Half of Don Norman’s argument seems to be
"Evidence-Based Design! (well, only at certain times and places in the design process, the ones that are more science-y and less artsy)”
(I wish I had the agency to tell ‘clients’ which bits of my process should be exempt from the colonizing empire of the evidential - perhaps that requires an ego-genius designer.)
The argument that remains to be made is whether negotiations of (social) complexity (the kinds of ones at stake in X-factor wicked problems) are then science-y or artsy (delaying for now questions of the usefulness let alone the accuracy of such distinctions). If that complexity is a result of the Observer Effect (lay ‘Heisenberg’) - being in the system you are trying to understand/change means that attempts to understand the system change the system in ways that are not readily understandable - then appeals to evidential science-y-ness seem not only mistaken but dangerous - i.e., procrustean.
(On whether ‘usefulness’ is amenable to science-y evidence, see Woolgar on the way user trials configure users: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03349.x/abstract; and Michl on ‘The Rumour of Functional Perfection’: http://janmichl.com/eng.rumor.html.)
The other half of the argument seems to be
“Evidence-based Design! (well, according to my definition of ‘evidence’)”
> On Jan 2, 2016, at 11:32 AM, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As for what metrics we use -- that all depends.
>
> ... we are careful not to jump to conclusions, to make sure we are studying
> the right issues, and not to rush to metrics -- metrics come after we know
> what we will be doing.
>
>
> This interchange might also help clarify how I use evidence.
(Again, I wish had the Authority to Warrant my own version of what counts as Evidence when and where and how - but then I am not sure that gets at what the word ‘evidence’ tries to mean.)
The (meta)argument that remains to be made then concerns the evidential basis for certain types of evidence-based-ness. At that point, many researchers engaged with (social) complexity, especially in the realm of futures, have opted instead for post-normal science, 4th generation evaluation, etc, discourses that foreground the need for building collectives/alliances (networks - see Latour et al) about what counts as acceptable (usefulness, risk, cost/benefit). Those efforts - which are not helpfully understood as science-y or artsy - seem to me [warrant: ego] much more promising models for designers attempting participate in enabling systems-level transitions.
Cameron
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