1. the enthusiast stage

2. the professional stage

3. the consumer stage

You as a designer are bridging stage one and stage two. You use the technologies developed by the enthusiasts (the enigineers) and after you had a go at it the design is on the professional stage. Imagine how the first mouse looked and how it looks now. Designing for these new application requires a lot of knowledge and creativity. Knowledge that we know of but also knowledge that’ is created during the design process. Especially this knowledge is of great importance to the emerging design field. But how do we learn from the knowledge you created as a designer. Will you publish it on a wiki, will you post it on a design forum or just share it in your facebook network?

Or why even bother?

Well experience alone does not increase and improve the quality of design.

In the past design was rooted and as such designated to craft-education. The challenge it faces today is the shift from practice based towards understanding (Friedman, 1997) design as a science. This new approach requires a vision on knowledge and experience. As design used to be perceived as an experience, this new shift requires a paradigmshift of design as a reflective practice in which knowledge plays a profound role. According to Boorstin (1985) “The new currency of knowledge was the product of a special form of experience, to be known as experiment.” and Friedman (1997) “To reach from knowing to doing requires practice. To reach from doing to knowing, one requires the articulation and critical inquiry that allows a practitioner to gain reflective insight.” Therefore we must acknowledge the dynamic features of design knowledge: combining theory and practice. The process of developing and shaping a science of design does not easily emerge from this articulated point of departure. That’s why we must look into the elementary objects of both practices; design vs. science (Bunge, 1982). For the proper deployment of knowledge for science this research proposes critical inquiry for analysis and synthesis of both practices. 

In this course we will explore new territories and old theories in which we focus on:

How can we separate design knowledge from design experience, in other words to go beyond the product ?

If so what kind of products of design research do we have? 

And how can we easily exchange the knowledge to our fellow designers

Overall the research tries to enhance a mutual frame of understanding and cooperation in which we develop a scholarship and knowledge in design by sharing knowledge across the boundaries of design disciplines. Offering open access to knowledge assets (products from learning – formal and informal) in which we strive for an international effort to make knowledge and information throughout both academia and creative industries freely available. 

Course invites you to design through theory: we will be experiencing theory instead of reading about it.

The course is constructed in three phases:

1. Theory Construction

2. Theory through Design

3. Critical Reflection 

Course Outline: http://www.mediazone.co.nz/371/IDDN%20DMDM%20371%20final.pdf