Comprehensive Reading Forum
Design studies is the backbone and the framework that constitutes design practice, in either support or direct interaction. Design studies introduces new elements to both sides, offering a bridge between the two worlds of research and design. It is the unification of the two that has pushed craft into becoming design and research into the abstract and undefined, while balancing the two elements.
Using the same vehicle Glanville used to simplify and further his arguments in The Somewhat Uncomfortable Marriage of Design and Research, the two Aristotelian terms sophia and phronesis, you can identify the core basis of design in the modern era. “Sophia is theoretical knowledge, while phronesis, practical knowledge, is what sophia is based on and must refer back to”. Design has moved on from the early craft stage with its roots in vocational schools to research focus universities, coming into contact with research and growing as a result, generating theories like design thinking and stronger methodologies, but it retains its strong roots in applied practice.
As design attempts to harness the problems affecting larger social groups rather than smaller constraints existing in a single space, Nigel Cross in Designerly ways of Knowing: Design Discipline versus Design Science, saw how the 1960’s sparked a "design science revolution" based on science, technology, and rationalism to overcome the human and environmental problems”. Lead by Richard Buchannon This produced the terminologies and the theories we use today in design, providing better explanations and understandings of how design works in order to best replicate and continue good practice, allowing design to tackle larger and more complexly intricate issues. “We need to draw upon those histories and traditions were appropriate, while building our own intellectual culture” (Cross). From this repertoire of design, design can be made more accessible and available to both design professionals, design programs, clients,and those benefiting from the end result of a particular design. Design studies is the program that studies the history of design in combination with research, catering to designers working in an applied practice. This provides research enabling designers to channel their problems, energies, and ideas into theories and methodologies that guides them on a path that is not necessarily correct and justified, but rather more appropriate.
Glanville concludes that “one element in the designerly is delight”, “but delight is not really considered in (engineering) design research”, while suggesting that “form follows function” in design. The two fields lack certain elements but the collaboration of both through design studies furthers the potential each field has. And throughout the introduction of research to design, it has maintained a balanced symbiotic relationship of an ebb and flow, wherein research methodology is strongly pushed and then reversed. “In the 1970s, there emerged a backlash against design methodology and a rejection of its underlying values”, then being countered with “the 1980s and into the 1990s was the emergence of new journals of design” (Glanville). Design studies is in the perfect place to act as the intermediary between research and applied design practices, helping to further new identities in fields that can change overnight.
Comprehensive Reading Forum 2
Carr finds humans to be an essential part of automation, and that they are beneficial to each other and must find a mutual balance together so that the worker will find the best tool and technology will advance. “The goal is to divide roles and responsibilities in a way that not only capitalizes on the computer's speed and precision but also keeps workers engaged, active, alert - in the loop rather than out of it” (Carr pg 164). Technology is often hidden from us, designed to hide in the open and locking any human errors out of the system, but also locking out human improvements, communication, and knowledge of even its basic functions. Automation and computers can offer the answers to our problems and is very attractive in making our lives easier by completing the tasks humans aren’t good at, offering efficiency and reliability, but their convenience becomes our downfall as we over rely on them. Carr encourages the belief that automation isn’t always the best tool and shouldn’t be the answer to every problem. Without stimulation, challenges, and practice of skills, caused by over reliance on automation, our lives can lose meaning, losing track of what it means to be human. Like in my timeline project, and as Carr also points out (pg 230), the advent of digital photography has lowered the value of photos because it requires less skill, causing less connection to photos, less of a human narrative and experience. But through the advent and dedication to new technology, it has opened up new possibilities, creating meaning in new creative outlets. Carr is encouraging stronger relationships and examination of those relationships with technology, to push them to the brink of what is possible while also bringing them down to earth to so that we progress with them and gain usability from conceptual devices.
Carr’s expression of human connection to technology, how we deal with it on a personal level and his experiences with advancing technology, afforded a better understanding of his viewpoint and experiences and personal connection to the book. He started connecting mental health issues with technology, bringing up a large societal issue that would be beneficial if he would go on to explore some more of its implications. Adding this would build on a personal connection to the book, with how we interact with each other and how technology can isolate us and deprive meaning from our lives. The human psyche is a very important part of these interactions with technology, and including the viewpoint of psychologists and doctors could be interesting in developing a mutual relationship with technology and its implications. Carr remains a little reserved, leaving space for him to be more provocative, to push the questions he raised into something he or anyone else didn’t have answers to, creating more of an open ended theoretical dialogue without any correct answers.