Design enquiry: tacit knowledge and invention in science

For some years there has been discussion and speculation on the subject of "design enquiry" and a number of people, for example Richard Buchanan and Clive Dilnot , have looked for forms of enquiry appropriate to, or fruitful for, design as an academic and professional discipline. From a different perspective, Ranulph Glanville has suggested that the relationship between design and science might be redefined to acknowledge similarities of method that are disguised by forms of narrative employed by scientists. However most contributions in these debates deal with generalisations so I would like to propose some specific ways in which designers can explore and develop the concepts and practices of design enquiry. In particular I would like to discuss a kind of enquiry where designers can play a role in forming and pursuing questions which arise in the natural sciences and I will suggest that this role might be extended into some other fields. In doing so I will make reference to the subject of tacit knowledge, a concept which was formalised by Michael Polanyi in his consideration of the philosophy of science 50 years ago and which has attracted continuing interest (his 1958 book, Personal Knowledge, was reprinted most recently in 1998 and 2002), but also some shallow interpretation since then. I believe that Polanyi has a great deal to offer the design community, perhaps more in some respects than the widely cited work of Donald Schon who dealt with general questions of practice relevant to many disciplines while Polanyi addressed the relationship between enquiry and creativity in a very direct way. </p

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF DESIGNING COMPUTER ARTIFACTS

This is a paper about activities such as information system development and software engineering. The specific aspects of these activities that are being investigated are the academic organization for these studies, and the doctrines that are being taught at departments of computer science, information science, informatics, etc. The paper begins with a critique of the existing division of labour in the academic field. The need to transcend the dominating natural science oriented tradition in design of computer artifacts is argued. To replace this tradition a new foundation guided both by a technical knowledge interest in instrumental control as in the natural sciences and a practical knowledge interest in inter-subjective communication as in the social sciences and the humanities is suggested. It is argued that the dominating doctrine of a rationalistic science of the artificial is too limited, and that it ought to be replaced, or complemented, by a doctrine for a practical art and science of designing computer artifacts. Finally, a teachable programme for a disciplinary base of and art and science of designing computer artifacts is outlined

Setting the Stage for Design as Action

In this article the author presents a participatory perspective on design and suggests a new role for the designer. The perspective is based on the idea of understanding design as a new language game shared by users and designers. He emphasizes the importance conditions for communication, practical skill and creativity in the design process. A dialectic between tradition and transcendence is seen as fundamental to design

Participatory design and “democratizing innovation”

We sketch an alternative “ddemocratizing innovation”” practice more in line with the original visions of participatory design based on our experience of running Malmö Living Labs - an open innovation milieu where new constellations, issues and ideas evolve from bottom-up long--term collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders.

OPEN MIND: Shake Up Taboo by Design!

Gamman has contributed a 1,000-word article and a transcript of her keynote from the Open Design Forum 2014, Hong Kong Design Institute

On the Possibility of Socialist-democratic Design Things: Interview with Pelle Ehn. Interviewers: I. Farías & T. Sánchez Criado

Pelle Ehn is Professor Emeritus at the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University. He has been involved in collaborative and participatory design for more than four decades. For the last 15 years his research has been focused on design and digital media. He is co-author of Design Things (MIT Press, 2011) and co-editor of Making Futures: Marginal Notes on Innovation, Design, and Democracy (MIT Press, 2014). In this interview he describes some of his influences and he talks about participatory design, STS, socialism, design things, education, artefacts, social change and democratic design experiments

The art and science of designing computer artifacts

Abstract This is a paper about activities such as information system development and software engineering. The specific aspects of these activities that are being investigated are the academic organization for these studies, and the doctrines that are being taught at departments of computer science, information science, informatics, etc. The paper begins with a critique of the existing division of labour in the academic field. The need to transcend the dominating natural science oriented tradition in design of computer artifacts is argued. To replace this tradition a new foundation guided both by a technical knowledge interest in instrumental cont,rol as in the natural sciences and a practical knowledge interest in inter-subjective communication as in the social sciences and the humanities is suggested. It is argued that the dominating doctrine of a rationalistic science of the artificial is too limited, and that it ought to be replaced, or complemented, by a doctrine for a practical art and science of designing computer artifacts. Finally, a teachable programme for a disciplinary base of and art and science of designing computer artifacts is outlined