Definition, p 130:
Everyone designs who devise courses of action
aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The
intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different
fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick
patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company
or a social welfare policy for a state.
Examples: architects,
doctors, managers, politicians, teachers, ....
generic design - does it exist?
design as an activity has a distinct conceptual and
cognitive realization from nondesign activities
it can be abstracted away from the particulars of
the knowledge base of a specific task or discipline and studied
in its own right
going from Los Angeles to Boston
subjective computability versus objective computability
two representations are informationally equivalent
if all of the information in the one is also inferable from the
other, and vice versa. Each could be constructed from the information
in the other.
two representations are computationally equivalent if they are informationally equivalent and, in addition, any inference that can be drawn easily and quickly from the information given explicitly in the one can also be drawn easily and quickly from the information given explicitly in the other, and vice versa
Number Scrabble <------> Tic Tac Toe
the multilated chess board <------> the Match-Making story
Roman Numerals <------> Arabic Numerals
---> we need a taxonomy of representations
The Problem of Modularity
To design a complex structure, one powerful technique is to discover viable ways of decomposing it into semi-independent components corresponding to its many functional parts. The design of each component can then be carried out with some degree of independence of the design of others, since each will affect the others largely through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that accomplish the function.
1st Generation (before 1970):
directionality and causality
separation of analysis from synthesis
major drawback: perceived by the designers as being
unnatural; does not correspond to actual design practice
2nd Generation (in the early 70's):
participation -- expertise in design is distributed among all participants
argumentation -- various positions on each issue
major drawback: insisting
on total participation, neglecting expertise possessed
by a well-informed and skilled designer
3rd Generation (in the late 70's):
inspired by Popper: the role of the designer is to make expert design conjectures
these conjectures must be open to refutation and rejection by the people for whom they are made (---> end-user modifiability)
Simon:
In oil painting every new spot of pigment laid on
the canvas creates some kind of pattern that provides a continuing
source of new ideas to the painter. The painting process is a
process of cyclical interaction between the painter and canvas
in which current goals lead to new applications of paint, while
the gradually changing pattern suggests new goals.
Computer Science Technology Board:
system requirements are not so much analytically
specified as they are collaboratively evolved through an iterative
process of consultation between end-users and software developers
Rittel:
one cannot understand a problem without having a concept of the solution in mind
one cannot gather information meaningfully unless one has understood the problem but one cannot understand the problem without information about it
Donald Schön "The Reflective Practitioner":
In the geography of professional practice, there is a very dry, high ground where you can practice the techniques and use the theories on which you got your PhD. Down below there is a swamp where the real problems live. The difficulty to decide whether to stay on the high ground, where you can be rigorous but deal with problems of lesser importance, or go down into the swamp to work on problems you really care about in a way you see as hopelessly unrigorous. It is the dilemma of rigor or relevance. You can't have both, and the way in which people choose between them sets the course of their professional lives.
One consequence is that researchers who stick to the high ground become not only separate from practice but increasingly divergent from it. As a result, engineering scientist have very little so say to engineering designers; cognitive psychologists very little to say to teachers.
The position of the professionals who stay on the high ground is difficult, because they must find ways to cut off pieces of problems that don't fit their models.
motivation:
The experience of having participated in a problem
makes a difference to those who are affected by the solution.
People are more likely to like a solution if they have been involved
in its generation; even though it might not make sense otherwise.
asymmetry of ignorance ---> professional expertise
dominated
deprofessionalization ---> redefining the role
of high-tech scribes