设计学的想象力:叙事、直觉与讲故事

Imagination of Design Studies:Narrative,Tuition and Storytelling

本文讨论的"想象力"并非指创造性思维的基本能力,其概念主要得益于美国社会学家米尔斯的成名作《社会学的想象力》——社会学家应具有一种"心智的品质"——基于对个人与社会关系及其本质的洞察,提出令人满意的揭示与解决方案的能力。历史、意义、与方法等三个方面是了解设计学科需要弄清楚的三个基本问题,分别表现为设计史、设计批评以及设计思维。本文以"想象力"作为主线,细致考察"以想象力讲故事"在设计史、设计批评以及设计思维等三个领域分别表现为叙事、直觉以及用户体验设计等能力。设计学的离散性与社会学的跨学科本质在某种程度上具有相似性,社会学旨在解读数据背后的意义,而设计学的任务则在于解读意义之后还需提出相应的解决方案;作为心智品质的想象力在设计学领域也表现为多元的学科视角、开放的思维方式,以及管理复杂的综合能力。换言之,想象力是弥合设计学离散性的关键所在。一方面,想象力让设计史研究的叙事更显张力;另一方面,想象力亦让设计批评的直觉更有价值;另外,想象力还会帮助以讲故事为主要方式的设计思维更有代入感与说服力。

The 'imagination' discussed in this paper is not the basic ability of creative thinking,but inspired from The Sociological Imagination,the writingestablished the reputation of Charles Wright Mills,an American Socialist — 'mind quality' that a socialist should have — the ability of putting forward satisfying resolution according to insight of the relation between an individual and the society and its essence.History,meaning and method are three basic questions that design studies need to make clear,and they separately show as design history,design criticism and design thinking.Taking 'imagination' as the main line,this paper carefully investigates the presenting of 'telling a story with imagination' in the three areas of design history,design criticism and design thinking as the ability of narrative,tuition and design of user experience design.The nature of diaspora of design studies is in some extent similar to the interdisciplinary essence of sociology.Sociology aims at interpreting the meaning behind data,while the task of design studies is to put forward related resolutions after interpreting the meaning;imagination as mind quality shows in design field as multiple disciplinary visual angles,open thinking way,and comprehensive ability to manage complication.In other words,imagination is the key to bridge the diaspora nature of design,forfirst,imagination makes the narrative of design history research with more tension;the second,it makes the tuition of design criticism with more value;and besides,it also helps design thinking which takes storytelling as its main way gain more concern and persuasion.