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PHD-DESIGN  July 2015

PHD-DESIGN July 2015

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Subject:

Expertise in Design and the Risk Backlash for Gaps in Knowledge

From:

Ken Friedman <[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:

Thu, 2 Jul 2015 12:35:32 +0200

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Dear Erik, 

Your reply to Don Norman hits a problematic nail on the head. You diverges from the earlier thread to raise a significant new issue — expert knowledge and skill in designing, and you point to a major coming problem that occurs when designers cannot do an effective job designing the solutions they sell. Since I focus on that problem rather than the way that designed artefacts “[give] design the wrong reputation,”  I have changed the subject header to a specific thread: “Expertise in Design and the Risk of Backlash for Gaps in Knowledge.”

Rather than discussing products, you address the issue of design thinking and change. This involves the question of how to design in general. The common notion of general design involves “designing as consisting of some practical steps and techniques that anyone can easily adopt and use.” This approach involves designing on a relatively simple basis without testing the designed artefact in its context of use. Whatever the artefact or context may be, there is a notion that designers — whoever they are, and however they are trained — can use creative capacity to solve a wide range of problems. In contrast, you point to the possibility of what we can call evidence-based design. 

To design well, we must understand the designed artefact, process, service, or system, we must understand the context of use, and we must understand the human consequences of what we design. What makes this topic particularly relevant to the PhD-Design list is that most people acquire these skills in post-graduate education, in doctoral programs, or in the world of professional practice. While you do not use the word, you note the increasing problem of professional malpractice in design, malpractice arising from the lack of appropriate knowledge and skill.   

Design involves general principles and issues common to all design practice. At the same time, each range of target problems requires a specific range of information, knowledge, and skills. Professional design requires expertise as well as creativity.

We often discuss design in terms of creativity. To do so requires an understanding of the difference between the deep creativity required to identify genuine needs and problems, and move from this to design robust creative solutions. In this sense, creativity arises from the nature of the problem at hand. Creativity requires understanding and addressing the problem. In the words of the Danish designer Jens Bernsen, “the problem comes first.” Second, deep creativity is demonstrated by fitness for purpose. This requires hearing and understanding the needs of those whose problem the designer must solve: stakeholders, clients, end-users, citizens, or others. Third, genuine creativity involves the often difficult balance between immediacy and durability, between expedience and elegance, between constraint and possibility. This last series of challenges is daunting, and it describes the difference between the work of a journeyman and the work of a master.

In this case, your post points to the problem of designing complex adaptive systems, organisations, and socio-technical systems. Mastery in these fields is difficult and challenging. It requires a far wider range of skills, and a deeper background than most design schools provide. As I see it, this is one reason that design belongs in the university — people who work with third order and fourth order design must draw on many fields, and they need a wider education than design schools usually afford. 

While Don did not address these issues here, he did write about them in an essay titled, “Why Design Education Must Change,” and in two subsequent essays, one with Scott Klemmer. 

http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/why_design_education.html

Your statement suggests the chickens that will likely come home to roost if we do not accept the consequences of these problems. For that matter, Don and Scott offer a good starting point for the conversation on “How Design Education Must 

The other day, I was talking with a colleague at a non-governmental organisation that uses design methods to solve major global problems within the United Nations systems. He was discussing the same problem you mentioned — [Erik wrote:] “I think there will be a serious negative development around ‘design thinking’ in the next few years, hopefully this will make it possible for us to develop a more stable and deeply rooted understanding and philosophy of a 'true' designerly approach.”

My colleague discussed these issues in a slightly different way. He said that many people lacking requisite skills attempt using design methods to solve wicked problems and problems in third-order and fourth-order design. The problem is that they don’t know how to frame the questions they pose. They lack responsible methods for identifying problems and moving toward solutions. As a result, they fail to generate appropriate solutions. I suggest the analogy of a skilled sociologist attempting to design a museum catalog, or an excellent graphic designer trying to design a computer chip. 

My friend also pointed to the common confusion that appears when designers confuse the attributes of creativity with viable methods. For example, designers often speak about the importance of empathy and understanding human beings. My colleague offered an example where this method breaks down: “The idea that you can address the problem of maritime piracy through empathy is nonsense. Most people cannot put themselves in the place of a real pirate, someone willing to plunder, rape, and kill. In our terms, these people are psychopaths. Normal people cannot feel as they feel or think as they think. Empathy is not a method.” The same is true of warlords, people who manage the blood diamond mines, and hit men for the mob such as Whitey Bulger. 

It is difficult for human beings to glimpse differences in world views even among relatively benign people. During my graduate work — nearly half a century ago — I read a book by the social psychologist Milton Rokeach titled The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Rokeach described a fascinating series of encounters between three patients in a mental hospital. Each believed himself to be Jesus Christ. The book is compassionate, and entertaining at the same time that it is startling and profound. Hannah Arendt once described the value of fiction as a way to allow the imagination to go visiting. This book and others like it allow the imagination to go visiting through an effort to portray the truth of another world. This is possible through many ways of understanding different human worlds. Nevertheless, it is one thing to imagine such a world, and another totally to design policies to change the real world based on what we imagine.

Like you, my friend believes that the reputation of design approaches to major problems is going to be hit hard in the client organisations that see the wreckage of incompetent design practice. While technocratic and managerialist consultants have also done badly in many cases, they have the advantage of being situated within the global system of governments, NGOs, not-for-profits, businesses, and the others for whom they work. Designers have been seeking a footing in this system, and they are held to a higher standard of evidence to demonstrate that their approach is effective. Thus the backlash you describe.  

A few years back, I had the odd experience of talking with a PhD student about his thesis. He was a refugee from a nation that had descended from bloody dictatorship into violent war. At the time I met him, he had become a citizen of another nation where he worked as a design teacher. He was writing a PhD thesis using design methods to solve the problems of his native land. My first question was whether he had had any experience in policy design, government, politics, or military strategy. The answer was no. He had always been a designer. My second question was whether he had any background in social or cultural anthropology, social psychology, international relations, or political science. The answer was no. He had always studied design, and most of his work as a designer had actually been as a design teacher rather than a professional designer. My third question was when he had last visited his homeland. The answer was that he had left over two decades before and he had not returned since.

He completely lacked the knowledge, skills, and methods to approach a problem of this scale and complexity. Not only that, he did not even have the direct on-the-ground knowledge one would expect of any designer attempting to solve a simple problem for a normal client. His aspiration was benign: he wanted to “help [his] country.” In reality, his lack of capacity would have created more problems than his proposals could have solved. In other words, he would have been acting out of the same ignorance and lack of skill that several international organisations and armies demonstrated in making the situation of his former country worse, rather than better.

What astonished me was that no one at his university apparently understood this. His thesis supervisor and the people at the graduate school seemed to think of this as a bold, significant research project demonstrating the power of design. The methodological flaws and gaps in knowledge would have failed this project as an undergraduate paper in any of the disciplines on which it touched — social or cultural anthropology, social psychology, international relations, or political science. It was exactly the kind of project that causes others to question the professional skills of many designers who are moving into systems design, designing solutions to wicked problems, or designing solutions for social challenges.  

When we design for human beings, what we do has consequences. I appreciate you raising this issue, and the coming backlash that you expect for gaps in expertise. 

Yours,

Ken

p.s. For those who wish my views on these issues, I addressed some of them in an article titled “Models of Design” and in a 1997 book chapter titled “Design Science and Design Education.” Both are available at my Academia.edu page at URL: 

https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia

—

Erik Stolterman wrote:

—snip—

Well, you raise a good point here. I have for some time said that even though design has over the last decades gained recognition there will probably be a backlash. To me, the cause of the backlash will be triggered by many among those who engage in 'design thinking' as a 'quick fix’ and that will end up with disappointing results.

I believe that what is (will) causing this is the misunderstanding of designing as consisting of some practical steps and techniques that anyone can easily adopt and use. It is as if people would adopt the ‘scientific method’ to solve their problems but be disappointed when the method does not deliver. We all know that for a successful use of the scientific approach there is a need for a lot of training and knowledge about how and when to apply certain methods, tools and techniques. There is also a need for a developed judgment about the scientific approach, its purpose, its
character, its practice, its limitations, etc.

If we understand designing or a designerly approach similarly as a broad approach to inquiry and change then we can see why todays simplistic understanding of 'design thinking' will lead to the kind of results that you (Don) comment on in your post. And it will lead to a backlash when people will argue that they ‘tried it’ but it does not work. No one would argue that 'I tried the scientific method but it doesn't work' or 'I tried an artistic approach but it did not work' so there must be something wrong with the approach. I think there will be a serious negative development around 'design thinking’ in the next few years, hopefully this will make it possible for us to develop a more stable and deeply rooted understanding and philosophy of a 'true' designerly approach.

—snip—


 


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