You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2010.
Generally, when I explain about my research many designers and colleagues ask me about if it is worth to propose a design method, because designers do not usually follow any kind of method when designing. However, as I am a bit stubborn and completely convince about the applicability and usefulness of my research, I tend to defend the rational side of the design process and the utility of following a method. For this, I used to argue that one of the main reasons of being against methods is being lazy to think. Related to this, I would like to share a short text of John C. Jones, that, even written in the 80s, I found quite descriptive of the current designers’ situation:
‘Rigour, in using methods. I find, in talking to readers of the book [Design Methods], that few are prepared for the rigour with which it is necessary to follow a method if it is to make a difference to one’s habitual way of setting about designing. There is a tendency to let even simple methods, like brainstorming, degenerate into being something not usefully different from the kind of undirected chatting and ‘research’ that takes place in any design office. To use methods presented here one has to be willing, particularly at first, to follow each step exactly as described if one is to get a different order, or scale, of result. For instance, in a properly conducted brainstorm session, six people will almost certainly produce 70 to 150 ideas in about 30 minutes: in the kind of chatting that most people call brainstorming they will produce only dozen ideas, or less. The rigour of the method is what permits a higher aim, a wider view. But of course the thinking must be imaginative, not conventional.
A colleague told me about wordle long time ago, but I have never used it until today. The more you research, the more information you have, and when you have to write up the final thesis document you have to be sure to include only the relevant data. The past weeks, I have been dealing with this, trying to define as clear as possible the main track of my thesis. My supervisors suggested me to write down the key words/terms/concepts of my thesis, as a kind of brainstorming but with the opposite objective: to narrow! So, following this advice, I decided to create my thesis cloud with both my blog information and the text of chapter 1.
Word cloud created with all the posts of this blog
Word cloud created with the information of Chapter 1 of my thesis
Then I connected the key words to find out if the essence of my thesis was there or if there was missing some relevant information:
According to the above word clouds, this thesis clearly researches about design, focusing on diagrams, complex information and diagrammatic projects. Its objective is to analyse designers’ processes, to understand effective visualisations and create guidelines to improve diagrams visual language.
However, it has to be included more specific information about organisation, and the relevance of layers and maps for this research.
