Stephen

Thank you.

Boyd Davis, S., & Gristwood, S. (2017). A dialogue between the real-world
and the operational model — The realities of design in Bruce Archer’s 1968
doctoral thesis. *Design Studies, 11*.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2017.11.005
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2017.11.005>

The Design Studies article by you and Gristwood is wonderful.  It is more
complete than the one you shared earlier.  it also more completely
emphasizes the misgivings Archer had about his earlier work (and his
thesis).

In the year of his death, Archer wrote of ‘the conflict and pain that
theorists and practitioners experience during the transition from one
paradigm to another’ (Archer, 2005
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X17300893#bib28>).
We have shown how Archer abandoned some of the key assumptions of his early
approaches. The linearity which at first seemed sufficient to give design a
rigorous basis in terms of both data and method had to give way to more
refined, and realistic, approaches. While Archer had always acknowledged
the role of the ‘creative leap’ (Archer, 1963–64
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X17300893#bib15>:
Part five), one senses his relief on finding that philosophers of science
too recognised the role of intuition and of early tentative solutions.
Archer never ceased to use phrases such as ‘science of design’ and ‘a
science for design’, but what he came to mean by such terms had altered
almost beyond recognition; his 1968 thesis is a pivotal document within
that change of view.


I was particularly taken by this statement from your paper:

 In Honest Styling (Archer, 1957c) Archer makes the telling remark that the
manufacturer has considered ‘not merely a machine, but a man/machine/work
system’ and notes with approval that its dial has ‘been redesigned close to
principles enunciated by the Applied Psychology Research Unit, Cambridge,
and was developed with the aid of advice obtained from the RAF Institute of
Aviation Medicine, Farnborough’.


I spent a sabbatical at the Applied Research Unit in Cambridge (England).
In fact, it was my experiences with English water taps and the stark
contradictions between the principles espoused by the APU and the complete
lack of interest by the memebers of the APU in applying those principles,
even to their own building, that caused me to write "The Psychology of
Everyday Things" while in residence there (later on, the book was retitled
to replace "Psychology" with "Design").

====
I would have been more sympathetic to Archer's thesis had I seen your
Design Studies article (or had I read your earlier paper with more care). I
sympathize with Archer. After all, I was an engineer, steeped in
formalism.  I, too, talk about a "science of design," but I have not
succeeded as much as I hoped. I completely subscribe to this quotation from
your paper:

On first studying the thesis, one might sense a simple transition: that
Archer as a mechanical engineer was attempting to scientise design. But the
preceding material modifies this view. Archer’s original emphasis was on
the need for creative design in engineering. He was arguing for rigour, not
confined to scientific rigour, in industrial practice. Design decisions
should be based where appropriate on objective data, and calculation used
to identify the limits on optimal designs. No process would provide a
single best solution. He assumed that the designer's vision preceded any
application of logic. There is a strong emphasis on the commercial world,
of survival and success in international markets, and the inadequacy of
current management.


Yes, that is what I sensed in reading the thesis.  And the rest of the
paragraph describes my own philosophy.

So, again: thank you

Don

-- 
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
[log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/  www.jnd.org  <http://www.jnd.org/>


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