not guidelines for design thinking - they are guidelines for those
who want to solve problems in the way that one designer thinks. These
guidelines work best for quantized problems in engineering design and
machine systems.
Your guidelines miss a specific aspect of design thinking: working with
people to solve human problems. The literature of design thinking emphasizes
iterative problem-solving with stakeholder interaction and rapid
prototyping. Your guidelines offer a normative problem-solving heuristic for
quantized problems. The value of an iterative approach with stakeholder
interaction and rapid prototyping is that you move repeatedly closer to
solving the real problem while learning about the virtues and faults of
different solutions. The problem of quantized engineering solutions to human
problems is that you can reach correct mathematical answers without solving
human problems.
In comparison, George Polya's (1973 [1957]) How to Solve It offers a far
richer and more robust set of heuristics for problem solving. Many of
Polya's rubrics apply to solving problems for people. Polya was a working
mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. He
wrote this book for mathematicians and mathematics students. Even so, these
are thinking tools, and Polya's propositions work well for many kinds of
problems, including problems that human beings can solve without using
mathematical tools. In contrast, your guidelines are specifically
mathematical and specifically require mathematics. To see the difference
compare Love (2010) with Polya's (1973 [1957]: xi-xv) rubrics.
For those who have not read Polya, I have posted a PDF copy to my Academia
page in the "Teaching Documents" section:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
This document will remain available through Monday, 6 May.
You have not yet answered any of the five questions I asked. Both Chuck
Burnette and Eduardo Corte-Real have answered them: if the answer to the
first question is that designers do not need these skills, there is no need
to answer the remainder.
While I tend to agree with Chuck and Eduardo, I'm of the view that a few
practicing designers may need these skills - very few, very few indeed, but
a few. Some percentage of researchers in different design fields may also
need mastery of fluent, expressive mathematics beyond the level of research
statistics that most should have, but these are also few in proportion to
the entire field of design research.
You are arguing for something more. You have stated that all designers will
benefit from high-level fluency (Love 2014) in mathematical language,
defined as a capacity for "mastering abstraction and meta-abstraction along
with predicting dynamic behaviors in multi-dimensional spaces, going beyond
linear four-dimensional understanding of the world, understanding and using
limits and disjoints, moving between discrete and continuous, combinatorics
and design theory (different from what is known as design theory in the
design industry), understanding the calculus of change and feedback, and
moving between set and metrological mapping of concepts."
Thus I ask you five questions:
(1) Are these skills important for ALL designers? If so, why? If not, why?
(2) If these skills are not important for all designers, for which designers
are these skills important? Why?
(3) Let us assume that this level of mathematical skill is important for
some group of designers, no matter how small. How are we to locate
appropriate cohorts of students who have the background required for mastery
in BOTH design and mathematics? Does anyone have an estimate of the size of
these cohorts on a worldwide basis?
(4) Let us assume that there is at least a cohort large enough for one such
class of designers. Let us assume that one university is willing to make the
required investment in developing such a program. What kinds of curriculum
do we require if we are to educate such students at university? How many
years will this take? What degrees will they earn?
(5) Conversely, let us assume the possibility that cohorts are too small to
make attracting students possible. Or let us assume the possibility that
such a program would be too expensive, even for an elite university. Is it
possible that we might meet the need for mathematically fluent designers by
simply allowing the right people to find there way into both fields?
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor |
Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | University email
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Private email
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830
462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University |
Shanghai, China ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook
University | Townsville, Australia
--
References
Friedman, Ken. 2014a. "Re: Maths, the language for everyone, including
(fine) artists?" PhD-Design List. Monday, 28 April 2014.
Love, Terence. 2014. "Re: Maths, the language for everyone, including (fine)
artists?" PhD-Design List. Friday 25 April, 2014.
Love, T. 2010. Guidelines for Design Thinking. Love Design and Research.
URL:
http://www.love.com.au/index.php/thoughts/20-guidelines-for-design-thinking
Date accessed 2014 May 4.
Polya, G. 1973 [1957]. How to Solve It. A New Aspect of Mathematical Method.
Second edition. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
--
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