Phronesis, was a Greek word, created by Aristotle. He used this word to describe, what he considered the most important type of intelligence, the practical application and virtuousness of wisdom. Design styles were broken down into 4 areas, which we, as a group, decided were a little over-specific as many overlap. I think it can be useful to categorise in this way as long as it does not put your designs to specifically into a box and, in effect, inhibits the design from its goal. A radical product does not always have to be outlandish. The Categories: Conservative | Pragmatic | Critical | Radical The topic reminded me of a book I once read called "Thinking, Fast and Slow" By Daniel Kahneman. The book talks about a heuristic approach to learning, which is about an automatic approach to retaining and acting upon information, this can be summarised as "intuition" in many ways. An expert in a field of chess has the ability to glimpse at a board and predict a checkmate in the next three turns. This is not a superpower but an expert making an accurate analysis from many hours of experience, we consider this to be intuition. He categorises this mode of thinking as 'System 1' which is described as "fast, instinctive and emotional. 'System 2', on the other hand, is slower, more deliberative, and more logical.
This topic was on sustainability using the wonders of cork as the core example in our Horizon Scanning lecture. Having studied Sustainable Product Design at undergrad level, this subject wasn't that new to me but it had some points that were a refresher. I did like how it got me rethinking about the core points in sustainable design, including material sourcing, which is an incredibly complex process to distinguish. SUSTAINABILITYThis led on to a lecture on sustainability in general in the Research methods lecture. The generalities were reiterated in the intro, which then led onto a task, asking us to decide on a product to analyse the materials the it was composed of. Once the materials had been distinguished, we picked the main 2. In our case, it was a kettle with a stainless steel case with a PP handle. We then searched the process from ore to product + energy & water used + pollution produced: > Collection of iron from mines and ground > The extraction process of iron from its ore > Producing iron blocks for processing > Manufacturing process > End of life We did the same for plastic with little success in the time span. Iron Ore REDESIGNWe briefly attempted to redesign the kettle so it would be more sustainable in it's sourcing, manufacturing, general use and end of life.
Joe sketched a quick render of a glass bodied kettle, which was design for ease of disassembly for fixing and end of life recycling. We failed to explain the improvement of using glass as we had not researched the material, yet, believed it to be a material with better recycling and sourcing properties. Research methods is an incredibly useful tool in a designer's skillsets. It defines the subject topic, it defines the usergroup, it brings specialist information to the project and it develops the product to be more user-friendly. One issue I have found with Research Methods as a subject is that the theory can take over quite a lot. Once research methods is broadly understood I, personally, feel that it is better to do more practice. IDEO, pioneers in conducting research methodology, are not theory-based designers. They get all their education on a subject from practice of research methods, trying new and innovative ways to get the information they need to start working on a project. IDEO founder, David Kelly, brings together students and experts from lots of different disciplines in his course. This looks like a really intelligent way of taking on projects as you can get the points of view from many different points of view. This could be thinking politically about upcycling instead of focusing on getting the public to do their part. You will get a more well rounded project from the very beginning.
This is much harder to accomplish in the way universities are currently run, instead, it would be very beneficial to compose research the way they do, bringing in experts to us. Rigour can be defined as "the quality of being extremely thorough and careful." This definition is how I was always aware of the word rigour. After reading into the very academic and philosophic writings put together by John Wood, I was severely more confused than before. This isn't to say it wasn't useful, as it brought me to question its role in design. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Before I moved too deeply into the context of philosophy, I'll bring the topic back to Rigour and its role in design. In order to have a product that is thorough in its design, it must have rigorous research. This means it must meet many subject criteria that is relevant to the topic and is different for every project. Working on our group project, focused around caring, we found that we knew what a good product looked and functioned like. But to produce one we knew was good is a much harder task. We must first look at the issue: Is it for the carer or the patients? Is it going to affect the way carers work? Is it going to make other areas of their work harder? Could the government and caring companies play a role in this? Then, we must go onto the concept and ask similar questions: Does it work for everyone? Can it seclude some people? Is it okay to help many and make it harder for a few? (utilitarianism) At what point is it considered a "rigorously" designed product? Design is always developmental and iterative. It cannot be completely right or wrong, like a scientific paper. There will always be some aspects of a design that will not work for everyone. In design there are far to many variables and differences in people and therefore, a product can't be "finished", it's endless, until you move on to another project. Quantitative and QualitativeQuantitative is simply information that is statistical and usually numerical.
Qualitative is a lot harder to define as it can be different from topic to topic. It is information that is describing quantitative information, such as height, age, etc. If you think about what qualitative information is, you realise it can often be condensed down into quantitative information. It is just information that has far more variables and dependencies. I believe these two examples help to define that:
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IntroResearch methods is questionably the most important section of the design process. |