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Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
Solving Critical Design Problems demonstrates both how design is increasingly used to solve large, complex, modern-day problems and, as a result, how the role of the designer continues to develop in response. With 13 case studies from various fields, including program and product design, Tania Allen shows how types of design thinking, such as systems thinking, metaphorical thinking, and empathy, can be used together with methods, such as brainstorming, design fiction, and prototyping. This book helps you find ways out of your design problems by giving you other ways to look at your ideas, so that your designs make sense in their setting.
Solving Critical Design Problems encourages a design approach that challenges assumptions and allows designers to take on a more critical and creative role. With over 100 images, this book will appeal to students in design studios, industrial and product design, as well as landscape and urban design.
222 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 6, 2019
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August 25, 2020
This is book is well written and interesting, and provides a variety of engaging case studies. (For my PhD on architectural metaphor however, I was hoping for more information on how metaphor might be used as a design approach to problems, as suggested in the blurb.) Allen’s book does well at showing how cross-discipline approach can assist in this altered perspective, but does not appear to tie it back to specific metaphorical applications as such. There were good descriptions of analogical design strategies (which are similar) that demonstrate how thinking about one thing in terms of another improves your understanding of the target domain and how it operates. Allen also uses the example of the ‘desktop� metaphor on computers to demonstrate how schemas (“a set of mental constructs that are developed through experiences, cultural attitudes, values, and beliefs�) can be both general and specific go-to thinking models that are convenient mental-short cuts, and once established, are hard to dislodge.
The book also raises an interesting point regarding the use of technology (framed as a window vs a mirror) and how it may not be assisting our problem solving capacity, but actually altering the task at hand itself. It opens an interesting debate whether the meaning which metaphor transfers from one domain to another might be, in this digital age, transferring infinite information but no knowledge, and in doing so, actually (s)wiping our tabula-rasa-minds clean rather than laying down meaning.
The subject I am most interested in exploring further is the notion of the ‘uncanny valley� � a (metaphorical) name given to the tipping point at which humans respond to almost-human-CGI/robots � a strange diversion, but it tweaks at the edges of the indeterminacy of translation with images rather than words, and the notion that metaphor should combine two things which are dissimilar, but not too dissimilar (because then it would be far-fetched catachresis) and not too similar (because then it would void the term metaphor) � such that there is a similar ‘uncanny valley� (of not too much and not too little) to breach. The other useful link is to the notion of ‘the real Frankenstein (monster)� being the system, not the kit of parts, which can act and evolve in unpredictable ways � and even bite-back - so too a metaphor, which is more than the sum of its parts, and once coined, can be ambiguous in its effect.
[The life of Frankenstein’s monster is strangely similar to Rev Dr George Campbell’s cautionary tale in Philospohy of Rhetoric, 1776, when he outlined metaphor’s dilemma, which is, that novel, newly-minted metaphors are the best due to their originality and ‘vivacity� � but - metaphor is not always well received, and should be used sparingly and preferably only after it has been publicly endorsed to avoid it being treated as ‘ludicrous� ‘foreign� or ‘insidious� and thereby ruining its creator’s reputation.]
Lastly, it raises an interesting idea about ‘truisms� � if metaphor is a game of hide and seek, by framing your attention to look one way and not another, then, like technology, there is a risk that it presents one truth and not another, and potentially tricks us into thinking it is the only truth. Allen gives the example of how your sat-nav says ‘go this way� without offering options or advice on which is the more scenic route and so on.
Overall, it raised plenty of questions rather than provide plenty of answers � which in light of truisms, is not an altogether bad thing - it has the potential to make research, like design, a dialogue rather than a statement.
The book also raises an interesting point regarding the use of technology (framed as a window vs a mirror) and how it may not be assisting our problem solving capacity, but actually altering the task at hand itself. It opens an interesting debate whether the meaning which metaphor transfers from one domain to another might be, in this digital age, transferring infinite information but no knowledge, and in doing so, actually (s)wiping our tabula-rasa-minds clean rather than laying down meaning.
The subject I am most interested in exploring further is the notion of the ‘uncanny valley� � a (metaphorical) name given to the tipping point at which humans respond to almost-human-CGI/robots � a strange diversion, but it tweaks at the edges of the indeterminacy of translation with images rather than words, and the notion that metaphor should combine two things which are dissimilar, but not too dissimilar (because then it would be far-fetched catachresis) and not too similar (because then it would void the term metaphor) � such that there is a similar ‘uncanny valley� (of not too much and not too little) to breach. The other useful link is to the notion of ‘the real Frankenstein (monster)� being the system, not the kit of parts, which can act and evolve in unpredictable ways � and even bite-back - so too a metaphor, which is more than the sum of its parts, and once coined, can be ambiguous in its effect.
[The life of Frankenstein’s monster is strangely similar to Rev Dr George Campbell’s cautionary tale in Philospohy of Rhetoric, 1776, when he outlined metaphor’s dilemma, which is, that novel, newly-minted metaphors are the best due to their originality and ‘vivacity� � but - metaphor is not always well received, and should be used sparingly and preferably only after it has been publicly endorsed to avoid it being treated as ‘ludicrous� ‘foreign� or ‘insidious� and thereby ruining its creator’s reputation.]
Lastly, it raises an interesting idea about ‘truisms� � if metaphor is a game of hide and seek, by framing your attention to look one way and not another, then, like technology, there is a risk that it presents one truth and not another, and potentially tricks us into thinking it is the only truth. Allen gives the example of how your sat-nav says ‘go this way� without offering options or advice on which is the more scenic route and so on.
Overall, it raised plenty of questions rather than provide plenty of answers � which in light of truisms, is not an altogether bad thing - it has the potential to make research, like design, a dialogue rather than a statement.
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