Hi Ken,
Thank you for your comments.
I suggest it doesn't require ANY empirical work. Rather it involves careful analysis and reasoning about the nature of particular theory types and their predictive behaviours and limitations.
The territory is well travelled - but not yet in Design.
The issues I raised that you refer to below are background, setting the scene rather than items to be proven or not. They are already well established issues.
Perhaps you are right that interest in meta-analysis of design theories is low.
However, you are mistaken, that it needs specific theories to test - that’s based on the assumption that theory is built from data.
In this case, as in most disciplines, theory is based on reasoning from other theory.
Meta-analysis of the predictive behaviours of theories at key points is standard theory test practice.
Similarly, categorising theories and their predictive behaviours and abilities in terms of their structural characteristics is standard practice.
Identifying the necessary co-relation betrwen the characteristics of factors included in theories and the theories themselves is also standard theory analysis.
I seem to remember we did these things in 1st year but it might be second or third year undergraduate - around 1972.
It doesn't feel to me like this is new stuff or that it requires deep general analysis of theory construction.
On the claim I made that ' that it is possible calculate exactly how big the set is (i.e exactly how many different colours) for each design scenario' I'd like to point out that firstly, the main issue isn't dependent on this. Second, I'd suggest it is eminently feasible. The method is: a) set out the parameters of a specific unambiguously defined scenario; b) measure the discrimination of colour in all the factors that affect it; c) convert to bands of wavelength; and, e) process the information about discrimination in terms of bands of wavelength relative to the visual spectrum to identify how many distinguishable colours bands are found.
On Blumer, He is writing with his focus on the empirical world. That’s his bias, and is a different focus from the theory world.
'Strong reasons' are a matter of the theory world. In essence, the observable world is only incidentally relevant to theory production. I suggest you are mistaken in your interpretation on this.
I agree that empirical evidence is useful to calibrate theory, but evidence is almost irrelevant to the structure and form of theories.
Best wishes,
Terence
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, PMACM, MISI
Love Services Pty Ltd
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Best wishes,
Terence
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Saturday, 20 February 2016 7:20 PM
To: PhD-Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Assume fixed number of colours in design?
Dear Terry,
Thanks for this reply. It discloses your interests and assumptions. That makes your earlier query understandable. With this as a frame, I can respond to your earlier question: “Is it better to assume as an axiom in making design theory that colour always comprises a set of fixed colours rather than assuming colour as being a continuous spectrum?”
There is no reason to assume such an axiom. Neither is there an argument against such an axiom. Given all the factors you raise in your reply — copied below — there is no way to answer your question. To answer this question requires serious empirical work.
You also raise a set of broad problems in the philosophy of science.
There are differences between and among the (1) real world, (2) how we represent the world in models, maps, or theories, (3) the actual models, maps, or theories we use to represent there world, (4) how we perceive and understand different theories, (5) how we perceive and understand any specific theory, (6) how we perceive and understand theory as a construct (7) representations of theory, that is theory as we write it, (8) the nature of theory construction, (9) how we choose the characteristics of theory, (10) what these characteristics entail, (11) how the characteristics of any theory influences or shapes other theories, (12) the abstract nature or qualities of theory in general. The way I have distinguished among these is different to your formulation, since you don’t cover most of these points.
Rather, you wrote: "A third issue is that it seems important also to distinguish between, and consider separately, the real world, theory as perceived, representations of theory (theory written down) , theory as its abstract self (different from the previous two), how characteristics of theory are shaped, and how characteristics of theories shape other things (typically other theories).”
All of this presumes a careful and explicit inquiry in the philosophy of science and in the art of theory construction. The articles (Blumer 1969, Friedman 2003, Sutton and Staw 1995, Varian 1997) posted to the teaching papers section of my Academia page address these issues. These article do not offer a complete discussion of all 12 points, but they are a beginning. The articles are available at URL:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
The discussion so far suggests to me that people find the colour question interesting, but no one seems to be interested in a meta-analysis of theories. Martin Salisbury and David Sless brought forward some issues in the meta-analysis of theory, albeit under a different name. But that’s not the core issue in your question. Since you haven’t discussed specific theories or their outcomes, you weren’t engaged in meta-analysis. Neither did you engage in the general analysis of theory construction — you merely refer to it in your answer to me.
The core issue involves an empirical question. To answer this empirical question, you must test these assumptions to see whether it is better to “assume as an axiom in making design theory that colour always comprises a set of fixed colours rather than assuming colour as being a continuous spectrum.”
You are asking a reasonable question. But you aren’t testing the question. You are making assumptions and hypotheses that you phrase as “suggestions.” You then proceed as though your hypothetical assumptions are true. On the assumption that your hypothesis is true or correct, you derive the conclusions that you would reach *if* your hypothesis were true or correct. This is circular reasoning. You offer no evidence from the real world to show that your hypothetical assumptions are true or correct. It is only in the real world that you can find the strong reasons you claimed earlier:
“There seem to be strong reasons in theory and practice to make this assumption, and that it is possible calculate exactly how big the set is (i.e exactly how many different colours) for each design scenario.”
This is not a meta-theoretical analysis. This is an empirical truth claim.
You refer to strong reasons in theory and practice. You claim both theoretical reasons and practical applications. Only evidence on this point will demonstrate whether your reasons are strong enough enough to justify the assumption in practice. There might be equally good ways to proceed in practice. To make a serious theoretical determination also requires evidence.
You made a scientific truth claim. This claim requires empirical evidence. There is no way to determine whether you are right or wrong in the absence of evidence from the real world.
Based on your reply, I understand what you are trying to say. You do not present enough evidence to reach a conclusion. This is rather like one of those hypothetical essay questions used to determine which students are capable of clever rationalising: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Discuss.”
Your post — below — seems to make truth claims involving physics, optics, psychology, and psychophysics. With proper research and carefully framed question, it should be possible to test the implications of these claims for graphic design, communication design, interaction design, and human-computer interaction. Based on the results of these tests, it should be possible to develop testable hypotheses for design theory and design practice.
In addition, you make rhetorical claims about theory construction in general and the philosophy of science.
Now that I understand better what you intended to say, these are my thoughts. It does not seem to me that you are doing meta-analysis. You are positing truth claims based on untested assumptions. These are not suggestions in any genuine sense. That is, there is no available evidence for the suggestions you draw from your untested assumptions. Instead, you are making assumptions and drawing conclusions from these assumptions as if they were true.
This is not a way to create useful theory, certainly no scientific theory.
Herbert Blumer (1969:24) argues that any science must begin with “the possession and use of a prior picture or scheme of the empirical world under study.” You’ve got a prior picture in the form of your assumptions. But the empirical world demands that we test our assumptions. You haven’t done this. You taken your assumptions as true, ascribing to these untested assumptions the character of “strong reasons.”
Blumer asserts that the obdurate character of the empirical world, and nothing else, must eventually answer scientific question to render scientific inquiry valid.
Blumer (1969: 21) writes, "an empirical science presupposes the existence of an empirical world. Such an empirical world exists as something available for observation, study, and analysis. It stands over against the scientific observer, with a character that has to be dug out and established through observation, study, and analysis. This empirical world must forever be the central point of concern. It is the point of departure and the point of return in the case of empirical science. It is the testing ground for any assertions made about the empirical world. Reality for empirical science exists only in the empirical world, can be sought only there, and can be verified only there.”
Since there is no reason to agree with your assumptions, it is impossible to *assume* the value of an “axiom in making design theory that colour always comprises a set of fixed colours rather than assuming colour as being a continuous spectrum.”
In design practice, I observe that skilled designers use colour effectively in print and packaging, on the web and computers, in film and television without the assumptions you claim, perhaps with no assumptions whatsoever. Where designers do use colour theory, I also see that skilled designers draw their ideas from such thinkers as Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Bauhaus, and — as Mike Zender recently pointed out to me — from Josef Albers, all to good effect, as well as from the approaches built into the different colour systems. And some designers use colour very well without thinking it through at all.
Many believe, as I do, that the design field can benefit from serious theory development. This requires attending responsibly to the philosophy science, and it requires that we test any theory based on empirical claims. Serious theory and serious meta-analysis don’t work when we take our assumptions as facts.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | 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
—
References
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism. Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., pp. 1-60.
Friedman, Ken. 2003. “Theory construction in design research: criteria, approaches, and methods.” Design Studies, 24 (2003), 507–522. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(03)00039-5
Sutton, Robert I., and Barry M. Staw. 1995. "What Theory is Not." Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep.), pp. 371-384
Varian, Hal R. 1997. “How to Build and Economic Model in Your Spare Time.” The American Economist, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Fall), pp. 3-10.
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