NextD Barks: 2008: ASK NextD: Beyond UX: Making Sense of Human-Centered Design Now! (original) (raw)

Redesigning design; an invitation to a responsible future

1995

This essay proposes new contours for design as a profession in a world whose industrial products have become more and more language-like and incommensurate discourses compete with one another for hegemony-the design discourse being merely one of many. It takes design to be constituted (that is, defined with)in processes of languaging. It calls on us to recognize and act in the awareness of how our discursive practices identify us as the experts we are, create the objects of our concerns, and provide us with a vocabulary to communicate or coordinate our actions relative to each other. 1 The motivation for this essay stems from the far too common experience that whenever designers do work with their counterparts from the so-called 'harder' disciplines, professionals who can argue with statistics, with experimental findings, with calculations or from positions of administrative authority, they most often lose out. Examples are abound. 2 I conclude from them that, first, designers often are preoccupied with products when what matters is how their ideas occur in talk, in clear presentations, in hard evidence, and in compelling arguments. It is communication that makes a difference and gets results. Second, design is foremost conceptual and creative of future conditions. Dwelling on existing facts often inhibits and is generally less important than the ability to bring a multiplicity of people to recognize the benefits of collaborating in the realization of new ideas. Designers are bound to fail when they do not act on the premise that their conceptualizations must make sense to those that matter. Third, the success of famous designers is based primarily on carefully nourished publicity, personal connections, or longtime working relationships with clients. The visual qualities and functionalities in terms of which 1 The insight that we humans, whether as ordinary people, as professionals or as scientists of one kind or another, are living in language is the starting point of several philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Richard Rorty. I can not review their ground and must go on here. 2 The version of this essay which was presented to the conference included five examples, among them Robert Blaich's account of how Philips' well known Roller Radio almost didn't come to be. See Robert Blaich (1990), Forms of Design, pp. d1-d14 in Seppo Väkevä (Ed.

Expanding Domains of Design: Ascertaining its Impact on the Discipline

Design is now seen as a strategic asset that can make a critical difference between success and failure of enterprises. In the innovation-driven global economies of today, the design is increasingly recognized as the core of the innovation process. And the design will be the driver of tomorrow's creative economies and their mass-customized markets. Design is now established as an independent discipline. Began with a restricted objective of beautification of objects, messages, and environment, design now deals with interactions, services, experiences, and strategies. With creative execution, design now encompasses creative definition. Today the designer deals with the challenges that are complex and exist within larger systems having their elements interconnected and in constantly changing relationships. The traditional product-centric design approach has changed to the human-centric design approach and further to the humanity-centric design approach. From design as an outcome, the profession has expanded to utilize the design process and design thinking to all spheres of economy and life. Started as a generalist discipline, design now encompasses a range of specialization within the discipline.

Designing a Methods Platform for Design and Design Research

2004

  1. Motivation and purpose "Design is a decisive factor shaping all our lives, all the time. There are few corners of our environment, or aspects of the objects and communications enveloping us that could not be significantly improved on some level in greater or lesser degree. (…) Only when we understand that all these manifestations of design are the outcomes of choices, ostensibly made on our behalf, but in most cases without our involvement, can the meaning of design in the contemporary world change. (…) Only when it is adequately understood, debated, and determined as something vital to everyone will the full potential of this human capacity begin to be realized." (Heskett 2002) Rhetorical appeals of this kind, which point out the crucial role design could / should play, are abundant, at least since about 40 years, when the Design Methods Movement first addressed these issues (Cross 1984). But the insights hardly found their way into practice and education. Heskett's statement can be regarded as a kind of programmatic foundation for the project of designing a methods platform for design and design research: People as the focus of design  human-centeredness We criticize the artefact-centeredness of design with its orientation towards function, technology, aesthetics, as opposed to user-experience. We criticize the author-centeredness, aiming at the expression of self, as opposed to being in responsible service. We criticize the business-centeredness, aiming at shareholder value, as opposed to value creation for all stakeholders. We consider these too narrow approaches to designing. The question today is more about how and why we design, and shifts from the design of artefacts to the design of systems giving access to users. Uncertainty as the condition for planning  future orientation Simple extrapolations of existing situations and trends are in fact not more than guesses. The "survival rate" of new designs / innovations is disappointingly low. New products fail at a rate of 85% (Source: International Manufacturing Review, July 1999). On the other hand new products account for 32% of corporate revenue, and 30% of corporate profits, on average (Source: Product Development and Management Association 1996). Design practice has to be reconsidered in response to new technological and economic challenges. This requires design being integrated into strategic

Design Research Now: Essays and Selected Projects

If international design research is to continue to develop, we need to have fundamental discussions, not only on what we understand design research to be, but also on the most important questions and issues, on exemplary design projects, and on the most promising subject areas now and in the future. Rather than asserting unilaterally that a particular conception of research is the only valid one, or that a single type of approach is exemplary, however, our aim should be to present a diversity of viewpoints and research projects to a wider audience of design researchers, introducing specific research areas and giving reference points for more extensive debate on the focus, issues, objectives, approaches and methods of design research.

Beyond Design

Design today has become an extremely wide area of expertise, overlapping with many other disciplines. Knowledge of the classics of modern design has almost become a common cultural property. Design objects today are presented in a similar manner as art. This book is my interpretation of the design process, covering all disciplines. In the book, I will be occasionally shifting from one discipline to another, but this is because, in reality, disciplines are overlapping themselves. I think it is important to provide as much as possible a holistic overview. There are many different interpretations of design and according to me, as long as the designer can explain and communicate his work in a rational matter, there are no wrong or right design interpretations. I make no attempt here to create an encyclopedic enumeration of some kind; rather this book is designed, to present a survey of the main lines of the design development, and influential factors that may and will determine the future of the design process. This book represents a contemporary overview of that process and relates to the tendencies of the integrated design approaches in industry and the knowledge that lies behind. This book has been written and designed as a Masters Project at the Bergen National Academy of Arts (2004 - 2006). I would like to thank this institution for choosing me to become a part of the first generation of the Master students in Design and Visual Communication in Norway. Having American, German, French, British, and Norwegian professors, made the work on this book a valuable international experience.

A new role for designers through meta (open) design

2017

The growing speed with which consumers discard artifacts is a significant but regrettable part of the capitalist economy. High consumption rates are accelerated by contemporary society, which is based on a model of values that link the notion of well-being to profit generation and consumption of material goods. This exacerbated consumption cycle perpetuates environmental damage. In this context, proposing sustainable solutions involves new ways of thinking and doing that are distant from the practices of the current model of consumer society. This paper reflects on the necessity to implement changes into the design process, production, and consumption modalities. These changes propose a "new" role for designers as professionals, and as individuals in society at large. This research connects the concepts of metadesign and opens design-enabling system awareness. Metadesign can be considered critical and reflexive thinking about the boundaries and scope of design, but also, as the prefix "meta" implies, it can be understood as the design of the design process, in a critical and reflective way. Open design implies the openness of the design project for multiple actors (including consumers), information sharing, and building knowledge between them. As a result, design can lead to consumption modalities situated in slow culture, transforming the relationship between users and artifacts.

Skills for design in contemporary society

Several factors have contributed to the expansion of the projectual focus of Design over time. Initially focused on the design of physical products, its scope is evolving toward a systemic perspective. The main design challenge in contemporary times is precisely to develop and/or support the development of solutions to highly complex issues that require a broad vision of the project, jointly and sustainably involving products, services and communication. It is in this context that the interpretive richness and visionary skills, inherent characteristics of this discipline, can contribute to the development of a plurality of solutions and future scenarios. This paper aims to conduct a reflection on approaches and tools that support the development of transversal relations and the role of the designer in system level. Possibilities of expanding the purview of the designer stand out through the strengthening of their role as boost agents of sustainable innovations (design for sustainability) and of projects related to local resources value (design applied to the territory value design system, design in the value chain, service design). In this context, the importance in the development of competencies related to the systemic view is emphasized, as well as to the symbolic analysis and to the establishment of crosscutting relationships with other disciplines and social actors.

Introduction to This Special Issue on Understanding Design Thinking

The design of artifacts and how designers make them have garnered renewed societal interest as interactive technologies create new opportunities and challenges. The world we experience has never before been as diverse, socially and materially, or as malleable as it now. Increased computation and interactivity are changing the appearance, evolution, and interactions of the personal and collective artifacts that shape our everyday experiences, family and community life, and learning and work activity. These digital artifacts increasingly leverage sensing and physical interaction to provide information at our fingertips and connect us to people around the globe. This new generation of digital technologies gives people a great deal of discretion as to what artifacts and services they use and how they use them (Grudin, 2005). Adoption and appropriation of new digital artifacts is increasingly part of everyday life, and this change draws our attention-and sense of curiosity-to how these artifacts are designed. When we talk about designing, we share Herbert Simon's (1969) broad view that ''everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones'' (p. 129). The articles in this special issue can usefully be read with that broad view of design. That said, we and the authors focus on design professionals, students, and researchers as canonical instances. As computational artifacts take on new shapes and play new roles, so do designers (Moggridge, 2007). Designers of digital artifacts face more complex constraints than, say, furniture designers a century ago. Their work must integrate diverse considerations, physical and mechanical engineering, software engineering, user interface design and user experience, and aesthetics, as well as diverse culture and human values (Dreyfuss, 1955). The position of design and designers at the nexus of so many complex