Essay

Theory….Now I Get It
Tania Hockings
301020553

When first reading through Ken Friedman’s article “Theory construction in design research: criteria: approaches and methods” I found myself nodding throughout and when it came to highlighting points the whole article was covered in yellow. For me, one of Friedman’s last statements summed up the entire article “I believe that a study of design based on profound knowledge embraces the empirical world of people and problems in a deeper way than purely self generated artistry can do”

There is never a right or wrong answer to how we define design, a different statement holds true to every individual; one that cannot be mistaken is design is about transforming less desirable situations to preferred situations. This cannot be achieved by pure talent, we first have to know which problems need to be solved and then know how to successfully achieve this. The goals of design are solving a problem, meeting needs, improving situations and creating something new or useful. As designers we play a pinnacle role in the general evolution, the design process takes on new meaning, it is our job to find the right answers and unless we do I see little purpose for a designer, it all starts with theory.

Reading through this I became increasingly convinced of my standpoint and felt my mind blossoming and light bulbs switching on, everything I read I felt I could relate back to my past, present and even future design problems. Design begins with a problem and that needs to be systematically researched to find a successful solution and even then the research does not stop, critique of your solution gains further knowledge base to feed off for the next design problem.

In the past as a developing designer we have always been encouraged and often forced to research into history in design and neighboring fields, to look for ideas and inspiration for our work. In the first year of university the extent of this research involved looking at some images, taking aspects we liked then combined with our own limited knowledge and experiences we formed ideas for our designs that we believed to be solutions to our brief. Through second year this show little improvement, we were beginning to use research as a starting point in all our work but nothing considerably in-depth and I would often find myself finding what I thought to be a great idea very early on so would shrug off the need for any further research, to then discover later down the track a project quickly sliding downhill and too late to save, a mistake that I somehow repeated many a time. However, into third year, the present day I have begun to realize the mistake and see a comparison, research is now a natural part of our design process, which without I personally would not know where to begin. Furthermore we are now beginning to go through a more systematic process in both researching and designing, by firstly breaking down the brief, finding the problem that needs to be solved and what requirements and aspects will help to find the most accurate solution. We also form proposals which describes a draft of our ideas and concepts, the what, how, why, who, where and when which provides us with an earlier internal and external critique. Throughout our projects we are continually developing, extending and critiquing our work, the research cycle does not stop.

Looking back now I can easily see the changing pattern; as my design and general experiences have increased these systematic research patterns have developed and helped to pinpoint more accurate and successful solutions that can be continually learnt from and built on. Although it feels as though theory is now becoming a natural part of our design process I can also see how much further we can push, by critically theorising all that we do it can become natural and help us individually gain experience, knowledge and furthermore our own theories to add to the world palette, the theories will all recycle and form the new.

This reading has helped me see this contrast and how much of an impact theory can help us in design. Theory is the tool that understands experience, knowledge and research, the three words that form success in any field of life or the world. Real design, helpful design, design that changes the world and design that every designer should strive for; the key is held in theory.