Hi Terry,
I think your comment about PhDs being used to further new design theory is
an important one.
These days many countries have the traditional Doctor of Philosophy (PhD,
DPhil) as well as professional doctorates (e.g. DDes, Doctor of Design).
PhDs are meant to create professional researchers, and ProfDocs researching
professionals. PhDs have to have rigor, ProfDocs rigor and relevance. PhDs
should make a contribution to theory and ProfDocs a contribution to
practice.
At the end of a doctorate it should as you suggest be an ideal outcome that
the candidate has defined their own grand narrative (i.e. meta-narrative).
If one is to interpret PhDs as distinct from ProfDocs then should it not be
mandatory for a PhD student researching design to actually contribute to
design theory as you suggest?
Best Wishes,
Jonathan
On Friday, 18 September 2015, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Sonia and all,
>
> I feel there is a significant difference between 'creating a machine to
> pretend to be a designer' and 'creating a machine to create designs'.
>
> Underpinning the first idea, that a machine could pretend to be a
> designer, is the assumption that there is a single human way to design.
>
> I suggest there is not, or rather, that there are many ways that humans
> undertake activities of creating designs and NONE of them are the ways that
> humans perceive themselves to be undertaking the creating of designs.
>
> The reality is our internal physical processes by which we create designs
> are very varied and none are as we perceive them subjectively.
>
> How we humans actually undertake the internal activities that result in
> designs is very different from what we subjectively perceive what we do.
>
> In fact, the 'stories about how we create designs' that we subjectively
> deduce are more like a 'tales for children' picture of the world. They are
> not true.
>
> I've suggested elsewhere many times on phd-design that attempting to build
> design theory and undertake design research based on such designers' or
> others' subjective perceptions is both unhelpful and false.
>
> The idea of instructing a machine to pretend to be a human designer goes
> down that path.
>
> We have to stop using human-centred and designer-centred perspectives as
> the basis for undertaking design research and creating design theory.
>
> It should have been obvious by now that it doesn't work but there seems to
> be a blindness about it.
>
> Meanwhile, the successful design research goes on elsewhere; automating
> designers tasks, reducing the number of designers needed, and making design
> education less and less relevant except as training in software use and
> looking backwards to design history.
>
> I feel that as design researchers we can and should do better.
>
> This will require dropping much of the existing and traditional
> perspectives and theories on design, especially dropping the use of
> designers' or others' subjective perceptions of what they do when creating
> designs.
>
> I suggest it is time and now urgent that we have a radical change, a new
> direction in design research and design theory. It will require making a
> break with the majority of the academic literature in this area over the
> last 50 years.
>
> For many of us established researchers, this will make substantial parts
> of our past work irrelevant.
>
> For new PhD researchers, this is now an opportunity to break with the past
> mess of design theory and create successful new forms of design theory.
>
> It will be a challenge to stand up to supervisors and examiners trying to
> reshape everything backwards to protect themselves.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
>
> --
> Dr Terence Love
> PhD (UWA), B.A. (Hons) Engin, PGCE. FDRS, MISI
> 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] <javascript:;>
> --
>
> Snip>
> if we had to tell a machine to pretend to be a designer, what would we
> say? would we know what to tell to the machine?
> how much could we advance in design research by attempting to do so?
>
>
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--
--
Jonathan Bishop
BSc(Hons), MSc, MScEcon, LLM,
FRSS, FRAI, FRSA, FCLIP, FBCS,
MIMarEST, MIEEE, MACM, MIET,
ICTTech, CITP
Author of over 75 research publications.
Editor of: Examining the Concepts, Issues and Implications of Internet
Trolling; Transforming Politics and Policy in the Digital Age; Gamification
for Human Factors Integration: Social, Educational and Psychological
Issues; Psychological and Social Implications Surrounding Internet and
Gaming Addiction; and Didactic Strategies and Technologies for Education:
Incorporating Advancements.
Envoyé par mon ordinateur
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