AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
Note: this is only one kind of designer stance, and in fact one of my favorite books Design for the Real World (Victor Papanek) makes the case that design should not be about status games but really ought to be more like a creative, human oriented sort of engineering of practical solutions to real human problems. But mostly today "design" means the sort of thing Apple is good at, combining technology and human concerns and social signalling into products that purport to elevate their users.
Design Thinking is unfortunately a trendy idea in the business world (or was, probably long past its peak by now). That doesn't mean it isn't a really valuable stance! I'm not going to critique design thinking because I'm almost entirely [ok who the fuck cares]
I was exposed to a really compelling version of design stance at an early age, since I somehow discovered Victor Papanek's Design for the Real World at the public library (quite possible heard about it via Whole Earth Catalog). This was an eye-opening and intense book, as Papanek excoriated the profession of industrial design for spending its energies on trivial things while the real problems of the world are begging for creative solutions. At the time I read it I probably had no idea that there was such a thing as industrial design, but now I not only was aware, I had strong opinions about it.
[go into rant about Design Thinking, Papanek, software design]
The essence of design is approaching a situation analytically nd creatively and incorporating all the context (cost, use, evolution in time, semantic signalling, )
Distinguished from Hacker Stance because that generally focuses on a very narrow technical system; the designer has to take on every aspect of a human reality.
SB deserves a shoutout (he has his own stance now below). Fuller, Papanek
Design Thinking is a way over-trendy idea in the business world (or was, probably long past its peak by now). That's kind of unfortunate because I think it is a really important skill or stance or whatever it is.
I was exposed to a really compelling version of design stance at an early age, since I somehow discovered Victor Papanek's Design for the Real World at the public library (quite possible heard about it via Whole Earth Catalog). This was an eye-opening and intense book, as Papanek excoriated the profession of industrial design for spending its energies on trivial things while the real problems of the world are begging for creative solutions. At the time I read it I probably had no idea that there was such a thing as industrial design, but now I not only was aware, I had strong opinions about it.
[go into rant about Design Thinking, software design]
The essence of design is approaching a situation analytically nd creatively and incorporating all the context (cost, use, evolution in time, semantic signalling, )
Distinguished from Hacker Stance because that generally focuses on a very narrow technical system; the designer has to take on every aspect of a human reality.
SB deserves a shoutout (he has his own stance now below). Fuller