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Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Cameron D. Norman

Cameron D. Norman — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:28:20 +0000

I’m not as familiar with that last term. There’s a lot of design research methods that could be the answer. You’re assessment seems reasonable to me.

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:23:18 +0000

Thanks.
I know another term called “research through design”. What is the difference betwren it and design science? It seems that “research through design” uses design science as an approach to discover new theories in some areas, such as Informstion Systems.

Comment on Have We Turned the Page on Social Science Research for Health? by Cameron D. Norman

Cameron D. Norman — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:25:07 +0000

Social science is often built on basic science and is often the thing – or at least a catalyst — that brings scientific discoveries to human health. It might be the drug that helps your condition, but the social factors about how the clinic is organized, your doctor diagnoses, the cost of the drug and its impact on your family and pocketbook, the way you take the drug and when, the packaging of the drug and the way the language is used to describe how to take it, and even the name of the darned thing is all social science. That’s what people forget. I agree wholeheartedly that pure science researchers need to know that it is social science that will help foster adoption of something, not just good ideas. That’s why we need psychologists, anthropologists, business management folk, economists (yes, they are partly social scientists too) and beyond. But someone the policy folk tend to centre their interests on just the science. The saddest thing is that it takes about 20 years — something that has barely moved since we got the Internet — to move a scientific discovery in health sciences from the lab to where most of us can benefit from it in clinical care. That is mostly a failure of social scientific support for pure science. Of course, giving up isn’t really an option.

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Cameron D. Norman

Cameron D. Norman — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:11:39 +0000

Hi Kirk, Perhaps the best examples of what one might call design science is Herbert Simon’s work on the Science of the Artificial or the work by Buckminster Fuller. They were looking at creating a scientific foundation for creation and believed that a field that was created around scientific principles could advance far more than by cobbling together ideas from other disciplines and applying them to design (as in the science of design). The science of design would look at evidence for things like prototyping, incremental change, group collaboration, creativity research, and things like that — not always research that comes from design itself, but more tangential areas. Keith Sawyer’s work on creativity is a great example of research that fits design, but comes from psychology. Another example of these two discussions can be found in reading Nigel Cross’ work as he is big on looking at the distinctions between design science and the science of design. You’re inspiring me to write another post on this. I hope this helps.

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 20 May 2012 01:25:32 +0000

I read that “design science” is to create innovations that define the ideas, practices, technical capabilities, and products through which the analysis, design, implementation, management, and use of information systems can be effectively and efficiently accomplished.
So it seems that the output of design science is a solution for a problem or an artifact.
But I can not find such kind of description about “science of design”. How is it different from design science?

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 20 May 2012 01:04:56 +0000

Hi, thanks for you reply.

Based on your reply, it seems that the science of design is more practical than design science. The design science is about design methodology, which is more theoretical. The science of design is about how to use design science principles into industrial production. Am I right?
Would you mind give me more details and examples?

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Cameron D. Norman

Cameron D. Norman — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:59:57 +0000

Interesting question. Design science is the scientific study of design practice and outcomes, while the science of design is the application of scientific principles or ideas derived from the scientific study of design to its practice.

Comment on Have We Turned the Page on Social Science Research for Health? by Christy

Christy — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:41:40 +0000

If I link the previous post and this one…The social science is the action or the walk and the pure science is the thinking or the talk. So the trick now for all of us is to be sure that the funding model doesn’t drive the social scientist to focus solely on the problems identified by the pure science thinking but still searches for the answers to the bigger social problems that impact our ability to truly change a societies behaviour. Is this a correct summary?
If so is the corollary of this that the pure science researchers must be more supportive and thoughtful of the social science side of the funded research.

Comment on The Science of Design Thinking by Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:22:48 +0000

So what is the difference between Design Sciemce and Science of design?

Comment on The Alien Shores of Academia: Requiem for A Dream by Have We Turned the Page on Social Science Research for Health? « Censemaking

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:28:32 +0000

[...] and trainees. Research funding not only supports the scientists themselves in many cases (see my previous posts on this), but those seeking to become scientists themselves or get better acquainted with [...]