The Case for Design
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Harold Nelson |
Erik Stolterman |
Humans did not discover fire, they designed it. Neither was the wheel merely a discovery of our ancestors, it too was designed. The habit of labeling significant human achievements as discoveries rather than designs discloses a critical bias in our Western tradition. For example, absent from the conflicting descriptions of Leonardo da Vinci as either scientist or artist, or both and more, is the missing insight into his true nature as a designer. His genius was in part his exceptional intellect but primarily it was in his complex, integrative approach to the world as an archetypal designer that made him so distinct in his own time as well as ours. Through his imagination important additions to our real world were created. This has been the contribution of all designers through time; they have created much of our experienced reality.
The remains of our earliest human ancestors are accompanied by their designed artifacts. In fact designed implements have been found which predate the earliest human fossil remains discovered so far. Design activity is what makes the distinction between species which are not yet human and human beings. The ability to design is what makes us human.
Design is the ability to imagine that which does not yet exist, to make it appear in concrete form as a new purposeful addition to the real world. Design is the first tradition among the many traditions developed over time including; art, religion, science and technology. We design our cosmologies, our homes, our businesses and our lives. Design touches nearly every aspect of our experienced world. We design to be human and we can design because we are human.
The design traditionıs thread of continuity became frayed and broken in the course of the Western worldıs focus on and development of science and technology. It is now critical to pick up the design threads, mend them into new patterns and integrate them into a more wholistic fabric of life. We are both pushed and pulled into design.
We are pushed into design because of the perceived pace of change in contemporary human affairs. We are further pushed by the explosion of information we are challenged to gather, understand and utilize. We are again pushed by the increase in technologic development with the fallout of incomprehensible numbers of distinct artifacts which confronts us with more varieties of what can be done than with varieties of what we know we want done. Changing social structures and patterns in partnership with changing values and traditions have conspired to create an impossibly complex, diverse environment within which we must navigate professionally and personally.
We are pulled into design because it allows us to initiate intentional action out of strength, hope, passion, desire and love. It is action which generates more energy than is consumed. It is creative and innovative inquiry that creates more resources of greater variety and potential than those used. Design action is distinct from problem action which is initiated out of need, fear, weakness, hate, pain and other reactive motivations.
The need or desire for change is often assumed to imply the need for comprehensive analysis and rational decision making leading to a clear choice for action. The reality is that analysis leads to ever greater numbers of paths needing more analysis. The consequence is that decisions cannot and are not made rationally. In addition the world is much too complex to be understood comprehensively. Design on the other hand utilizes a process of composition which pulls a variety of elements into relationships that form a functional assembly serving the purposes and intentions of diverse populations of human beings. In addition design evokes an emergent quality through composition that transcends the functional qualities to serve deeper, larger and more comprehensive needs and desires.
Design is concerned with the creation of the real rather than the description and explanation of the true. The assumption that any task faced by humans is expected to be primarily about the discovery of the world that is, is the root of what is most often referred to as analysis paralysis. Concern for the good or what ought-to-be has a similar risk in that it can lead to value paralysis. In both cases action becomes problematic if not impossible without violations of the basic premises of both forms of inquiry. Design, which is the process of imagining and making what is desired-to-be, avoids paralysis because it utilizes formalized modes of judgment. The ability to make good judgments in the design realm is one of the most desirable ingredients of successful leadership.
For design to be successfully developed and utilized there is a need to create both a design culture and a culture of design. That is, it is important to have a social, economic, political and personal environment into which designing and designers can and will be invited. It is equally important to have competent designers who have the education and experience to practice design from a much broader perspective than the traditional practice of design utilizes.
Design learning is different from most of the other traditional forms of education based on academic disciplines or professional areas of expertise. Designers are educated with the understanding that they are expected to produce unexpected outcomes. This is quite different from the training given to most change agents with the expectation of producing individuals who are guaranteed to produce expected outcomes because of an assumed logical relationship between training input and performance. This is important in many human endeavors but this is not the expectation of design or designers.