Design Wisdom: How Good Judgment Creates Effective Intentional Change

This group conversation will examine a model for creating effective intentional change based on judgment and design wisdom. In the model design wisdom is defined as "inquiry resulting in wise action" and judgment is the means for wise action. Wise action is that which precipitates the intentional change we desire. Design wisdom involves inquiring to enable good judgement-making leading to the effective orchestration of wise actions to produce the change we want.

Main Questions for our exploration (Note: ideas to help inform your responses to these questions are below):

What is design wisdom? Is the heart of design wisdom necessarily good judgment? What else is needed for design wisdom? Can we learn design wisdom? How?

Does creating effective intentional change require good judgment? Does good judgment come from good inquiry? What is the relationship between good judgment and design wisdom? What kinds of judgments are involved in design wisdom?

What do you think of this model for creating effective intentional change? What are its strengths? Its weaknesses? What better model would you propose?

How are compositional and connective judgments important for design wisdom? And core judgments?

What is the role of mediative judgment in producing the final design outcome? In creating the intentional change we want? How does mediative judgment shape design wisdom? How does design wisdom shape mediative judgment to create the change we want?

What is your integrative assessment of the role of judgment in design wisdom and in creating effective intentional change? What are the benefits and caveats of basing design wisdom on judgment?

Plan for our exploration:
● Explore design wisdom, in general.
● Explore compositional and connective judgment in the context of design wisdom.
● Explore core judgment in the context of design wisdom.
● Explore mediative judgment in the context of design wisdom.
● Explore the general role of judgment and design wisdom in creating effective intentional change.

Thoughts about design wisdom:

● "Design wisdom is an integration of reason with observation, reflection, imagination, action, and production or making." p. 18 (Note: all page numbers refer to the optional 2012 book "The Design Way" by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman. Only the brave will dare read this optional book as it is not easy and some participants have found it too confusing and frustrating. However, my curation of its quotes should make the book's profound ideas accessible for our exploration.)

● "Another demand that design wisdom makes on us is to reintroduce the analog into a world long dominated by the digital and the analytic." p. 18

● "One more factor in design wisdom concerns the nature of change. ... Change, as a consequence of design cause and intention, is an approach available to us ... Change—in relationship to design wisdom—has multiple levels of meaning, significance, and consequence. change is difference[;] change of difference is process[;] change of process is evolution[;] change of evolution is design" p.19-20

● "The ability to make solid design judgments is often what distinguishes a stellar designer from a mediocre one. By judgment, we mean that which is at the heart of design wisdom—inquiry resulting in wise action—in all of its manifestations. Judgment is the means, and wise action—wisdom—is the outcome. In fact, design wisdom can be defined as good judgment, which enables right action aimed at appropriate change." p. 139

● "Actions creating the right thing, for the right people, at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, for the right reasons is design wisdom." p. 217

● "design knowledge and, in particular, design knowing is different in that wise action and not just evaluated understanding is a demonstration of design wisdom." p. 229

Ideas about why judgment important in our lives:

● "The value of judgment is that it allows individuals to overcome their paralysis and engage in the challenging complexities of life in a way that, when done well, can bring function, beauty, and dignity to human existence." p. 144

● "[J]udgment is a convergent process. It brings diversity and divergence into focus; that is, it gives form and comprehension to aspects of messy and complex real-world situations. Best of all, it is 'on time' or 'in time,' which means that it takes place within the constraints of a reasonable time frame based on a time line of realistic expectations and limitations. This is the discipline of judgment: making good judgments in a timely way without the delays associated with never-ending studies." p. 144

● "We believe that judgment is a basic human activity. ... Reality presents itself to us in extremely large quantities of sense data and bits of information at each moment in time. In addition, the imagination and other faculties of the subconscious mind deal with an immense diversity and an unimaginably large profusion of types of information as well. This has forced us to develop different types of judgment, each appropriate to the magnitude and diversity entailed. In any situation, in any field—where there is a need to create choices and take action—we rely on a number of categories of judgments. These include intellectual judgments, practical judgments, ethical judgments, systemic judgments, professional judgments, and design judgments." pp. 144–5

Thoughts on the general nature of design judgment:

● "Design judgment holds many things in common with the other categories of judgment, but the outcome is distinct because it deals with volition and desiderata. Design volition—using one's own will to pursue desired ends—forms the distinctive character of design judgment. Design judgment facilitates the ability to create that-which-is-not-yet. It is a form of judgment making that is related to the type of processes that bring new things into existence, making them a reality as emergent compositional wholes or the constituent elements thereof. When design judgments are executed well, they create beauty and evoke the sublime on the one hand and commodity on the other." p. 145

● "Design judgment making is the ability to gain subconscious insights that have been abstracted from experiences and reflections, informed by situations that are complex, indeterminate, indefinable, and paradoxical. This results in the emergence of meaning and value, through the creation of relationships and connections that cause the appearance of unities, forms, patterns, and compositions, out of apparent chaos. Judgment is, in effect, a process of taking in the whole, in order to formulate a new whole. The outcome of judgment is not predictable based on rational anticipation. Nevertheless, the outcome of good judgment complies with the criteria and constraints supporting the driving intention and expectations of any particular purposeful process. The operational outcome of any judgment is dependent on the nature of the intention." pp. 145–146

● "In our examination of design judgment, we have found it encompasses several different 'ideal types' of judgment. For instance, as designers we face situations where we have to make an overall judgment on the quality of a specific material used in a design. At other moments, we have to judge how the chosen parts of a design fit together as a whole—as a composition and functional assembly. These two situations are not only different in their focus, they also reveal how different the act of making a judgment can be, and how our skills and knowledge underlying a judgment may differ." p. 146

● "Reflecting on design judgment, we can initially distinguish between the categories of client judgment and designer judgment. We also divide design judgments into domains of conscious or unconscious acts. The term 'client' … is used to broadly mean the ones who are being served by the design activity and the subsequent design itself." p. 146

"Because of the mutual influence clients and designers as well as other stakeholders have on one another, there is rarely a clear demarcation between these client and designer judgments. This means that the judgments of the designers have an impact in the clients' realm of judgment, and vice versa. These initial judgments are modified and refined throughout the design process by the cross-catalytic effect of judgments being made in the different domains of responsibility and accountability." p. 148

● Judgment of Approach. Clients of any effort to create intentional change, must first make a judgment of approach for handling this particular situation. The approach chosen is "an assertion of intention". "[D]esign is the act of evoking the yet-to-be-imagined and the not-yet-existing. This judgment of approach, … marks the entry into a design project and is always properly made by the client or on the client's behalf." p. 147

● Judgment of Desiderata. "It is the client who has to make the overall judgment about the direction and purpose or desired end state that would result from engaging in a design process. This does not mean that the client is deciding what the particularized outcome will be. By making this judgment, the client will only be setting the direction for the design process, providing the designer, or design team, with a first approximation of the criteria and constraints for all their energy, imagination, and actions." p. 147

● Judgment of Worth. "In the design process, the client is also responsible for making judgments of worth. A designer cannot make that judgment in place of a client. He or she might be able to suggest, or try to influence or educate a client to appreciate certain qualities and certain design consequences, but the final judgment of the worth and intrinsic or extrinsic values of a design to the client is in the hands of that client." p. 147

● "The making of these seminal judgments by the client not only creates restrictions on possible actions by the designer, but also instills accountability and responsibility for the designer, especially concerning the systemic effects of his or her own judgments. Because of the mutual influence clients and designers as well as other stakeholders have on one another, there is rarely a clear demarcation between these client and designer judgments. This means that the judgments of the designers have an impact in the clients' realm of judgment, and vice versa. These initial judgments are modified and refined throughout the design process by the cross-catalytic effect of judgments being made in the different domains of responsibility and accountability." p. 147–8

● "The client plays an ongoing role throughout [the design process], by having the continuing responsibility for the judgments already described. Design judgments are never finalized once and for all. New ideas, creative insights, changed conditions, and increased understanding and knowledge—all change the context for the judgments being made. Judgment in design is fully dynamic and dialectic, between conscious and unconscious judgments and between the clients' and designers' judgments." p. 148

● "These [design] judgments are not all of the same type, going well beyond the difference between being conscious and subconscious, or the liminal zone between the two." p. 148

● Judgment of Framing. "Framing judgment is … at the very heart of the deliberation that determines the adequate and essential conditions for design to take place. It is used for defining and embracing the space of potential design outcomes. It also forms the limits that delineate the conceptual container—a virtual crucible—that is required to contain the intense emotional and intellectual heat of creative activity. This entry point—a portal or gateway—for a designer into a design process is marked by an altruistic and pragmatic judgment of whom to agree to serve—a judgment of who the clients, in the broadest sense, are or ought to be." p. 148

"[F]raming judgment is used for determining what is to be included within the purview of the design process—in other words, what are the 'edges' of the project and what lies beyond consideration. ... At this point important things may be left out and unimportant things left in; questions of what is adequate or sufficient dominate. Errors of omission are the primary concerns here, followed by concerns over errors of commission later in the process." p. 148–9

"Still, as designers, we must be able to take action. We have to start the design process by setting the stage, by framing the situation, and by moving it toward a satisfactory outcome. This means we will find ourselves intentionally deciding to ignore some aspects, in order to focus on others." p. 149

● "Default judgments, made without deliberation, are a nearly automatic response to a triggering situation. In some ways, default judgments resemble instincts. The difference is that default judgments can be introduced where they did not previously exist; they can also be modified and refined, or replaced by new ones entirely, whereas instincts are genetically based—'hardwired' and unalterable. Default judgments are expressed as a 'bodily knowing' enabled through kinesthetic intelligence. In the craft tradition, they are the 'artless art'—an apparently effortless application of high-level skill without conscious deliberation .... A designer invariably encounters situations where they use default judgments. It is usually seen as a sign of experience when a designer can make good default judgments in pressing situations—a sign of good 'adaptive expertise.'" p. 150

● "Sir Geoffrey Vickers [developed] the concept of appreciative judgment in public policy design. Appreciative judgment is the capacity to understand, or appreciate, a situation through the discernment of what is to be considered as background and what is to be considered as foreground, in the formulation of a project context." (p. 140).

Appreciative judgment is "a picking and choosing of what is to be considered and in what way. For example, appreciative judgment is the type of judgment that determines ... what is important and what is unimportant, what is valuable and what is of little value. Whenever a part or aspect of reality is considered important enough to be assessed, a judgment has been made." p. 122

● "An appearance judgment is complex and multilayered. It includes determinations of style, nature, character, and experience. Determining if a particular judgment outcome is something that contributes to the overall whole is a stylistic consideration. ... an appearance judgment is aesthetic whether focused on artifacts or experiences." p. 151

● "Appearance and quality judgments often seem related, but there is an important difference between them. Appearance is usually associated with taste, while quality is associated with craftsmanship and connoisseurship. With regard to taste there is a presumption that desired attributes are recognizable in concrete particular examples. ... However, quality judgments do not typically have external templates to look at. These judgments are made within the boundaries of the concept itself, a unique addition to the real world, without reference to generalized examples or archetypes. Concepts like craftsmanship, connoisseurship, or artistry point to an understanding of the unique thing, in contrast to those things that are prototypical. ... Quality judgment also relates to the complex relationship between the designer's personal preferences, the desiderata of the client, and the richness of the design situation." p. 151-152

● "Instrumental judgments are the basis for the artless art that highly skilled craftspeople speak about, when referring to their interaction with their materials and the tools of their trade. This sensibility is what Jim Platts refers to as competence. Instrumental judgment deals with the choice and mediation of means within the context of prescribed ends. It is the process of mediation that considers not only technique and which instruments to use, but proportion and gauge, as well. This is the form of judgment that takes technology into consideration. Any type of crafting requires instrumental judgments that meld absolutes into compounds of realistic possibilities." p. 152

● "Navigational judgment involves making the right choices in an environment that is complex and unpredictable—the core of adaptive expertise. The outcome of navigational judgment is based on securing the desired state of affairs for any moment, in the moment, by staying on track and proceeding in the right direction—in other words, maintaining an intentional heading. ... Navigational judgments are not predetermined and are, therefore, only accessible in the moment. This type of judgment is essential in every aspect of human life." pp. 152

● "A signature type among the varieties of design judgment is compositional judgment, which is about bringing things together in a relational whole. This type of judgment is at the center of the creative process and includes aesthetic and ethical as well as sensual considerations. Using compositional judgment, relationships are created among a palette of elements, with an eye toward calling forth an emergent unified appearance. This whole displays the qualities, attributes, nature, and character particular to an ultimate particular. This compositional whole is formed within the guiding domains of aesthetics, ethics, and reason—in the mode of synthesis." p. 153

● "Intimately related to compositional judgment is connective judgment. Such judgments make binding connections and interconnections between and among things so that they form functional assemblies transmitting their influences, energy, and power to one another, creating synergies and emergent qualities that transcend the nature of the individual things that are being connected." p. 153

● "Core judgments ... are buried deep within each individual, but unlike offhand judgments they are not easy to access. Core judgments make themselves known when one is being pushed by 'why' questions concerning one's judgments and decisions. At some point, this process of interrogation stops, because it has reached the point where meaning and value are fixed. By fixed, we do not mean in the sense of the biology of instinct; we mean in the sense that creating, modifying, or rejecting these core judgments takes a great deal of effort in both time and intensity. We all know the uneasy feeling when we are challenged at a level that we recognize as signifying 'who I am'. We lose our ability to argue in a rationalistic way. We might even react like children, when we cannot justify our side of the argument but still feel deeply that we know what is right. ["An Autobiography" by R. G. Collingwood] uses the notion of absolute predispositions as a label of our most intimate and personal beliefs that we cannot justify in a rational way. Core judgments are rooted in our individual absolute presuppositions."

"Even if core judgments as absolute presuppositions are buried deep inside us, they seem to be accessible through at least four channels: the individual's character or 'genius', and his or her life experiences, creative experiences, and experiences of the sublime."

"Inborn character is the concrete particular identity that comes into the world with us, as a promise waiting for fulfillment. Core judgments seem to respond to choices that either contribute to this fulfillment, or detract from it."

"Also, core judgments are a composite of meanings and values, formed during the experience of living. These are not the products of reflection, or deliberation, but are embodied as lived experience. As life is experienced anew, the influences of old experiences are modified and new meaning and values are infused into one's core."

"In addition, the experience of the creative process, which results in a deep insight of consequence (i.e., not just a matter of cleverness or cunning), contributes to the creation of new meaning and value. This new understanding becomes a part of the designer's datum for core judgments."

"Finally, an experience of the sublime—an experience that moves us and transcends senses, feelings, and emotions—can also cause changes at the core. There may be other ways to influence a person's core, but these four seem to be access points to core judgment, which we can attend to most carefully." pp. 154-155

● "The plethora of judgment types forms a rich and complex map of interrelationships and interconnection. ... The map simply makes us realize that design is an involved process, guided by design judgments of astounding variety and type." p. 156

● "[W]e need to add one more type of judgment: mediative judgment. All of the judgments presented so far will, in one way or another, contribute to a final designed outcome. A designer needs to make judgments on how this whole should be orchestrated and brought together. Thus, he or she must balance and apportion the different types of designer judgments, through mediative judgment. In the manner that justice and mercy must be mediated in the crafting of a just society, different design judgments must be mediated into a holistic consequence. Mediation is not a process of averaging or compromise, but of instrumental intervention between absolutes, ideals, and creative ideas. Mediation between the chisel (the unbreakable) and the stone (the easily broken) results in the appearance of the desired sculptural form."

"Mediation is about the retention of difference in processes of unification through composition. For example, a well-functioning design team is a formation of diverse individuals that does not compromise their integrity as unique human beings. Mediation is at the heart of the application of skill and talent, often through technology, onto inchoate material with the intention of attaining a desired end. Mediation is not a dialectic process of postulating a thesis and an antithesis from which emerges a synthesis. Nor is it a process of resolving or compromising differences. Mediation is a means of managing and integrating the power of differences using a holistic instrumental approach that is emergent rather than aggregate." p. 156

● "The final design outcome, the whole, is the result of all the judgments made in a design process." p. 156

● The ideas about judgment considered here come mainly from pages 150-158 in Chapter 8 "Judgment" in the optional 2012 book "The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World" by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman.