Hi Mark, I tried posting this last night, but I didn't see it show up on the thread, so I thought I'd try again:
I%u2019m sorry that there was some confusion on my post; my comment was directed specifically at Leah Noble, and her question regarding the design studies program at AI of Portland, and whether she should go on to get her graduate degree. The AI website talks about the program covering %u201Cthe fundamentals of research, business and art and understand how they integrate to enhance the design process. Students will focus on analyzing design trends, understanding design philosophies, and gathering research to provide support for new designs%u201D, all of which sounds very much like a design management program rather than an interaction design program. I realize that Leah indicated that the faculty are trying to move the program from what's promoted, but even if one were able to glean a fair amount of interaction experience from the nexus of business, philosophy, art and research, I%u2019d still recommend to Leah that she work on the graduate degree before trying to move into an interaction design position. More specifically to your question which began the thread (would it be good for the profession to have an undergraduate standard?), the answer is a resounding yes. To the second question (can it be done well?), the answer is also yes. The obstacle to both is twofold: one has to do with the turf and the resources that the disparate areas of the larger field cling to; the other has to do with what I see as an institutional tendency to over-prep the undergraduate for a specialty area that leads into graduate studies. On the first point having to do with turf: Rather than collaborating to define what would constitute a good program, many are holding on to their pieces of the pie, especially as it relates to the research money or tuition associated with their academic programs. I%u2019ve seen it at many institutions where the squabbling over subject matter content within courses and programs has caused good ideas to die and wither on the vine. On the second point regarding over-prep: Some of this over-prep is the result of institutional pressure and/or departmental bias toward pushing students down a didactic path, and frankly to meeting overly-quantitative and overly-prescribed assessment outcomes, rather than allowing students to explore the discipline on their own. Even at the undergraduate level, prescriptive programming never gets people where they really need to be when it comes time to move to the next level. Finally, and to my point, you%u2019ll get no disagreement from me on the notion of "design research%u2019s" implied focus as primarily about interaction, but as far as I%u2019m concerned, the fact that it%u2019s implied, rather than explicit, is part of the problem, especially as one casts about for what is missing in the various educational schema for programs in interaction design. This couldn%u2019t be truer than at the undergraduate level. So to me, Todd%u2019s comment earlier resonates in the context of the %u201Cimplied%u201D focus of programs, especially as he bemoans the fact that there are not that many qualified and vetted junior designers. It%u2019s because the programs are all over the map, not just in what they focus on, but also in what they%u2019re called. Take care! Kevin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26558 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
