Harold G Nelson

Youth and education

Nelson, son of Harold G. and Marjorie E. (Millis) Nelson, was born in Western Montana as a fifth generation descendant of Swedish homesteaders. He grew up on a small farm at the foot of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Upon graduating high school, he enlisted in the US Navy and served four years as a guided missile technician.

After completing his service, he enrolled in Montana State University, working summers as a fire guard and hotshot with the National Interagency Hotshot Crew. Nelson received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1972 from Montana State University, where he was member of the Delta Phi Delta Art and Architecture Honorary Society. He continued to study architecture and ceramic design at the Technical University and Ateneum Fine Arts Academy in Finland, and received a Master of Architecture from the University of California in 1973 under Christopher Alexander.

At the University of California he continued to study the interface of systems thinking and design and received his Ph.D. with distinction in 1979. His dissertation, entitled Energy Resource Development and Community: Vanishing Community, Bloom Town, Home Town, focused on a systems approach to the impact on rural communities of large-scale resource development projects with an emphasis on value distribution assessment.

Further career

As a licensed architect in the State of California, Nelson worked for seven years as an assistant regional architect for Region Five of the U.S. Forest Service from 1976 to 1982. In this position he designed and oversaw the construction of two visitor's centers. One of which—Chilao—is now in a National Monument and has become iconic.

Nelson began his teaching career at Texas Tech University as Assistant Professor from 1982 to 1984, where he was awarded the "President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching" in 1984. After another year at the Montana State University, and two years at the Saybrook Institute, he was core faculty at Antioch University from 1987 to 1999, and extended faculty at the University of Washington from 2002 to at least 2008.

At the Antioch University Nelson served for twelve years as the Director (Department Head) of the Graduate Programs in Whole Systems Design (WSD). One program was recognized by US News and World Report as among the Top Ten graduate programs in Organizational Development. Further he has been involved with diverse organizations including: non-profits and corporations, state and federal agencies, international governments, and the United Nations. He has consulted, or lectured in: Chile, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, Indonesia, and Australia. He is working as an education consultant for universities, governmental agencies, and business organizations.

The 2003 book by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman, entitled The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World; Foundations and Fundamentals of Design Competence, was awarded the Outstanding Book of the Year award by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology in 2004.

Work

Nelson's research interests are in the fields of complex systems inquiry, complex organizational systems design, advanced design education in formal and informal settings, deep design/critique and advanced design postulation and axiom development. His focus is in two areas: the first is on the development of design competent organizations, and the second is on innovation leadership.

Nelson is particularly known for the 2003 book The Design Way, co-authored with Erik Stolterman. John Zimmerman et al. (2007) summarized:

... in their book, The Design Way, Harold Nelson and Erik Stolterman frame interaction design—and more generally the practice of design—as a broad culture of inquiry and action. They claim that rather than focusing on problem solving to avoid undesirable states, designers work to frame problems in terms of intentional actions that lead to a desirable and appropriate state of reality. Design is viewed as a unique way to look at the human condition, and is understood through reflective practice, intellectual apperception, and intentional choice. The practice of design is framed as encompassing the real, the true, and the ideal; design research is framed as research on a condition that arises from a number of phenomena in combination, rather than the study of a single phenomenon in isolation.

in the 2008 article "the nature of design practice and implications for interaction design research" Solterman (2008) further explained:

Design practice is about the creation of a desired reality manifested as an ultimate particular. The ultimate particular is a design concept of the same dignity and importance as truth in science (Nelson & Stolterman, 2003). The ultimate particular is the actual final manifested outcome and as such a result of an intentional design process. A digital artifact or an information system implemented in a specific organization is an ultimate particular. Such an ultimate particular may be similar to a specific type or class of systems, but it is nevertheless a unique particular. This means that if the system is not satisfying the demands and needs of the organization, it is not reasonable to argue that, “Since this system works well in another organization, it can’t be the system that is causing the problems” or, “Since this system was designed in accordance with agreed upon methods and techniques, there can’t be anything wrong with the system.” Each system, each design, even if exactly the same as another, makes up an ultimate particular that has to be understood in a designerly way as evoking emergent qualities in the composition made up by the system and the organization together.

Cucchiara reviewed that which The design way : intentional change in an unpredictable world charts "a path to navigate complexity in the design of real additions to the world."

Selected publications

Nelson has written one book and more than twenty articles, and has given over 50 presentation world wide.

Articles, a selection: