IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2012 - 32

e
ExTROvERSION

s
SENSING

t
THINKING

J
JuDGING

i
INTROvERSION

n
INTuITION

F
fEELING

P
pERCEIvING

The eight characteristics at left represent the four preference pairs that the MBTI measures: are you extroverted or do you focus on your inner world? Do you take in information as is—i.e. via your senses—or do you intuit by adding a layer of interpretation and meaning? Do you make decisions via logic or by taking special circumstances into consideration? and do you prefer to get things decided or are you open to new information (perceiving)?

recent studies of students dig a bit deeper. in a Journal of Interior Design article, randall r. russ and Margaret J. Weber ph.D. shared the results of a study they conducted in which the Mbti was administered to 234 junior and senior interiordesign students from 12 FiDeraccredited universities. While the researchers did not find a definite link “between personality and career aspirations in interior design,” they nonetheless found a statistical majority in the “catalyst” type—or nF—which puts a primacy on intuiting and feeling. “Feelers” tend to make decisions by considering others versus following accepted logic. in a paper presented at iDec’s annual conference in March, Mississippi state university interior design professors beth r. Miller, AsiD; Amy crumpton, iDec, LeeD Ap; and Lyndsey L. Miller highlighted the results of a school initiative subjecting senior design students to Myersbriggs testing prior to applying for employment. While 14 personality types were represented in the 75 testees, the most prevalent was inFp, followed by enFp and enFJ—again, all examples of the catalyst type. contrary to those findings, though, istJ was the most prolific type among those who ultimately joined an architecture or design firm upon graduating. interestingly, thinkingsensingjudging introverts are known to make good managers. Also curious: the three faculty members tested shared the judging trait, which favors routine, structure, and organization. those findings dovetail with research initiated by rosemary e. peggram, ph.D, whose texas tech university dissertation investigated whether personality traits could predict the future academic success of incoming interior design students. she set out to determine whether school programs should take such profiling into account during the application process— i.e. do those who test a certain way have a higher likelihood of doing well in school (universities being most interested in enrolling students they think will flourish)? of course, academic and professional success are not synonymous, but peggram’s findings also uncovered statistical significance in the judging (versus perceiving) dimension.

What does the above tell us? that interior designers do not fit in one box. Judging and perceiving, introversion and extro version, are represented somewhat equally. but intuition is prevalent—a trait not common to the population at large. DESIGN THINKING the discipline of interior design does not have ownership of this term, which became a media fixation in the aughts and continues to have traction in the business world. A new documentary by Yuhsiu Yang, Melissa Huang, MuMing tsai, and iris Lai, Design & Thinking, which debuts in June, looks at the term anew. Funded via Kickstarter (a hotbed of design thinking in its own right), the film interviews innovators and changemakers—iDeo ceo tim brown, smart Design cofounder Dan Formosa, but, alas, no interior designers— about “the ambiguity, conflicts, and the messy process of how…creative people think and do things,” according to the filmmakers. is design thinking an empty marketing phrase, they ask, or does it have real implications? the kicker: our problemsolving methodology, ability to see possibilities in limitations and success in failure, and embrace of experi mentation can be applied to any number of life challenges. in a fast Company interview with Warren berger, author of Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe even the World, the journalist discusses the power of design and design problemsolving to transform how way we live. based on his interviews with 100 designers and 100 other creatives, he found commonalities in what makes a designer good: their ability to ask “stupid” questions to get to the overlooked heart of the matter; their fl air for challenging assumptions; their ability to visualize and concretize problems to better highlight connections and patterns between things; their openness to new ideas by thinking “laterally” versus in a straightforward path; and their antenna for finding what’s missing in the world and seeing it as an opportunity. sounds a lot like intuiting and theorizing.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2012