Design as interface discipline
Gui Bonsiepe locates the interface in the triangle user – action – artefact, whereby the artefact is to reconcile the diverging demands. Herbert Simon conceives the artefact as interface between inner and outer environments, and he pinpoints three aspects of artificial things: purpose / aim, composition / nature of the artefact (inside), surroundings in which it is to function (outside). Design follows the functional aims, which connect the inner and outer system, whereby a multiplicity of equivalent means of establishing a fit arises. Wolfgang Jonas (1994, 1999) describes design as the interface discipline between artefacts and contexts, inner and outer system. The boundary inside / outside is not fixed, but rather defined through the designing authority´s competence to intervene. All that which can be manipulated constitutes the inside.
Regarding an autonomous model of design, we should remember Simon´s reflections on the processuality and the “infinite” nature of design, and on the dilemma of planning despite uncertain future contexts. And one should stress his value orientation:
´The idea of final goals is inconsistent with our limited ability to foretell or determine the future. The real result of our actions is to establish initial conditions for the next succeeding stage of action. What we call “final” goals are in fact criteria for choosing the initial conditions that we will leave to our successors. … How do we want to leave the world for the next generation? What are good initial conditions for them? One desideratum would be a world offering as many alternatives as possible to future decision makers, avoiding irreversible commitments that they cannot undo.´
What does the production process of design theory look like, that is capable of recreating this co-evolutionary fit, time and again?
Wolfgang Jonas
