A common preconception is that generally, understanding should precede acting and that theory is superior to practice (which depends on and is justified by theory), with post-rationalisation usually regarded as a shortcoming. In the context of radical constructivism, this preconception seems shortsighted: If acting generates understanding, and understanding, in turn, generates acting, the relationship of acting and doing can be described more appropriately as cyclical.
— Christiane M. Herr - Design Cybernetics: Constructing Cybernetic Thinking, Design, and Education
Claude Levi-Strauss recognizes "bricolage", a "science of the concrete" (...) Bricoleurs construct theories by arranging and rearranging, by negotiating and renegotiating with a set of well-known materials.
— Epistemological Pluralism - Styles and Voices within the Computer Culture - Sherry Turkle, Seymour Paper
The sheer volume of your work is what works as a signal of weirdness, because anyone can do a one-off weird thing, but only volume can signal a consistently weird production sensibility that will inspire people betting on you. The energy evident in a body of work is the most honest signal about it that makes people trust you to do things for them.
— Venkatesh Rao - The Breaking Smart AMA
The design process is a sequence of expert activities that produces an innovative product. The artifact enables the researcher to get a better grasp of the problem; the re-evaluation of the problem improves the quality of the design process and so on. This build-and-evaluate loop is typically iterated a number of times before the final design artifact is generated
— https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_science_(methodology)
- but, the field-testing part seems very important; with Understanding Through Building I only "test" with myself, or even less, use the process itself to "only" understand the problem better without any real use for the artifact
make tools (for learning, not for thought exactly), publish them, observe their use, distill insights, share
— Robert Cobb
- Understanding Through Building makes the most sense long term, if it impacts the next thing that will be built