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PHD-DESIGN  September 2014

PHD-DESIGN September 2014

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Subject:

Re: Design as taught in different kinds of institutions

From:

Terence Love <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 23:18:20 +0800

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Hi Don,
I know we've been here before. Its probably also worth pointing out that some of the better engineering design courses also include significant humanities and classical art-based design approaches, including user-focused design approaches. In some countries this is possible because the engineering degree is a year or two longer than other degrees. Often the software for design is the same (Catia Solidworks or whatever) for both kinds of design. One of the main differences is the increased focus on the use of mathematical methods, which offers particular benefits (and some problems also).
Cheers,
terry

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don Norman
Sent: Sunday, 28 September 2014 10:46 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: Design as taught in different kinds of institutions

​I retitled this thread to reflect the topic.  It is a good question.

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 4:55 AM, Marcela Machuca <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> ​Something that I'd wish to be able to see better is comparison 
> between Design programs embedded in Engineering schools, Art schools 
> and Humanities schools within Education institutions.
>

I have visited numerous design programs in all three of these categories and have taught in two of them (large universities (UC San Diego,
Northwestern) and engineering​ (Northwestern, KAIST) (and done guest lectures in another dozen of all forms).

My experience is that the categorization of those three different kinds of programs is coarse and simplistic, but it is not a bad first approximation for a discussion. But there is a fourth difference, which would be Engineering Design versus traditional design taught in an engineering/technology school (such as the schools of design at CMU, Georgia Tech, any of the TUs in Europe or Asia (TUE, TUD, TUM, ... ), KAIST, Hong Kong Polytech. There, my experience suggests, design is not engineering design but more traditional design.

In the USA, design in a traditional university means the students get a broader training in university topics (resulting in a somewhat lesser training in design). This is because in the US, the undergraduate degree is four years, roughly two of which are required courses that span the curriculum -- arts, humanities, math, science, literature. And this is because American universities assume the student enter the university ill-taught in these topics so they must complete that education in years 1 and 2.

Students in stand-alone schools, on the other hand, get almost no exposure to any other discipline except for the craft of design with the mild exception of a course on ergonomics or research methods and the ilk -- that is one or two scattered courses as opposed to a sequence that has some depth.

-----
Many countries assume far-better prepared students, so the university experience is entirely focussed upon the major. In the UK, for example, students have one more year of schooling prior to entering the university, so the university can concentrate entirely on the major. I know Americans who go to Oxford or Cambridge for their PhD because it is easier than in American universities: they can get it in 2 or
3 years (in science or technology subjects). In these schools, the students start with their research as soon as they enter -- basically they do not need to take any courses because it is assumed they already know the content matter.

In the US, the first few years of graduate school are spent taking courses, because here, we assume graduate students start knowing almost nothing of the subject.

(In the US, a graduate student is the same as a post-graduate in many other countries. Post graduate means after the first degree, In the US, it means people who have graduated with their first degree. In the US, a post graduate student is someone with a PhD who is still studying.)

---
Engineering design is a different beast, because it is primarily one of emphasis on technical matters, on mathematics, CAD, materials, and ensuring reliability, low cost, ...  Optimization is a focus.  Here is where students learn matrix methods fo comparing feature combinations, ranking and assigning weights and selecting the optimum combination (optimum defined rigorously (even if the weights are subjective -- this point is usually glossed over)).

Want a beautiful product -- get a traditionally-trained designer. Want hinges that hold up to the weight and are reliable and efficient, get an engineering designer.

In the US, many schools of product design and engineering design are in departments of mechanical engineering in engineering schools (Stanford, MIT, Purdue, ... )

Note that the US still has Industrial Design and in many European schools which join with engineering schools or are art of a technical university (e.g., RCA + Imperial College or TUDelft) it is called IDE -- Industrial Design Engineering.  Everyone i talk to hates the term "industrial design"
because that reflects the mindset of the mid 20th century that is wrong today. Nobody has a better name -- yet.)

-----
All this is a horrible oversimplification, and I have seen great well-balanced designers as well as not-so-great, narrowly focussed designers from all the different schools. There may well be more variability in the person than in the schools.d

CAVEAT: I know that many on this list will tell me my information is old, out of date, wrong, over-simplified, and misleading, demonstrating my biases and ignorance. I plead guilty to all those charges.

Don



Don Norman
Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego: Think Observe Make Prof. Emeritus Cognitive Science & Psychology, UCSD [log in to unmask]  www.jnd.org  <http://www.jnd.org/>

Join us for the Design Lab opening on October 1st! http://designlab.ucsd.edu


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