Dear Birger,
As a friend of Terry Love and a colleague who has debated these issues with him on-list and in private, I sent Terry's post to the list because it was a generous and reasonable comment. (Full disclosure: Terry and I exchange off-list notes on different topics every couple of days, sometimes the two of us, sometimes in a larger cycle.)
Terry isn’t saying that NO designers have this knowledge. He is saying that designers require this knowledge to design effectively in this domain.
Terry has something valuable to add to this conversation. Joël asked for examples of research on these issues — Terry offered a useful string of examples from fields that do exactly what Joël asked about.
There is ample evidence for cases where engineers and engineering design specialists neglect human factors — and cases where other kinds of designers lack technical knowledge that can help them in their design work. I did not think that Terry was listing the shortcomings of those other designers in his note to Joël and me. Rather, he was saying, “these are some of the ways that we can solve the problems that interest you.”
I thought Terry’s note makes sense and I think that your reply makes sense. Terry was not describing shortcomings, but rather addressing a key area that none of the others among us addressed in our replies to Joël.
Warm wishes,
Ken
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
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Birger Sevaldson wrote:
—snip—
Another serious question is if engineers can can operate only with the superficial meanings and without understanding the real depth and complication of interactions, user experience, cultural and social expressions and aesthetics. The answer is definitly no they cant. They have had ample time to demonstrate their monumental shortcomming .
My point is all knowledge comes at the cost of something and at the gain for something else. We need to work together and suplement and contrast each others knowledge. Yet another listing of the shortcoming of the designers starts to get really boring. But maybe the interaction design people here can answer this better. As far as i understood the field emerged as a reaction to HCI.
—snip—
—
Terry Love wrote:
—snip—
“Many of the design issues presented by the Internet of Things networks are well known in industrial process fields. These include instrumentation, for example instrumentation in oil and gas, or in aerospace; packaging systems; automated process and manufacturing control; large scale environmental engineering — the original meaning of the term referring to supply of prepared water, clean air, air conditioning and heating in buildings; security and OHS networks and control systems. As well, there are the main theoretical foundation of non-linear control systems and non-linear control theory, but this only becomes accessible to those who have really good maths.
“Fundamentally the network issues in Internet of Things are technical relationships and networked systems. We sometime give these issues simplified meanings to make them easier to discuss in a generalist context. This also makes it possible for people without a technical background to engaged in the discussion without needing to understand the real technical depth and complication that these forms of design require.
“The serious question is whether designers involved with the Internet of Things can operate only with the superficial meanings and without understanding the real technical depth and complication of the problems.”
—snip—
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