Design Innovation Catalyst Engagement Model

This embedded cohort model of engagement—the Design Innovation Catalyst En- gagement Model—is depicted in Figure 5 . It demonstrates the value offering from the DIC to the industry organization. The model was created to experiment with design in a new way— different to previous product or service design roles within business—which supports an organization’s need to remain relevant and drive top line growth. Through this engagement model, DICs can learn, build, strengthen, and apply the capabilities reported previously in this paper.

This new approach was set up in-house, to conduct innovation that came directly from the customers latent and future needs. Customers played a key role in this process, and carried the same influence as the design champion in the engagement model, which better enabled DICs to navigate complexity, distribute knowledge within the organization, and disrupt assumptions about who their customers

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

Figure 5 Design Innovation Catalyst Engagement Model.

are and who they will be in the future. The deployment of the DIC through this engagement model provided benefits not only to the organization, but also created new knowledge surrounding these new approaches and engagements to the benefit of businesses and researchers alike.

In sum, this paper illustrates a new approach to the traditional role of design and designers within businesses, coins the term “Design Innovation Catalyst,” and defines this emerging profession. Further, by providing insight into the projects undertaken by such a catalyst, the paper suggests detailed ways in which educa- tors might envisage training such individuals. This paper contributes to a new- ly-emerging body of literature surrounding how design can strategically inform and add value to businesses globally, and how we educate the Design Innovation Cata- lysts of the future to rise to such a challenge.

Design Innovation Catalysts

Table 3. Valuing the Design Innovation Catalyst. (Horizontally continued on next page…) DIC Value Provided

Channels (How they helped)

Customers

Customer Relationship

(Who they helped)

(How they interacted)

(How they delivered value)

A - Design-led Innovation expertise to help

- Networks drive innovation based on customer

- Industry partner

- Face-to-face

- Co-Design needs and business vision

- Mobile calls

- Workshops

- DLI cohort

- Meetings

- Design champion

- Supervisor

- Workshops

B - Provide a framework/methodology for

- Design champion innovation through leveraging customer

- Industry partners

insights throughout a new business

- DLI cohort

- Interviews

model

- Focus groups - Narrative testing

C - Build and communicate business function

- Personal relationships overview;

- Industry partner

- Face-to-face

- Build rapport - Link separate parts of the business;

- Industry leaders

- Interpersonal

- Meaningful conversations - Understand and communicate the customer of the future

- Project leaders

- Group facilitation

D - Being the bridge between industry and

- Embedded practice academia in order to understand and

- Industry partner

- Challenging

- Outside in perspective think critically about the complexities of

- Mediating

across the business the business

- Questioning

- Supporting - Providing new knowledge

and customer insights

E - A new external, informed, theory based

- Embedded innovation perspective

- Industry partner

- Face-to-face facilitation

- Conversations

- Working alongside staff

F - Knowledge distributors to help

- Workshops companies reach innovation through a

- Industry partner

- Face-to-face

- Conferences deeper understanding of their customers

- Customers

G - Help Australian companies stay relevant

- Pre-existing networks through design-led innovation

- Industry partner

- Personal assistance

- Personable by listening

- Face-to-face marketing

and advocating for their

- In-direct marketing

customers

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

Benefits Costs

Key Resources (What DIC gets)

Key Partners

Key Activities

(What DIC gives)

(Who helps DIC)

(What DIC does)

(Who you are and what you have)

- Opportunities networks - Time

- Competitive desire - Direction

- University

- Use design to give

- Drive not to be mediocre - Making my own mark

- Energy

- DLI cohort

customers a voice

- Life experiences - New knowledge

- Enthusiasm

- Supervisor

- Develop deep customer

- Fresh face

- Literature

insights which inform

- Satisfaction - Different perspective

- Previous research

the development of

- Attentive listener

innovation projects

- Visual illustration skills - Explore opportunity

- Knowledge - Energy

- Design champion

- Teach tools

- Disseminate knowledge - Design knowledge to implement

- Design champion

- Generate insights

methodology in a real

- Question assumptions

world setting

- Generate visual

- Opportunity to explore

communication tools

new ideas and theories

- Extrovert, positivist leader - New learning

- Impact and resilience - Helping others achieve

- Supervisor

- Communicate

- Design skills from industry - Business achieve its

- DLI cohort

- Collect and collate

- Small business experience goals

- Relevant authorities

research findings

- Industry partner

- Analyze and devise

- Inquisitive mind

- Staff

process to innovate - Facilitation of Co- design

- Critical thinking - New DIC role

- Industry experience - Time

- DLI cohort

- Draw from authorities

- Design skills - Connections

- Energy

- Supervisors

in the field to

- Reflective nature - Networks

- Effort

- Design champion

disseminate cutting

- Visual, verbal skills - Improved

- Mental exhaustion

- University

edge research to the

- Emotional investment

firm in order for them

communication skills

to be more competitive - Teach, learn, examine, ideate, collaborate and observe

- Experience - Commitment

- Strong theoretical background - Informed research

- DLI cohort

- Observe

- Blank canvas - Novel research

- Effort

- Supervisors

- Develop insights

- Staff

- Propose, facilitate

- No prior experience

- Industry partner

learning

- Design champion

- Disseminate knowledge

- Exposure - Time

- Deep design knowledge and skills - Experience

- DLI cohort

- Distribute knowledge

- Energy

- Industry partner

and know-how

- Connections

- University - Supervisor

- Comprehensive business - Entrepreneurial nous

- Practical application of knowledge

- DLI cohort

- Thirst for knowledge

postgraduate research - Company trust (not just

- Links between forward

- Supervisors

- Driven by innovation

- Entrepreneurial experience across as employee)

thinking business

- Design champions

concepts and high level broad industry sectors academic learning

Design Innovation Catalysts

Jerry Diethelm , University of Oregon, USA

diethelm@uoregon.edu

Viewpoint

De-Colonizing Design Thinking

What Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe salvaged for

Two Thinking Cultures, Two Thinking Worlds

his castaway home was far more than a ship’s hold of In this thought experiment, scientific thinking and materials, tools and animals, and far less material to

1 behold ( design thinking are likened to different countries Figure 1 ). with their own unique cultures, distinctive outlooks, What Crusoe’s raft invisibly brought from his

purposes, processes and products. Scientific thinking, sinking ship was his British culture. The sailing ships

which focuses on the manufacture and export of of the times were container vectors of cultural coloni-

empirical truth and knowledge, is the more successful zation. Their brain-holds carried their home-nations’

and dominant culture. Doing science is a process of colonizing beliefs, values, ideas, motivations, and em-

distilling useful and reliable factual knowledge of pire-building technologies. Crusoe’s island settlement

how things are and how they work. The less well-un- inevitably mirrored his home island origins, and was

derstood dominion of design thinking is oriented and built from of the patterns of his socially constructed

targeted to a very different, if equally immodest end. inner world.

Its focus is on the creation, development, remodeling, Historical distance has sharpened our modern

manufacturing, and meaning of all human artifacts. awareness of the consequential pros and cons of col-

The two cultures are symbiotic. They use and onization. And after some hard lessons learned, the

depend on each other’s products. They share a spreading tide of physical empire building has turned

common language that each naturally bends toward toward a de-colonizing ebb.

its own ends. But today they remain far from equal Not so, however, for the modern electronic colo-

partners—and like all unequal traders, their relative nizing vectors that continue to sail, fully value laden,

inequality causes them to interact in a somewhat effortlessly and instantly onto every island outpost in

unequal manner. The assumption here is that a closer the world. And not so too of the ways that root-meta-

look will reveal the ways in which the dominant, em- phors born out of an industrial past continue to invis-

pirically-oriented partner is unconsciously privileging ibly hinder our ability to cope with modern ecological

the source meanings of its own root metaphors to crises. C.A. Bowers calls these taken for granted meta-

define and characterize the other’s culture. Awareness phoric conditions that freeze our conceptual thinking

of that colonization becomes the necessary prerequi- in a previous era “the colonization of the present by

site to uncovering and legitimizing the unique mean- the past.” 2 This essay explores another situation in

ings that underpin and identify design thinking. which there is a tendency of one way of thinking to

colonize another.

Copyright © 2016, Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2016.08.001

166

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

Figure 1 This shipwreck illustration is from a short work entitled Robinson Crusoe, My Journals and Sketchbooks, illustrated and written by Michel and Anie Politzer.

Metaphors under the Microscope

Problem

The following explores the differing “in-country”

1. Def. gen.—Something “thrown forward” that meanings of four root metaphors that the two cul-

needs attention and needs to be dealt with or tures share: problem, intervention, limits, and satisfice.

solved.

This is a short sail and a bare beginning. No doubt

2. Def. sci.—Something to be solved empirically there are many more metaphors to uncover that are

through reasoning.

masking meaning in design thinking, and deserve reconsideration. I’ll establish what I believe to be

This latter scientific conception of a problem, which the dominant and taken for granted usage of each

dates back to Plato, remains the dominant darling of concept, and then describe the concept’s situated

our Modern times. These are the kinds of problems meaning from the design thinking point of view.

that are associated with the hard sciences. They wel- Both points of view being considered are deeply

come the precision of mathematical description and embodied perspectives—by which I mean deeper

can be disassembled like clockworks under analytical cultural immersions than the mental shifting of gears

decomposition. They observe a hard and strict ratio-

nality. The modern ideal of an experimentally-based difference between being born into a country and its

that Daniel Dennett calls “stance.” 3 I think of it as the

scientific problem is one that can be rationally pur- language, and travelling there. For example, only her

sued and rationally resolved into a useful, reliable, very Swiss friends would comprehend why the ever

verifiable, falsifiable addition to an ever-expanding so talented, brilliant and wealthy Heidi would take

body of factual knowledge.

up prostitution. “Well, you know Heidi,” say those As seen from this scientific ideal, the problems friends, “she has suffered some major expenses re-

taken up by designing look both trivial and per- cently and would never touch her capital!” A radical,

verse—trivial in the sense that they explain nothing experimentally-grounded empiricism is embedded in,

profound about the universe, and perverse in their and holds just as tightly to its objective and logical

stubborn and irrational human complexity. Design rationality.

problems through this lens are not tidy. Their

De-Colonizing Design Thinking

cultural, that lie beyond the classical conception of often changing as they go. They are arbitrarily

problem.

bounded and reach no definitive and transferrable Nobel prize-winning scientist Herbert Simon conclusions. Worst of all, they reopen the door to all

insightfully placed the problematic condition in situ of the beliefs, values, narratives, and myths that it has

with his description of designing as “devising courses taken over two centuries to vanquish from modern

of action aimed at changing existing situations into scientific culture.

preferred ones.” 7 Preferred situations that satisficed Horst Rittel, writing out of a tradition of rational

would be the outcomes of this science of the artificial, planning in the 70s, famously critiqued such badly

preferred outcomes that were, as Rittel pointed out behaving planning and design problems and labeled

above “not objectively true or false, only good or bad.” them as “wicked.” Every wicked problem was unique.

The Simon description opened up the possibility of a Their solutions were not true or false but good or bad,

scientific linkage between the true and the good. and depended on the world-view of their designers.

The problem with trying to overlay a strict objec- He catalogued their heretical divergence from proper

tivity over the notion of problem in designing is that problems (my emphasis added):

the concept gets tied up in “nots.” The problems of “1) Wicked problems have no definitive formu-

designing are not universal. They are not fundamen- lation, but every formulation of a wicked

tally reoccurring in environment—as was claimed in problem corresponds to the formulation of a

the Pattern Language. 8 They are not at home in the solution.

idea of a natural science that excludes human con-

2) Wicked problems have no stopping rules. sciousness and culture. They are not like clocks, and

3) Solutions to wicked problems cannot be more like clouds. They are not just orderly, true, and

true or false, only good or bad.

technical. Everyone does not own them the way they

4) In solving wicked problems there is no exhaus- do facts. Their outcomes are not transferrable. And tive list of admissible operations.

this is not to say that one can’t reason on them, just

5) For every wicked problem there is always that it is hard not to eventually come to the conclu-

more than one possible explanation, with

sion, as Simon did, that there is something other and

explanations depending on the Weltan-

more going on.

schauung of the designer. “Awareness,” according to Thomas Kuhn in The

6) Every wicked problem is a symptom of an- Structure of Scientific Revolutions, “is prerequisite to all other, ‘higher level,’ problem.

acceptable changes of theory.” 9 As one and then many

7) No formulation and solution of a wicked become aware that an old model isn’t working—that problem has a definitive test.

it contains too many anomalies, too many inconsis-

8) Solving a wicked problem is a ‘one shot’ opera- tencies and exceptions—a newer model emerges and tion, with no room for trial and error.

is put forward to take its place.

9) Every wicked problem is unique. The inertia that is human conviction then has

10) The wicked problem solver has no right to be the two fighting it out until the last of the stubbornly wrong—they are fully responsible for their

dedicated to the old model dies out. This isn’t the case actions.” 4 here. The scientific, objective and quantitative model of “problem” isn’t wrong. It’s brilliant for what it’s

The biologist Garrett Hardin, also writing from within suited for—distilled knowledge—as time has more the scientific paradigm, described these outliers

than proven. It is simply an inadequate model whose as “NTS problems”—problems with No Technical

metaphors mask the nature of the problems and the

Solution. 5

kind of situated problem solving inherent in design Karl Popper, the Austrian-British philosopher

thinking.

of science, wrote about clock and cloud problems. In his famous essay, “Of Clouds and Clocks,” Popper distinguished between systems that are “orderly,

Another Country, Another Metaphor

predictable, reducible, and mechanistic,” and those Q: How many sides does a circle have? like clouds and weather that are “non-linear, non-or-

A: Two, an inside and an outside. derly, unpredictable, naturalistic and open to inter- pretation.” 6 While the context of his essay was a case

Problems in designing, since Simon, are much more against determinism, his cloud metaphor is prescient

accurately and usefully associated with situations,

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016 she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

tervention, without thought to its metaphoric blood- On this view, being situated means being in a

line of knowledge as power. Intervention implies one place, where “place” is more than an objective space

group or system interfering with another—all for the or location.

best reasons of course. There have always been hea- Place, according to the human geographer Yi-Fu

then and infidels whose beliefs systems or other ways Tuan, is “a center of meaning constructed by expe-

of being in the world need and would clearly benefit rience.” 10 Nested in realms of experience, a place is from some adjustment, enlightenment, or manage-

your bed or favorite chair, your home, your commu- ment from well-intended outsiders. nity (or tribe), your region, your nation—your world.

Intervention as a colonizing metaphor in de- Place means being embedded in a culture, in a society,

signing isn’t, of course, as disastrous as the kind of in a history, and in a language, with the primary expe-

foreign intervention that was the invasion of Iraq, rience of that culture being perceived and conceived

where the intervening power “didn’t know Shiite from the inside out. 11 from Shinola,” but it is a form of foreign interven-

Understanding that inside view necessarily means tion nevertheless. The metaphoric implication of the understanding the people who own such views, and

outsider perspective is that a perceived qualitative dif- all the ways in which they communicate about them.

ference in a place is not the primary responsibility of

A literary analogy would be the difference in what we the owners of that place. Superior outside knowledge learn between the storied description produced by the

(and power) will be necessary to resolve the situation. internal first person, and the chorus of second person

The contrasting ideal in designing is a kind of sover- voices from the inside, and the outside perspective

eign autopoiesis, where the people of a place have the of the all-seeing and all-knowing, third person, objec-

principle responsibility for taking care of themselves, tive eye. First person stories tell us what people are

their evolving culture, and the ecological health and thinking and feeling—what they care about. Second

justice of their nested presence in the world. person portrays how they are sharing their thoughts with one another. Myths, stories, poems, plays, dance, film, songs, rituals, paintings … all open portals that

Inner and Outer Limits

reveal and express dimensions of that inner life. “Art,” Limits in everyday life are the outer boundaries where wrote Paul Klee in his notebooks, “doesn’t render the

things end, such as the end of one’s property, a de- visible, it makes visible.”

pleted budget, or any number of possible conditions When one considers the Simon description from

pushed to the extreme where things collapse and fail. the “inside” point of view, the “devising of courses

We know for a fact that brains will die after a short of action” becomes grounded in a different kind of

time if they are deprived of oxygen and that light “existing situation” than the taken for granted and

travels at 186,000 miles/second. We know that the well-established research base condition of a scien-

earth can support only so many people—or do we? tific problem. The “base-condition” in designing is

That turns out to be more than a simple scien-

a unique, socially constructed, culturally complex tific calculation, and leads to the need to be able to perception of a problematic situation.

think about the difference between scientific limits The situational gap inferred by “existing to …

as maximums and optimums and the design thinking preferred” has its own preferred metaphoric meaning

perspective that focuses on limits as qualitative in design thinking. It refers to the qualitative differ-

boundaries and cultural prescriptions. ence between an existing and preferred state of being,

A maximum world population would be the rather than a difference in the quantitative condition

number of total world food calories that can be pro- of knowing. The difference that makes a difference in

duced divided by 500 cal./day, or the agreed upon designing—and is the driver of design thinking—is

minimum number of calories/day to sustain life. the social perception of a significant qualitative

This maximum population at the edge of starvation, difference.

struggling for existence, would of course have little energy to devote to poetry or any other element of human culture. Access to adequate food and water

Intervention

and a carbon controlled, pollution free, and healthy “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

planet are certainly necessary outer limits for human —Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

survival, but human flourishing takes place somewhere within those limits, where the controlling

De-Colonizing Design Thinking

Christian belief in a personal resurrection with a life.

stanza about how the dead can’t feel or hear the It’s something like the difference between the

sounds of nature. And in a second version, she shifts starving Oliver in Oliver Twist holding out his bowl and

to a universal time scale, where “Queens and doges, saying, “Please, sir, can I have some more,” and en-

no matter how regal, disappear soundlessly, invisibly, joying a four-star meal. It’s the difference between a

unremarked.” The third gets “frostier” with images statistical optimum and the local meaning of food in

of the tribes of the Exodus dead in their marble tents,

a culture. It’s the difference between cold calculation “never to view the promised land.” And the fourth and distributive justice.

portrays death as coldness personified by Northern The colonization about limits in planning and

zones and icicles in their polar caverns. design thinking was the belief that “carrying ca-

The imaginative range of such genius might be pacity” questions were fundamentally scientific.

large, but it is still anchored to the inner limits of Oregon, for example, in formulating its 19 land use

meaning in the world under creation, much in the laws had originally included, and then later had to

same sense that Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search drop, the phrase, “not to exceed the carrying capacity 14 of an Author” take over and run away with his play.

of the land,” on each of its natural resource goals. The taken for granted meaning of carrying capacity was that of a scientifically determined outer limit. The

6DWLVÀFH

first order of business was to preserve prime agricul- Satisfice is an ugly word, a cobbling coined by Her- tural soils and healthy productive forests.

bert Simon to account for a kind of problem solving But carrying capacity refers to whom and which

resolution that was clearly different from that of a forms of life? Was it destined to preserve the family

rational scientific investigation. From a scientific farm, its rural landscape and a farming way of life?

perspective the resolution of a situational difference Corporate farming? A local food and farm belt for

couldn’t be held to or measured by the standard of the locavores? Rye grass seed for the golf courses of

true or false. The resolution would have to be found Japan? Lambs for Louisiana? Soil capacity for growing

that acceptably satisfied the situation. It would have food or to hold up buildings? Sub-urbanization of the

to suffice, compromise, make do, be good enough. landscape or a Mumford-like culture of small towns,

Satisfice carries the implication of not being able villages and cities? The un-clear-cut choices between

to live up to the expectations of factual resolution. the clear-cut culture of industrial forestry and the

But the term is not an unintentional condescension. need to sequester carbon in NW forests for the world?

It just can’t help being broadcast from its dominant The unintended consequence of the term “car-

worldview. Like Crusoe’s inner baggage, its origins are rying capacity” was that it reached too far into the

carried invisibly and consequentially deposited on the realm of politically sensitive relationships between

other shore.

inner and outer limits. Having thus failed to ade- Of the two parts to the concept, suffice is the quately serve its rational planning objectives, it was

lesser metric. Whether intended or not, suffice carries quietly retired.

the inference that people just got tired of designing Another form of inner limit at work in designing

and decided after a while to settle or give up — or is the locus of imaginative expression and meaning,

decided that something was good enough—or as where the designer’s possible choices and preferences

one sometimes hears, “good enough for government are constrained within the world of their work. Helen

work.” There is just no comparison between this reso- Vendler, in her NYR article “The Poet Remakes the

lution of despond and the thrill at the end of a design- Poem,” 12 compares four different possible second erly voyage of innovation, creation, or discovery that

stanzas Emily Dickens weighed for her poem, “Safe in ends in some far better than expected, unimagined Their Alabaster Chambers.”

ending.

“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers— The satisfy dimension of the metric sounds uni- Untouched by morning

versally useful and colonially harmless when its taken And untouched by noon—

for granted meaning is the evaluation of scientific Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection—

inquiry. Satisfy, here, is a metric of acknowledge- Rafter of satin,

ment and an accounting of a research process where And roof of stone.” 13 important research goals are set, methodologically

pursued, and then logically and rationally concluded.

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

As in, “Our equations predicted that there should be metaphorically masquerading as benevolent nutrient

a Higgs boson in there somewhere so we pumped up interventions, to hide the research and development the BEVs, ran some cloud chamber tests, and found

of battlefield plasma.

it.” This is an extreme wartime example of the de- In designing, however, where socially constructed

structive power of imprisoned identity and purposeful goals tend to migrate, and targets belong to an onto-

metaphoric suppression. Design thinking’s hidden logical realm of ideals, preferences, and desires, the

and stealthy constraint is much harder to detect, and meaning of satisfy must equally be understood to mi-

leaves fewer marks. And because of this, design think- grate. Satisfaction must take its place alongside signif-

ing’s integrity and metaphoric freedom languishes icance and success when taking measure of meaning

sequestered—and its flourishing constrained—behind in experience. 15 the walls of a self-deceiving, ontological privileging and its taken for granted metaphors.

Sir Herbert Simon and the other early explorers

Metaphoric Freedom

discovered what they thought was an aberrant island Metaphoric hegemony can have very serious con-

outpost of science, and called it “the science of the ar- sequences, such as the one that reigns today in the

tificial.” They named it, described it, and settled it like storm cloud problem of anthropogenically caused

Crusoe—following their own inner compass, from climate change. It now seems fairly certain that our

their own point of view. Today we know that what Earth will pass beyond habitable limits if the human

they thought was an island was a new continent of world remains mentally colonized by and locked into

thinking with its own identity, place names, linguistic an older meaning of freedom. Continuing to hold

flora and fauna, and bare root meanings. Here, in the that liberty means unrestrained individual choices

words of the architect Louis Kahn, 19 is a built-environ- and actions is a deadly metaphoric colonization of the

ment sample of its cultural taxonomy: present by the past. Climate change, a serious outer

Room—a room with a particular character limit problem, urgently requires the embracing of an

Building—a society of rooms inner limit conception of liberty as a freedom that

Street—a room of agreement includes community. Or as Hegel put it, “Freedom is

City—an assembly of places vested with the care the recognition of necessity.” 16 to uphold the sense of a way of life

In his recent column for the New York Times, Roger Cohen 17 elaborated on liberty’s community

Kahn, also, was frequently under fire from gate- dimension:

guarding epistemologists when he would ask, “What “Liberty, however, requires certain things. Liber-

does this place want to be?”

alism demands acceptance of our human differ- Dante believed that heresy was stubbornly ences and the ability to mediate them through

holding on to a belief long after it had proven to be democratic institutions. It demands acceptance of

mistaken. On this view it would also be a heresy to multiple, perhaps incompatible truths.”

hold stubbornly to the taken for granted meanings of de-colonized metaphors, fully aware now that their

Metaphoric hegemony can also take the form of inten- superimposition is an intervention of their thinking tional identity theft, complete suppression of liberty,

world on another.

and serious bodily harm, as portrayed in the wartime Metaphoric freedom, for design thinking, lies

in the recognition of identity and the respect for its The story takes place in Fukouka prison in Japan in

novel The Investigation 18 by Korean author J.M. Lee.

integrity.

the period leading up to and after Pearl Harbor. A young Korean poet, Yun Dong-ju, is jailed for his sedi- tious writings about his occupied Korean home, and

1 The drawing of Robinson Crusoe salvaging goods from his sinking ship is cropped from a panorama covering pages 6 and 7 in My

is forced by the prison’s censor to translate all of his

Journals and Sketchbooks—Robinson Crusoe, illustrated by Michel

poems into Japanese to supply the evidence that justi-

Politzer and originally published in 1972 by Editions Joël Cuénot.

fies their condemnation and subsequent burning. To complete the domination, the poet is stripped of his out-of-print. A two-month copyright permission search through suc-

Korean name, required to speak only Japanese, and assigned a new Japanese identity. And finally, Dong-ju,

in London failed to discover the present control of the book’s rights.

now Hiranuma Tochu, and the other Korean prisoners Attempts to contact Michel Politzer directly for permission went

unanswered. It is printed here under the fair use doctrine of: one

become the subjects of forced medical experiments,

De-Colonizing Design Thinking

Intelligence and Educational Reforms (Eugene, OR: Eco-Justice Press, LLC, 2011).

3 Daniel C. Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).

Issues 8, no. 2 (1992): 16.

Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 207.

7 Herbert Simon, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 111.

8 Christopher Alexander et al.,

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings,

Construction

of Chicago Press, 1970), 67.

Review 65, no. 2 (1975): 152.

April 15, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/opinion/trum-

12 The quotes on qualitative limits and how Emily Dickinson (and poets generally) deal with the boundaries of expressive meaning come

Review of Books, March 10, 2016, accessed August 5, 2016, http:// www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/03/10/poet-remakes-poem/ .

13 Helen Vendler, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (Cam- 38.

14 Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author, trans. Edward

http://www.

eldritchpress.org/lp/six.htm .

RQB0HDQLQJBLQB'HVLJQB7KLQNLQJ .

tal in the development of the concept of carrying capacity.

2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/opinion/the-death-of-liberalism.html .

18 Jung-Myung Lee, The Investigation: A Novel

JA+U Japan Architecture+Urbanism (January 1973): 2, also available at https://www.japlusu.com/news/room-street-and-human-agreement .

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

Book Reviews Each of the formats addresses a particular question,

such as “How do items compare?” or “How do we get from station A to B?” or “When did what happen?” and is accompanied by a description of applicable concepts, a set of instructions, and illustrative examples.

On one hand, the book is very practical—no specialist tools are required. By simply following the Luke Feast, Aalto University, Finland

instructions and examples, anyone can start designing

luke.feast@aalto.fi

better data displays immediately. On the other hand, Data Design is not a book of purely instrumental

Data Design: Visualising Quantities, Locations,

design methods—although the guidelines are pre-

Connections

sented clearly and unambiguously, the author appeals By Per Mollerup

for designers to use critical skills and common sense. (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2015)

In fact, while the design of the book itself exemplifies ISBN 9781408191873, 176 pages

the principles of data design, it also breaks the rules when appropriate.

Every day, we see countless visual displays of infor- Data Design is a slim 176 pages—but with 200 mation in reports, books, magazines, and slideshows,

displays, it comes across as equally parsimonious and on TV and the Internet. We rely on charts, maps,

and comprehensive. And while the language used is diagrams and the like to help us make decisions and

economical, there remains a smattering of Danish get things done. Given the relative ease with which

sarcasm to add some humour to the text. organizations and individuals can now access huge

Author Per Mollerup is Professor of Communica- amounts of raw data, representing this “Big Data” vi-

tion Design at Swinburne University of Technology, sually has become a popular subject matter in design.

Melbourne, Australia. He was previously owner and However, the current trend in infographics and data

principal of Designlab in Copenhagen, a design con- visualization seems to be to make data “stunning”

sultancy specializing in wayshowing and branding. rather than informative. So a book about making data

He has authored several books on a variety of design visualization useful—rather than merely beautiful—is

topics, including space-saving objects and trademarks. very welcome.

This work is the latest in a string of publications As the author—an expert on information

outlining information design principles and offering design—succinctly states, “This book is not about data

practical guidance for designers; other recent works decoration.” Data Design clearly describes the basic

have dealt with slide presentations and wayshowing. concepts, principles, and practices required to create

If you are seeking discussion about the history visual displays that make data not only captivating—

of information design or the psychology of visual but also insightful, understandable, and memorable.

perception, you may not find this book useful. And It is illustrated with 200 data displays in 40 different

if complex, decorative displays are what inspire you, formats, including charts, maps, and diagrams. Infor-

then this book is certainly not going to satisfy. Data mative captions provide guidance on details.

Design is a book that provides instruction on data visu- The first part of the book provides a brief over-

alization written by an expert on information design. view of the theory behind good data visualization.

It is unapologetically concerned with accuracy, sim- Chapter 1, called “Field of Study,” outlines the fun-

plicity, and clarity. Anyone who seeks to represent damentals of data design. The next chapter, “Basics,”

data intelligibly and effectively—graphic designers, introduces principles of perception and psychology

human-machine communication designers, interac- applicable to visual display design. The second part

tion designers, researchers, writers, editors—will ben- is a practical reference guide divided into three chap-

efit the most from the basic principles and guidance ters—“Quantities,” “Locations,” and “Connections.”

provided within its pages.

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2015.11.001

Book Reviews

Don Norman, The Design Lab, University of more clumsily by using the terms simple, complex, California, San Diego, USA

and complicated. His description is more sophisti-

dnorman@ucsd.edu

cated, yet simpler—his explanation is quality-simple. We tame complexity by making it quality-simple.

Simplicity: A Matter of Design

We may prefer the visual simplicity of quantity-simple By Per Mollerup

devices, but when it comes to being able to under- (Netherlands: BIS Publishers, Amsterdam, 2016)

stand and use the objects in the world, it is far better ISBN: 9789063694029, 192 pages

to have complex objects that contain enough information to be understandable. Quantity-simple can

This book is deceptively profound. Why deceptive?

be complicated. Quality-simple can be perceptually Because although it looks simple, the examples and

complex and mentally simple.

principles it contains are deep and far-reaching. As Mollerup says, “to present complexity in

I wrote a book on complexity. Per Mollerup has 2 simple ways is the designer’s noblest aspiration.” written a book on simplicity. Despite the apparent op-

There is one other difference in the two books, position of the two terms, we share the same philos-

which is why both might be needed. Mollerup uses ophy and opinions. So which book should you read?

many examples, wonderful illustrations, and photo- If you can only read one, read Mollerup. If you have

graphs of objects that make his point. But his exam- time for both, start with Mollerup and then graduate

ples tend to be those of the traditional industrial de- to mine. The two books are complementary—his con-

signer—mostly physical objects with relatively simple tains insights you will not find in mine. Mine contains

operations. My book tends to focus upon those of stuff not in his—I hesitate to call them “insights.” His

interactive design, where the mechanisms are in- book was published after mine, but had I been able to

visible, embedded deep inside computer chips, and read his book before I wrote mine, mine would have

whose operations can only be inferred. I, too, have been much, much better.

many illustrations, but it is noteworthy that these two Mollerup compares our two approaches very

books—despite their very closely related topics and nicely. My book deals with complexity and his

almost identical philosophy—do not overlap visually. with simplicity, but the two are very similar. Why?

As a result, the two books are complementary—we Mollerup summarizes my book thus: “Accepting com-

each cover what the other does not, yet with a very plexity does not necessarily mean defying simplicity.”

similar philosophical approach.

It is a matter of design to domesticate complexity by This is a beautiful book—beautiful in at least quality-simple solutions: to make products with com-

two of the senses of the word. It is beautiful aesthet- plex content easy to understand and use. 1 ically, and beautiful in its arguments and principles.

That’s a better summary of my book than I have The book’s format is tall and narrow, with a single ever given. Moreover, Mollerup introduces the distinc-

relatively narrow column of text allowing generous tion between types of simplicity that neatly captures

margins that contains notes and illustrations. If at- the important issues.

tractive things really do work better, this book stands Simplicity—the concept—is far from simple.

as a great example. So let me thereby give a warning: Mollerup distinguishes several aspects of simplicity.

don’t try reading this on an electronic book reader. One distinction is between quality and quantity.

Although I like e-books, there are numerous cases Quantity-simple items are those with few compo-

where paper is far superior—this being one of them. nents—what most people would call simple. Quali-

I could go on to extoll the virtues of the book, ty-simple items can have many components, but are

and reflect upon the many examples and principles easy to understand and to use. Quality-simple things

Mollerup provides, but to do so would violate some can have many parts—they can be quantity-complex,

of those very principles. So let me keep this review but still be easy. Quantity-simple things might have a

simple in both quantity and quality. wonderfully simple visual appearance, yet be difficult

I shall finish by quoting myself—something to use. I tried to distinguish these two components

I wrote to Mollerup in a private email after I had

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2016.08.002

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016 she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

“I sat down in the living room. I read, turned the pages, read, skimmed, and read again. A long period passed.

Then I stood up and announced to the room, ‘this is a brilliant book!’ What more need I say?”

1 Per Mollerup, “The Missing Link?,” in Design For Business, vol. 2, ed. Gjoko Muratovski (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2014), 21.

2 Per Mollerup, Simplicity: A Matter of Design (Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2016), back cover.

Book Reviews

Letters my own papers bears little resemblance to the cita-

tion records in journals that focus on my own area of specialization—one paper has 70 citations in a journal

Concerns about that focuses on issues of design for sustainability, for

example. Consequently, the study appears to present

Quantifying Design an unnecessarily restricted and somewhat distorted Research Quality by picture.

The authors recognize that there is a marked

Stuart Walker. Reply by difference in citation numbers in Table 3b. They offer

one possible explanation related to a lack of available

Gerda Gemser and Cees

citation data for certain journals included in their

de Bont. study, but then say this is not capable of explaining

the gap—and they leave it at that. However, some Stuart Walker, Lancaster University, UK

further, more nuanced deliberation is needed. The following list contains a number of other possibilities,

s.walker@lancaster.ac.uk

but at the heart of them all is a potential problem with the design of this research.

• The pre-selection of ‘high quality’ journals featured in this article favors what might be

A Response to Gerda Gemser and Cees de Bont’s termed ‘general’ design journals (4 of 11), as “Design-Related and Design-Focused Research: A Study

well as journals that focus on certain well-es- of Publication Patterns in Design Journals,” She Ji: The

tablished specialisms including ergonomics Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation 2, no.1 (Spring

and human factors (4 of 11), engineering design 2016): 46–56.

(2 of 11) and computer-aided design (1 of 11). Yet other domains are excluded—such as fashion,

I am writing to you regarding the article entitled textile, and craft design and design research— “Design-Related and Design-Focused Research: A

and there is no representation from my own Study of Publication Patterns in Design Journals” that

area of specialization, namely product design for appeared in She Ji Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016. In

sustainability.

this article, authors Gerda Gemser and Cees de Bont • The article takes no account of the fact that refer to citations of my work.

some areas—like ergonomics, human factors, In my view, the limitations of this study yield

and general research methods—are long-estab-

a picture that raises important questions about the lished and enjoy a wide appeal, while others— veracity of the conclusions, especially with respect to

such as design for sustainability—are relatively the significant difference among citations indicated in

recent and tend not to be of such ‘general’ Table 3b of the article. Given this difference in cita-

interest. Moreover, design for sustainability tion figures between authors with similar numbers

is further subdivided into particular sub- of articles published, something would appear to be

groups—including sustainable fashion, sus- amiss with the study’s design and worthy of further

tainable architecture and sustainable product consideration. For example, citation listings from

design, for example—which have their own other sources, related to the actual design-focused

publications. Comparing citations related to a and design-related journals where authors published

relatively new, narrow specialization published their work, suggest that the discrepancies in Table 3b,

in a ‘general’ design journal with those for and the consequent inferences, may well be a product

a paper that discusses a more general, more of the study rather than an accurate reflection of

widely applicable issue is fundamentally prob- the citation records and quality of production of the

lematic because like is not being compared named authors. The number of citations indicated for

with like. If like with like were compared, the

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2016.09.002

she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016 she ji The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2016

of caution; 2) that Table 3b does not reflect the actual tablished areas of general interest—which will

citation records of these authors, some of whom

be widely cited as a consequence—are more published their work in well-regarded but more spe- important than nascent, specialized areas that

cialized design-related and design-focused journals may challenge conventions. While citations

that were not included in this study’s list of journals; for these latter areas will always be lower,

and 3) that assessment of quality and significance this is no indication of their lack of relevance

should not be based solely, if at all, on such measure- or quality. This has not been discussed in the

ments—especially in the humanities, and especially in paper, but it clearly raises some vitally im-

subjects like design that have creative, practice-based portant questions about the purpose of aca-

elements where critical judgment is especially im- demia and the assessment of quality within it.

portant. Moreover, the preselected list of journals • The article does not delve sufficiently either

used in the article in question is—as the authors into the reasons for such a large gap, nor

recognize towards the end of their paper—some- does it recognize that there are other, more

what arbitrary. This casts significant doubt on the qualitative—and many would argue more

“major finding” that there is a “‘separation’ between appropriate—ways of recognizing quality and

design-focused and design-related communities.” It standing in the field than the use of mech-

certainly appears to cast doubt on any conclusions anistic quantification methods. In this era

one may draw from Table 3b.

of neoliberalism, there has been a growing fashion for quantification and ‘evidence-based’

1 Sally Engle Merry, “Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights,

and Global Governance,” research of all kinds. However, the whole Current Anthropology 52, no. S3 (2011):

S83–S95.

notion of quantifying quality is deeply trou-

2 Martin Paul Eve, “Open Access, ‘Neoliberalism,’ ‘Impact’ and the

bling. As Merry writes, “The growing reliance

Privatisation of Knowledge,” martineve.com (blog) published, March

on indicators provides an example of the dis-

10, 2013, https://www.martineve.com/2013/03/10/open-access-neolib-

semination of the corporate form of thinking

eralism-impact-and-the-privatisation-of-knowledge/ . and governance into broader social spheres.” 1 Counts in the Neoliberal Workplace,” New Media & Society (Sep-

Eve makes a similar connection between neo-

tember 2015), accessed September 18, 2016, http://nms.sagepub.

liberalism and the free market, a key trait

com/content/early/2015/09/10/1461444815604328.abstract .

of which is “a fixation on quantification and

4 Lindsay Waters, Enemies of Promise: Publishing, Perishing, and the

measurement,” 2 while Moore and Robinson

Eclipse of Scholarship (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004).

have likened increased monitoring and quantification in the workplace to a new form of

Taylorism. 3 Some of the pitfalls of looking at quantity in academia, and the humanities in particular, are discussed by Lindsay Waters,

A Response to Stuart

Executive Editor for the Humanities at Harvard University Press, in his 2004 work Enemies of

Walker

Promise. He warns against suggestions that Gerda Gemser, College of Business, Department of “what cannot be counted is not real,” arguing

Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, that “Too many administrators prefer … the

Australia

yardstick,” and he speaks of the “damage the Cees de Bont, School of Design, Hong Kong

Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China humanities are about making informed judg-

academic world is inflicting upon itself.” 4 The

ments and critiquing and assessing quality, not counting the numbers of publications, cita-

We write this letter in reply to Professor Stuart Walk- tions or ‘impacts’—such mechanistic means

er’s “Letter to the Editors,” in which he reacts to our leave no room for informed assessment and

article entitled “Design-Related and Design-Focused critical judgment.

Research: A Study of Publication Patterns in Design Journals,” appearing in She Ji volume 2, number 1,

Recognizing the limitations of this study in a future

Spring 2016.

edition of She Ji and on the website would go some In his letter, Professor Walker questions the set way to pointing out 1) that any conclusions drawn

of industrial design journals included in our research.

Letters

We would like to emphasize that the set of 11 design published between 2000 and 2009, the citation journals we chose to focus on are considered to be

number would increase from 5 to 17 (using the same among the top 14 leading industrial design journals

time frame to tabulate citations as in our article, in the field. 1 Our focus on a subset of leading in-

namely 2000 to August 2011). This result does not dustrial design journals can of course be seen as a

change our remark that “the difference between limitation of our research. On the other hand, our

the number of citations between the work of Stuart focus on articles published in the sampled 11 leading

Walker and the other top scholars is sufficiently large industrial journals over a decade resulted in a da-

that correcting for this [by including Google Scholar tabase of roughly 5,000 articles, and we considered

citations, for example] would probably not dissolve that number large enough to provide grounded

the gap.” 4 It would also not change our general conclusions on the publication patterns of leading

conclusion that “when comparing institutions and design institutions and scholars. We would, however,

Design Innovation Catalyst Engagement Model