Chris Rust guided my attention to a research project in e-learning by Nicola Wood. She looks into designing "interactive learning resources to record and transmit the expert knowledge of skilled craft practitioners".
Her learning materials can be accessed at
http://foldingknives.designinquiry.wikispaces.net/
Her approach to teaching how to design a folding knife goes across all stages of the design process. She uses vodcasts, and design templates to support the transmission of such expert knowledge. Very interesting work.
This is an interesting site, with a good mix of media about the design process. It does raise a question however, because of the subject matter. Knife crime is a big government priority and (for example) sharing this link with our students might cause a few complaints. Would be an interesting discussion however...
Posted by: Team U101 | December 16, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Interesting, isn't it. I had exactly the same first thought. Maybe it was the wording "if you want to make a folding knife" that somehow awakes an association to weapons. Of course, a knife has many other aspects of usefulness... maybe my association was supported by the BBC podcast I heard that day: Material World 02/01/2008, where the discussion evolved around design against crime. The discussants had the opinion that designs should discourage crime. They argued many crimes are opportunistic. Hence reducing the opportunities a designed environment, system or product offers the less crime. However, here we come into a quite different discussion which goes along the lines that we as designers and our designs should take away responsibility from the user and pre-structure the interaction with a design in a way that it gives no choice for committing crime. In this sense we treat humans like children or minors! Is that what we want?
I think we could give students this resource and a contrasting resource, say a website that contains a collection of designs against crime to evaluate and discuss.
Posted by: Nicole Schadewitz | December 16, 2008 at 01:51 PM
I’ll be honest and say I’m quite shocked by your response! However it is useful and I should have anticipated it. I must consider how to address the issue on the wiki, but first a quick response for you Peter.
The detailed statistics show that if you are young, male and black then the risk of you being involved in a knife crime is very high, if you are not then it is very low. Sadly knife crime makes big news and is much hyped in the media so nowadays there tends to be the automatic assumption that knives = weapons.
In reality most knives are used as tools. My father and generations of folk before him always had a penknife in their pocket. Since working on this project I always keep one in mine and use it many times a day for many little things such as snipping off a loose thread, opening a packet of pasta or flipping the lid off a bottle of beer at the end of the day!
I should also add that the sort of folding knives featured in the tutorial are legal to carry in the UK as they have no locking mechanism. In the supporting videos Jeff, the knife designer who is demonstrating, makes quite clear that he wants his knives to be small, non-aggressive, ‘lovable pocket objects’.
Anyway, it is useful for you to have raised the issue and I will now have a think about how to highlight ‘knives are tools not weapons’ on the wiki!
Posted by: Nicola Wood | December 16, 2008 at 03:13 PM
Yes funnily, I think I only had this thought because I heard a pod-cast about this topic (design against crime), and I agree it is much hyped. And I also agree, that pocket knives are tools rather than weapons. However, I also think that designers need to design with possible misuse in mind, which was considered i.e. by not having a locking mechanism. Especially when you think about how many designs are not used as intended by the designer. I think to include designs that have potential for undesirable misuse in a debate on design thinking is very important. How do you build a discourse around such object probably influences the way they are used i.e. the wording used in the learning material but also marketing etc. As I said I'd rather want to see users as responsible people then children you have to restrict in their actions and tell what to do or not to do.
Posted by: Nicole Schadewitz | December 16, 2008 at 05:32 PM
Next semester I hope to run a short project getting some students here at Sheffield Hallam to design folding knives using this resource. I think I’ll set this issue as part of their project brief. How can we design knives that imply use as tools rather than weapons? Can they retain their practical functionality and look good without appearing aggressive?
If all goes to plan we will have one group from Industrial Design and another from Metalwork & Jewelery working together and it will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Posted by: Nicola Wood | December 17, 2008 at 04:23 PM
This is an interesting site, with a good mix of media about the design process. It does raise a question however, because of the subject matter. Knife crime is a big government priority and (for example) sharing this link with our students might cause a few complaints. Would be an interesting discussion however...
Posted by: Antointtea bendeli | April 11, 2013 at 06:38 AM
Yes funnily, I think I only had this thought because I heard a pod-cast about this topic (design against crime)Select from a broad range of DVD series for the much discounts for superdvdoutlet.ca.
Posted by: Antointtea bendeli | April 11, 2013 at 06:42 AM