Dear Lubomir,
Thank you for this injection of wisdom. I agree with every word.
I am only confused by your final paragraph. Are you suggesting that a definition of 'design' is or isn't valuable? I have seen many suggestions on this list, most commonly Herbert Simon's idea of the verb to design - 'to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones', which seems to include anyone who has a plan about anything, but doesn't tell as what a designer is. Is there a danger of the academic 'field' of design research becoming increasingly remote from the profession of 'designer', as the term is generally understood?
Martin
Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration
Director, The Centre for Children's Book Studies
Cambridge School of Art
0845 196 2351
[log in to unmask]
http://www.cambridgemashow.com
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Lubomir Savov Popov [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 8:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What makes a iPhone an iPhone
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to hinge on Martin's quotation of Terry: "In design research terms, being aware of the full breadth of design activity beyond one's specialism seem to also be practically useful - not least in avoiding bias...." (Terry, I respect your first move to highlight this important issue. And Ken, I respect your restraint in this conversation -- I know you can put better the things I am righting below.)
I have abstained of taking part in this vibrant discussion, but after several days of following, I changed my mind. One reason--might be able to help, a little bit and stop this chaotic exchange of ideas. In the long run, the discussion might be very helpful because of the production of numerous ideas, but all that goes without a compass and might create more information noise than a productive solution.
It is all about the full breath of design activities that we have to comprehend, then consider, and then see how our own design ideas inscribe in any of the 800 design fields/disciplines (some one of use have cited such number).
The current discussion was flawed ontologically and methodologically from the very beginning.
The biggest flaw: treating Design as one monolith phenomenon. I know that most of you will disagree with me just they have done that over the last 20 years, but will still persist and continue saying that Design is an umbrella term for hundreds of fields or disciplines. Each of these fields has different relationship to human experience. Each has different use of a discipline like aesthetics and categories like beauty and ugliness.
Most people in this discussion talk from the standpoint of their own design field and design experience and make conclusions that are pertinent to their field (maybe?) but at the same time spread these conclusions to all (almost) other fields and in practical terms they claim universal truth for all field of design. Then experts from a distant field will naturally object and make a counter argument based on their own experience and research pertinent to their own field.
The only ground which is common for all of us is philosophy of design. After that, we start diverging from our common ground and getting into more idiosyncratic problem situations that can be resolved using philosophy of design guidelines, but require more specific thinking. At that point, we cannot claim universal truth. There are might be clusters or constellations of design fields that are close together. Such clusters can share more ideas. But there are clusters so different that it is difficult for them to adopt and adapt even general design ideas.
The bottom line: Until we do not properly discuss what is design, what are the different areas of design, and what are their specifics, all conversations like this one will not be very efficient, to state it mildly. And there are many other fundamental issues we need to clarify, but let's start with this one.
Lubomir
Lubomir Popov, PhD, FDRS, IDEC, CSP
Professor, School of Family and Consumer Sciences
American Culture Studies affiliated faculty
Bowling Green State University
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Salisbury, Martin
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 2:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What makes a iPhone an iPhone
Dear Terry,
You say:
"In design research terms, being aware of the full breadth of design activity beyond one's specialism seem to also be practically useful - not least in avoiding bias...."
It's hard to disagree with this. It's also hard to see how the avoidance of bias is facilitated by plucking a random "1%" from the ether in order to value (or rather attempt to belittle) the contribution of a specialism beyond one's own?
Best regards,
Martin
Professor Martin Salisbury
Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration Director, The Centre for Children's Book Studies Cambridge School of Art
0845 196 2351
[log in to unmask]
http://www.cambridgemashow.com
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Terence Love [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 5:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What makes a iPhone an iPhone
Dear Ken,
Useability of an iphone isn't that great... When it arrived it was better than the old Nokias and that was a huge advance at the time.
I suggest nowadays the primary role of the aesthetic aspects of the iphone is in the realm of status rather than useability. Much the same as the earlier role of 'styling'.
For day to day practical use Windows phones currently seem to me to be best on usability terms (though they sold badly). I own and use Apple, Android and Windows phones and for practicality, and particularly for photography, pick up the Windows phone rather than the others. The main role for the iphone seems to be for playing music via Pandora - the sound system is designed to fit an iphone.
Earlier, I was simply making the point that aesthetics and useability isn't the whole of the design activity for a product. I was cautioning that in design theory terms if one is focused on appearance and aesthetics it is often easy to overlook the huge amount of technical design activity.
Without that technical design activity any product such as an iphone is no more than a well styled box.
In design research terms, being aware of the full breadth of design activity beyond one's specialism seem to also be practically useful - not least in avoiding bias....
Best regards,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Wednesday, 5 July 2017 11:45 AM
To: PhD-Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: What makes a iPhone an iPhone
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