Why Google Will Never Beat Old-Fashioned Design Research

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts and co-founder of the MFA Design Criticism program.

Google is the best research tool since the invention of card catalogs. Nonetheless, I teach the "No Google! Research Class" at the School of Visual Arts MFA in Design Criticism program (a.k.a. D-Crit). It may seem unnecessarily sadistic, but watching students squirm is only a small part of the fun.
Internet search engines cannot solve all research challenges. So the purpose of this class is to teach gumshoe rather than desktop research. My goal is to encourage research projects based on personal or scholarly interests, historical artifacts or found objects. Analysis rooted in first-hand interplay is essential.

At http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/06/why-google-will-never-beat-old-fashioned-design-research/240566/