Purpose of the course: “Try to understand design in the best possible way.” My own private design identity.

Friedman – Theory construction in design research: criteria: approaches, and methods

Design Theory

What is a theory?
• Hypothesis
• Idealized Model
• Model: Structured / Depiction / Prediction
• Elements
• Components and relationships that make up an item
• Define the process / flow
• Situation / Condition
• Models try to depict situations in real life / reality
• What is reality?
• Is there a disconnect between Theory and Practice?
• Why Idealized?
• Simplified – A model usually describes several things in reality. “What is the universal aspect of its elements?” (This could mean there are things in each that doesn’t fit.)
• Abstracted – We don’t look at “everything.” We take a lot of the details away and focus on the most interesting thing. (Remember, reality is the most perfect model of something. The more precise you try to make something the more complex it becomes.)
• Why Abstract?
• By choosing a model it allows you to simplify the model in order to see common themes
• How do you pick the common themes?
• Look at the things you see regularly in your research.
• Why do you Need a Theory?
• The theory is the foundation: Save Time / Money / Frustration
• If you don’t have some sort of foundation, the only way to understand if something is particularly useful you have to try it.
• If you do have a model, you can analyze something with that model and recognize much more quickly if its worth using / trying / etc.
• Why do some people need a lot more time when analyzing something than others?
• Its not that one is necessarily faster than the other, its that one person has a better understanding of theory / model.
• What are the dangers
• Oversimplification
• Applying the wrong model to the wrong (or right) thing
• How do models connect with design?
• 2 movements:
• In Science and Research, we create more knowledge in the form of models and theories that are based on reality.
• In Design the whole point is to do something with reality. Design always ends in reality by changing it. Its not a model of reality, but the real thing.
• Design works with the particular, and Science/Research works with the universal.
• Prototyping is the reverse of abstracting (Designers = Prototype / Researchers = Abstract)
• Which, by the way, is not to say that a designer doesn’t research and a researcher doesn’t design.
• Dewey – Pragmatism
• Problems with truth being an abstract, strange thing that was impossible to reach.
• Tried to think of truth as related to practice and outcome
• Maybe, truth is related to results?
• Have a theory
• Use that theory
• Get expected result
• Is that the truth?
• If a theory is good, is it incredibly helpful and practical. (“There is nothing more practical than a good theory.”)
• If you have a bad theory, it just confuses you.
• Does Design Process = Theory?
• Every design process, or designer, has a theory for the particular project they are working on. The process is what you do as a designer.
• In many cases, the theories aren’t as visible as they might be (the designer might not even realize it). But, they are there. They do have basic principles, they do have ideas, they do have models.
• Perhaps more appropriate to call it a “Design Philosophy.”
• A design philosophy is different than Design Philosophy
• Does design suffer since it was born from so many disciplines?
• The practice of design has always been around… Now though, we are starting to establish a sort of theory of design…
• Much of that theory comes from Computer Science and Psychology. Both of which, already have a lot of their own theories.
• HCI is not psychology… but it is also not computation.
• As a result, there are drastically different approaches to design.

Cross – Forty Years of Design Research

5 Minutes on Design History
• The Greeks wrote a famous book on architecture hundreds of years ago. Made distinction between form, function and structure. (1st Century) STILL used in everything that we do.
• A famous school in Germany – Bauhaus School of Design. They came up with a new design philosophy. Particularly in interior and product design and architecture. When Bauhaus closed, a lot of these guys went on to Ulm.
Bauhaus Philosophy:
• “form follows function
• When WW2 Hit, a lot of these guys moved from Germany, to Chicago and formed the Institute of Design.
Famous Names in Design
• Herbert Simon
• Nobel Prize Winner in Economics
• Design Theory Book – The Sciences of the Artificial
• You can’t approach design as if it were a science… What can you keep from rational scientific thinking but still get the extra stuff that you need for design?
• Horst Ritlell (’60′s – Germany)
• There is something in the world that we should label as wicked problems.
• We can’t approach design as if it was a structured problem, with structured methods, because its wicked!
• Christopher Jones
• Design Methods (60′s – England)
• Christopher Alexander
• Invented Pattern Language
• Was an architect.
• Wrote a book in the 70′s (not sure what its called?)
• Wrote “the Timelessness of building.
• We can’t design in this very scientific rational way because it doesn’t fit. Design is different. So, we he came up with the patterned way of thinking.
• Donald Schon (American)
• Invented notion of Reflective Process (Reflective Design)
• Anyone that writes about this is getting it from Schon.
• Was originally a Philosopher, did his thesis on John Dewey.
• Klaus Krippendorff
• Wrote “semantic term – the new foundation of design
• Background in linguistics
• Invented Product Semantics (Meaning of Things) – First one to start trying to build a language to describe the meaning of an artifact. How do you talk about the meaning of a thing?
• Harold Nelson
• Co-Authored Erik’s Book, the “Design Way”
Q&A
• Here we have a design artifact, does that artifact have an ethical value, or only the product of the design?



• Design vs. Discovery vs. Invention vs. Innovation?
• Was gravity discovered, or was it invented?
• Most invention is driven by an individuals ideas.
• Innovation is the process of bringing and invention into the world in a way that will be used.
• However, an innovation is more focused on the product itself
• Design, if you have a human centered approach, comes from the needs / wants / desire of people.
• Design tries to take care of the issues in the world.
• Can you say that every invention has a design?
• All of these aspects have components of the others in them.
• How do my small design additions add to the World?
• If you design something and put it out there in the world, there is some sense that you have radically changed the world. (i.e. – Design a pen: the pen takes up space. Nothing else can take up that space because the pen is there. That’s a pretty big change in the universe. YOU changed the universe because you created a pen, if nothing else, because it takes up space.)
• Sometimes, as a project is developed, small additions, little small items are added. The creates a “Deception of the Small Steps.” At some point, you stop, and look around and realize that the sum of these small steps has taken things in a direction that isn’t necessarily where you wanted to go. Or, maybe you just realize you aren’t where you originally intended to be and you aren’t sure how you got there.
• How will the professional designer’s role shift as more and more consumers design things for themselves?
• The question will arise… “What can you do as a designer that I can’t do by myself?”
• If you can’t make the case, you probably won’t be able to get paid for what you do.
• How can we apply theories to practical design processes?
• The theory, good / bad / design oriented / not, will only touch on some aspects of design. The theory can’t be too complete, or it would stop being a theory (see above.)
• In a design, you don’t necessarily use theories as a designer. When you design, you just design. You don’t use theories / models IN design necessarily. You use them to prepare for design, but when you do, you do. “Just do it.”
• Of course, you can use theory if you get stuck and you don’t have ideas / no clue what to do. Not a horrible idea to go back and look at examples of models or theories and see what some of the people say about doing.
• In science, the theory is directly applied (applied science). Design doesn’t necessarily directly apply theory.
• What is everyday design? Are there distinctions between male / female designers? Are there distinctions between everyday male / female designers?
• Some research has been done on cultural differences, however nothing (or very very little) has been done on the difference between gender differences.
• There has been research in other disciplines (i.e. engineering) that has tried to address this.