Week 6 - Sept 30 Thought Questions

This week's readings focus on design as a social process. As you will notice, exploring design as a social process often involves observation and ethnographic approaches. For some of you this may push even harder on your ideas of researcher bias - keep in mind that there is bias in all research - and that different methods allow different vantages point for investigation. Focus on how the method reveals something about design knowledge, and how the authors substantiate their findings.

Next week we are going to do a "fishbowl" activity - where half the class will do a design project and the other half will be researchers studying them. Think about which role you want (observer or observee) - and come prepared to discuss:

(1) How do the authors talk about design as a social process (and how can this help you make sense of what you observe for the fishbowl activity)?

(2) What insights do they bring to our question "what do designers know and how do they come to know it"?

(3) How do they study design? What are the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches?

Interesting conversation on the PhD in Design Listserve

Below is something shared on the PhD in design listserve...what do you think is going on?

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:24:40 -0400
From: Charles Burnette <charlesburnette@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: exceeding the brief

Keith.
A similar experience. I presented a group problem solving technique at three different Universities. At the distinguished research university (The University of Pennsylvania) the student's questioned everything thoroughly and intelligently but never entered into the process. At the more vocationally focussed university (Drexel) the students required much more guidance, were more rule bound, and got to a solution much more tentatively. At the art based university (The University of the Arts) the students entered into the process readily, explored it creatively and came out with the best outcomes (in my judgment). Each group seemed to manifest the nature of their institution and education. Design education clearly biases students to
seek creative solutions (hopefully with sensitivity, intelligence, rigour, etc.) It is no surprise that they behave as they do. Similarly, communication students seek to find an expression understood and acceptable to the communicants involved. But I have never met a "well behaved traditional art student" that manifested that view! Their own goals and understandings usually guide their behavior, or so I believe. Hopefully, as design education gains a seat in the University and becomes more user oriented it will become better at contextualized communication - yet still hang on to its creative edge.
Chuck

Frank Lloyd Wright - Samara

Eric has offered to put together a tour of the Samara House - take a peek and we'll discuss this Wednesday.

Some thought questions for Sept 16

Craig talked about content analyses of process as one way to study and understand design. This week we have 2 studies (Atman et al, Mosborg et al) - one uses verbal protocol analysis to understand what designers do and how this relates to the quality of their final designs, the other explores the ways practicing professional designers think about design processes (one of the tasks should look very familiar!). The third paper is a meta-analysis around "good design".

Some questions to get you thinking:

What can you learn through studying design processes?

What are some relationships between "good process" and "good final product"? How do these ideas relate to your perceptions of what distinguishes more novice and more expert designers?

In class I'll bring some of the "hard data" from these studies for us to push on these ideas :)

Click on the link for "comments" below to post your thoughts

Some thought questions for Sept 9

The topics of this week are "design knowledge" and "investigating design".

Getting a landscape view: Niedderer provides a short overview of the ways people talk about knowledge and Dorst & Lawson provide an expansive picture of the ways we understand design and designing. If we connect the two - how can they help us understand the nature of design knowledge (feel free to connect to your own experiences as well)?

Exploring methodologies before we read design studies: Craig provides an overview of common ways people have studied designers and designing; Matthews provides a more recent perspective (particularly, language and interaction). What are the many ways people study designers and designing, and what are their relative strengths and weaknesses? Which of the methods fit with your way of thinking or the kinds of things you might want to study about design?

Thoughts on Sept 2 class experience

What did you like about what we did? What do you wish we did?

How might this class fit with your personal goals?

Fall 2009!

Hello all,

This is our blog for the course - blog posts are due each week by Tuesday at 5pm.

Each week there will be some guiding questions to focus class discussion - but you are welcome to share your thoughts on any aspect of the readings that "hit your button" or made you think.

You may also continue a thought from an earlier post - it's open. Remember that the purpose of this is to help you think, let me know what you're thinking (or what questions you have about the readings/activities), and share your thoughts with your peers in this course.