Dear Birger


I am another one in the category of design professionals advocating and
practicing scientific backed design (fine-art backed design is another
approach that has its own merits that fulfill other human evidence needs).
And on several occasions on this list, I mentioned David Sless’s work at
his Australia based Communication Research Institute, as one of the few
best evidenced design approach in the communication design subfield. I’ll
leave it up to David to remind us better his definition of EBD in
Communication. Contrary to your assertion that none among us has ever
provided a definition of EBD, David has repeatedly explained to us what he
and his team have been doing in Australia, for so many years now


On a several occasios also on this list, for over a decade now, I have
often given what I believe to be a definition of EBD, in the domain of my
expertise, i. e. the design subfield of product and service development.
Sorry for those who may be tired of me repeating again this but you’ll find
it in the report published in Design Issues: Volume 26, Number 4 Autumn
2010, pp. 57-70: The SIP System: A Design Research Concept at the
Paris Centre Beaubourg, 1973-1992.


I am therefore surprised that, for some reason or orientation, you seem not
having noted David’s definition, nor mine.


 Trained and inspired by the three French designers I worked with in the
70,s and the 80‘s, and I remain in touch with them until now, my definition
of, or the way I conceive and practice EBD, is in the answer I give to
those asking/challenging me as follows: ‘Prove to us that your artifact
proposal  is BETTER than those already in use, or better than any other
proposal anyone else would come up with’. My answer is always: ‘ First,
based on my current and proven knowledge, my design proposal is the
safetest in use thus far; secondly, it offers more advantages over
inevitable disadvantages in use than all other similar artifacts I have
tested’.  And the evidence of my assertion, i.e. my definition of EBD, lies
in proven knowledge, both scientific, technical, and mundane I have
gathered and assessed in regard to the safety first, and then to most of
other quality factors, both sience-y and art-y of my proposal.


I haven’t yet read Gjoko's manual, but I hope it includes as well a hint at
the method I report on in the reference above, that of ‘comparative
analysis of daily usage qualities of tangible arifacts’.


In spite of the fact that, for some reasons, this method remains unknown
to, and unused by designers, I nonetheless believe it is thus far the best
overall method to mining  artifactual knowledge and to assessing, i.e.
evidencing this with a view to proceed with better design, better
procurement, and better use of tangible artifacts of any level of
complexity.

​Francois
Kigali, Rwanda​

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 6:17 AM, Birger Sevaldson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>
> Again I am getting worried when EBD is a theme here at this list. My
> worries are not caused by the use of evidence in design but by the
> spreading belief that the use of evidence in design will become main
> stream, replacing designing with problem solving based on evidence, and
> becoming the dominating way of designing.
>
​(...)​


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------