Week 8 - Jigsaw on design philosophies

Two reminders: (1) the assignment for next week (see below) and (2) a reminder to bring 3 copies of your "concept idea" for peer feedback and discussion. The goal of the concept paper is to get you formulating your ideas and get feedback early on how to focus your ideas or what you can do to develop your idea. It can be text, a picture, an outline - whatever gets your idea across so you can get useful feedback.

Next week we are doing a jigsaw activity - this is a collaborative learning technique in which you first (1) work in one small group to learn about X, (2) then in a second group, teach others about what you learned about X, and then (3) in this second group discuss the intersection or relationships among the various ideas. For us, the X's are: sustainable design, participatory design, and human-centered design. Each of these represent a particular philosophy of design - and therefore each illustrates how a set of ideas can guide a set of design practices. Next week we'll go to Samara to see Frank Lloyd Wright's "philosophy in action".

We assigned these on Wednesday (Andrew we put you in the human-centered group - I think). You only read the 2 papers for your group (not all 6-yikes) and the 1 short paper by Sanders.

In your first group - discuss - and be prepared to teach others:

• What is X (sustainable, participatory, human-centered design)?
• How does this idea influence design activity (the designer, the design, the process)?
• How does this idea fit within the concept maps we did last week? Or more broadly how does it fit in your world?

Also - the sustainable design group is "missing" a paper - I'll send it out on email to all.

Week 7 - Oct 7 Thought Questions

This week we are approaching the conclusion of our exploration into different ways of "unpacking" design (process, social process, philosophy, way of knowing, etc.). We started this way so that when we explore cognitive perspectives we have a language for describing different kinds of thinking, knowing, and learning.

The Rowland paper is a synthesis and application of Nelson & Stolterman's book "The Design Way" to articulate an epistemology (theory of knowledge) of design. How does he characterize a theory of design knowledge? How might this be broadly applicable (other design fields such as architecture, mechanical design, construction engineering, etc.)?

The other reading is a revisit of Dorst from the third week of class. In some ways we started here to open the space and we are ending here to map out the space of design knowledge. What would go on your "map"? How might some of these ideas be connected (think of a mind map)? Which of these ideas are central to your philosophy of design?

Respond to Doodle poll for Samara tour

Eric has created a Doodle poll to find a time for the Samara tour for the class. The available evenings the week of October 19 and 26 are Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Please go to the doodle poll before class this week to post your availability. For those of you who have never used this tool, simply write in your name and click the boxes in which you are available to go.

The link to more information on Samara is here.

The link to Samara and class - it is an example of design philosophy (Frank Lloyd Wright's)!

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