Design Judgment

Since I have not been very productive here lately I can at least link to others who are. My colleague Jeff Bardzell has written a great post on his class blog on the distinctions between "opinion" and "judgment". I really like this post.

The notion of judgment is crucial to anyone who tries to understand design. What I am seeing in interaction design is a growing interest in the activity and meaning of "criticism". Hopefully this will also lead to a deeper appreciation and examination of "judgment".

I truly believe that an intellectual and reflective understanding of the two notions criticism and judgment is at the very core of being a good design thinker and design practitioner.

Back on Twitter

OK, after a few weeks without Twitter I decided to sign on again. It was in so many ways an interesting experience. It was fascinating how my thoughts changed over time, especially for the first week or two. I thought this would be an interesting experiment, now I know it was. I learned things about Twitter, about being in touch, and about myself. Maybe later I will write about it. If you have the courage to do the same thing :-) you should!

Donald Schön

Again I am going to teach about the work of Donald Schön and this time I found a transcript of one of his talks from 1987. It is a great text and here Schön presents his core ideas in a short, clear, and enjoyable way.

"The Craftsman"

I just got the new book by Richard Sennett called "The Craftsman" today. I have only read a few pages but I am already convinced that this is an essential book for anyone who thinks about the role and place for skilled practices and craftsmanship. I will continue to read and maybe write a review later on.

Criticism and Design (again)

Again my colleague Jeff Bardzell has written a great piece on the relationship between critique and design. There is no way to talk about design without talking about criticism. Design is about the creation of particulars and particulars have to be evaluated (critiqued) for their own sake, in relation to its qualities and how those qualities relate to context, use, and intention. Anyhow, I am sure this interest in criticism in HCI and interaction design (still in its infancy) will not only foster a new understanding of the role of criticism but also strengthen the understanding of design and its fundamental ontological and epistemological status. Looking forward to an exciting development of the field....

Concept designs and real designs

The argument in a recent blog post by Kontra is that real designers don't focus on concept designs (in the meaning of future possible designs, like concept cars). He also discusses why many large companies, such as Microsoft and Motorola, are great at producing amazing concepts designs but less good at producing innovative real designs, while Apple is the opposite -- that is, they do not focus on (public) concept designs but produce many innovative real designs. Without having thought much about this, I am willing to agree with Kontra. He makes a good argument. But, there might be other examples that would make me disagree, anyone?

Leaving FaceBook

OK, since I just stopped using Twitter, I have also deactivated my FaceBook account :-) I will basically only use LinkedIn now. Is this a bad move?