What is Design Theory?
When proposed with the above question, my classmates and I put forward our points of view and debated over what exactly is Design Theory? The only response we received was that none of our descriptions were wrong. That design theory is what we perceive it to be, because it is heavily influenced by the context under which it is operating.
The term ‘design’ can be described in two ways.
The first is as a noun, which is the organization or structure of the formal elements in a work of art. It is the visual representation of the ideas in one’s head.
The other is as a verb, which is the process of creating these works. It is mainly associated with the planning and development of these works. It also involves the other steps in a typical design process- the research, the iterations, and the prototyping.
We also discussed how we perceive designs.
In essence, the more amount of time we spend with a design and interact with it, the better our perception of that design is. Our perception begins with an opinion, that can turn into a judgement, which further evolves into us forming a critique of the design.
Don Norman talked about this in one of his TED talks.
He explains this as the three levels of design.
He says that the first level is a visceral design. Here, a person only forms an opinion about said design, mainly catering to its physical features, i.e. look, sound, feel. For example, one may have never used an iPhone, but just love it due to the way it looks.
The second level, is a behavioural design. In this, the person uses the design and forms judgements about it, due to its functions and uses. For example, one may have used a both an Android phone and an iPhone, but love the iPhone because it’s more user friendly.
The final level, is a reflective design. This happens when the person spends a lot of time and interacts with the design. They understand the message behind the design and start critiquing it, thus subconsciously forming notions about similar designs already. For example, one may have only used an iPhone, and doesn’t want to try using an Android phone, because they’re used to an iPhone.
We did an interesting exercise in order to understand how character sketches are made, and how field research can be done without directly interviewing people, or when the user isn’t available. It was called wallet mapping. We worked in pairs and basically went through each other’s wallets, emptying them completing, and then making inferences about the person using the contents. We realised how we have preconceived notions, and judge people about how rich they are, just on the basis of how much money they have in their wallet, or if they are responsible if we find their keys in their wallet. Once the exercise was completed, we shared our findings with the class and realised that most of our judgements made sense, and we had successfully created a basic character sketch of our partner, without even talking to them. But, we also found out that some of our deductions were incorrect and their is a sense of subjectivity involved in research.
