I do not know if you have the same feeling, but to me, when it comes to a concrete project, I know how to do it, but if you want me to say some theory associated to it, I feel like I cannot say a lot of the theories within the process of practice. I wonder if this means my theory is not solid enough and will jeopardize my future academic career?
Any thoughts?
(If it is not the right place to put up such kind of questions, please kindly tell me and I will remove it, thanks)
Interaction Culture: The Class Blog 
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February 16, 2013 at 12:24 pm
Tsaiyi
Hello Sen,
For me, who receive a literary training, I “imagine” your problem this way. The process of designing and theorization are definitely two separate things. Therefore, I don’t think theories can come up itself when you are doing the design project, in the same way when I am doing theories I cannot come up with a design project. Theorization might be an after-work of the design project: you have the design project, and you do more research to theorize it and tell other people the significance of your work.
When I just started to do literary criticism, I was not able to theorize the literary work with my own invention. Therefore I read a bunch of theories relevant to, say, the historical context of the artwork, and draw the relationship between the theories and artwork, and articulate the significance of the art work. Carroll describes some process of my work (although the final goal to me is usually not evaluation, and more about interpretation/articulation of the significance of the artwork). Now I gradually try to make up theories of my own, but it is still the convention of my discipline to draw ideas from big philosophers and theorists to support my own ideas. This, I guess, is why Jeff wants us to read, and read a lot. Theorization is not a pure metal activity of your own or even your teamwork. To some extent you need a well-established and well-known philosophy to support your theory!
I hope this helps,
Tsaiyi
February 17, 2013 at 1:57 am
jordanbeck
Sen, I’d ask whether this has made any design process problematic for you? If not, then it probably won’t matter whether you can cite theory during the design process. Conversely, being able to pluck theory out of the air when you’re arguing in favor of your design idea lends credibility to your argument (especially if you’re using it appropriately).
The other thing to consider is this: There’s a significant gap between design theory and practice. In fact it seems like — someone correct me if I’m way off base — it’s rare to meet a design practitioner who cites a lot of theory during the design process.
February 17, 2013 at 2:29 am
slouraine
I have actually wondered this myself. For Erik’s last Experience Design assignment (for those not in the class, the deliverable was a presentation meant to be made to a client), Matt and I cited a couple of HCI papers (Distance Matters, and Distances and Diversity), but I’m curious to know how often this actually happens in industry.
February 19, 2013 at 10:47 am
jeffreybardzell
Sorry, Jordan, but I think this is in fact way off base.
I can’t even conceive of any design practice at all without theory. How do you know it is “design”? How do you judge whether or not it is a “design practice” at all? How do you know if it is a good design? How do you justify–or even make–choices?
The answer to every one of these questions–and hundreds of others like them–is that as a designer you are guided by theories. You use them so automatically and unconsciously that you don’t notice you are using them, but they are still theories.
When I ask the class what to make of Run Lola Run, and someone responds by saying something about aesthetic patterns visible across the film, one is appealing to a theory: that aesthetic wholes are comprised of coherently organized parts, such as themes, techniques, qualities, and effects.
When one argues that we need design X because of social need Y (e.g., Amy Voida’s claim that we need to study how non-profits use technology because non-profits fulfill such a vital social role), there is a theoretical commitment to the idea that design should be directly responsive to social needs. We don’t necessarily make that same claim about art, for example.
Moreover, in empirical research colleagues and I have done studying design practitioners, we saw them developing micro-theories about their specific problem domain. The lead designer of jimmyjane.com, for example, presented a theory to us of “feeling sexy” that underlies his company’s whole design process. He did not present it as an academic theory, referencing Lacanian psychoanalysis or the postmodern feminism of Judith Butler, but his theorizing was nonetheless sophisticated, informed, pragmatic, and above all theory. Cross characterized this sort of behavior as an activity of problem framing (or problem setting) as distinct from problem solving: the designer frames the problem domain in a concrete way to make it more amenable to design. What sort of thing is this “frame”? It’s a theory. Problem framing is a theoretical practice, and it is one that we teach you in this program as part of the paradigmatic skill-set of a design practitioner. It may feel like a skill–something you just know how to do–but I would say rather that it is a complex and useful network of interrelated theories–of practice, of social good, of aesthetic goods, of intellectual rigor, and of craft integrity–that are leveraged to create temporary intellectual constructs that allow you to explore–rationally and creatively–a design problem and generate interesting directions and solutions.
Maybe what you meant is that design practitioners don’t generally go around talking about Foucault’s notion of the author-function. But I would say nonetheless that even if design practitioners do not explicitly embrace that academic vocabulary, nonetheless they have comparably sophisticated theories of creative agency that they reference and rely on every single day of their professional practice, in their words and in their deeds.
February 18, 2013 at 10:06 am
Katie O'Donnell
Please edit this post and categorize it. Thanks!