In designing things for others we can’t possibly avoid interfering with other people’s lives as the things we design form part of the framework in which people live; that is, intervening in people’s lives is rather the point.
That we intervene in the lives of others is, I think, ethically problematic although unavoidable. Designers have reacted to this dilemma in a number of ways.
One approach, which we might call Total Design, has the designer taking total responsibility and designing the whole environment or imposing a particular utopian proposal. I find this ethically undesirable but it is often aesthetically successful. I guess there’s something which is often aesthetically pleasing about one idea carried through completely.
The other extreme we might call The Market. This is where the designers just give people what they want. This might be Disneyland, Redrow homes, design-by-committee or just following economic or marketing trends. This, at first sight, seems more ethically acceptable but really it is an abdication of the responsibilities of a designer – the designer might as well not be there. This abdication of responsibility is an ethical failure to add to the aesthetic mediocrity of The Market.
I think most designers occupy a ground between these two extremes. We tend to use drawings to have a conversation between designer and designed-for.
The difficulty with this is there are often so many stakeholders in a design that we can’t talk to or consult with all of them. Often we might only really talk to whoever has commissioned us. This is more or less fine for say a domestic extension but for a residential development we clearly miss something if we just talk to the client who might be the developer because he is not the end user. The developer has, needless to say, a very different set of concerns to the end user (who might not even be known).
In reaction to the multitude of stakeholders (the client, the user, the passer by…) designers have developed different ways of involving them – either in the designing of the proposal (e.g. participative design) or actually in the proposal (e.g. interactive architecture).
Are some of these different approaches to designing-for-others valid in different situations?
Or is there some ideal balance we should all aim at?
How can involving stakeholders within designing avoid the perils of The Market?
Attitude
Thanks Ben for a clear and concrete contribution. Ben is one of the 12 invited discussion leaders for the opening reception. He was recommended to us by Ranulph Glenville.
aesthetics and interaction
Hello Ben,
is it a problem about ethics and aesthetics?
If we "give users what they want", will it automatically look aesthetically mediocre? Does it bother people, if it is what they want? (Or does it only bother designers?) Or are people happier with an appealing environment, although they could not contribute to the design?
And what about the interactive quality? If something works well but looks awful? I have the feeling that, in the area I work in, aesthetics can be arbitrary to a certain degree, but the interaction is essential. And this is where designers have more expertise than lay people (at least they should have more expertise).
Katharina.
Hi Katharina I dont think
Hi Katharina
I dont think that 'giving people what they want' (using the market as a measure of what is wanted) will automatically look mediocre. But, as Mill points out in On Liberty, we often want what we think we should want rather than what we actually do.! The market is a kind of flattener of individual taste and desire. I think giving users what they want in this sense often doesn't allow them to contribute to the design.
I think the idea of contribution leads us to interation as a way of involving others meaningfully in designing and in the designed.
Do you want to give us an example about interaction from the area you work in?
Think of outdoor jackets
Hello Ben,
I first thought of software interface design, where you do not have physical constraints and therefore have to carefully arrange the layout and look for an analogy or metaphor that may be comprehensive for the activity you want to support. The preliminary prototypes you program may not be visually appealing, but they may work a lot better than a beautiful interface that is badly structured and inconsistent. (You can experience the same with products. There are a couple of very practical things that are not really beautiful. Outdoor jackets are an example.) The look is more a matter of fashion and changes over time. The interaction is of course not totally independent from the visual appearance. Designers often care about both and see themselves as the link between social scientists and engineers.
The examples for participatory design that I read of are all in a very well-defined environment with clearly defined activities (like tools for nurses in a hospital). I wonder if there are any products for a wide public based on participatory design, or if the design solutions all stayed in their particular context.
Katharina.
the aesthetics of my waterproof jacket
As you hint, I dont think you can always divide aesthetics from practicalities and I think its probably dangerous to do this even when possible.
I like outdoor jackets and there's an aesthetic quality to being in one when its raining and being dry - or when, like mine, it has a slight rip...I think the usability of your interfaces is part of its aesthetic because the aesthetic comes out through its use.
In architecture participatory design varies from doing surveys/ consultations (which I dont think are as useful as they might be for tools for nurses because of the scale of architecture) to implicating users and others in the design though either officially working with them or more directly and informally interacting with them.
participation
...sorry I meant to add a bit more to that...(is there any way to edit comments?)
I know very little about participatory design in its various guises - and I'm not really sure where to start with looking into it - can anyone point me in the right direction?
participation in HCI
For interface design (or HCI), Liz Sanders developed a toolkit called "maketools" and wrote a couple of papers about participatory design. You can find them on http://www.maketools.com/ .
(And I didn't mean to insult outdoor jackets as such. I have one myself.)
participative aesthetics vs aesthetic participation
I think it is impossible to not interfere with anybody (linking back to Paul Watzlawick - it's impossible not to communicate) and that holds for both doings as well as (eg neatly reductive) non-doings that are being observed relative to certain contexts. And to me, aesthetics would always relate to findings emerging from sensitively observing (or rather: perceiving) some conditions in the psycho-social interpenetration zones and codifying such in terms of languages (that of course need not be verbal-linguistic - although that may provide relatively rich connectivity). For and in this, sensitive individuals are all (in need of) becoming socialised (culturally, somehow)... The funny question is what participatory design formal proceeding can help with design professionals and audience representatives not being 'sensibly interfaced' to each other with some respect? Market is but one kind of network to look at here (I am currently reading 'Identity & Control' by H C White).
participation in HCI
Dear Katherina - thanks for the leads! I also like our digression onto outdoor jackets...I'm looking forward to taking a walk in the rain sometime...B
the funny question and capture the flag
Hi Matthias - thanks for your comments. We are indeed all bound up together in reciprocal relationships - I like Terry Eagleton's Jazz Band example in 'The Meaning of Life' as a way of understanding this.
I think you hit the nail on the head with: "The funny question is what participatory design formal proceeding can help with design professionals and audience representatives not being 'sensibly interfaced' to each other with some respect?"
An interesting project I've just come across is something a friend of mine who is studying american civilisation/ culture (i.e. not a designer) at brown. The link is here: https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/Fall07MCM1700P/Capture+the+Fla...
This kind of event is first of all a kind of participative urbanism in itself but also a really good way of exploring a space physically and socially which might inform later design work...what do you think?
the game
Hi Ben, thanks for your response and the link given above. What I found interesting in the last of post-game round-ups from organisers was the impression that participants found themselves playing with much fun without caring too much about the final goal (capturing the flag) any more - let alone the rules of the mall (say: 'buy as you can'). That shows nicely some divergence between external observers (security who didn`t get it - except non-conforming, i.e. non-buying, behaviours of a resting group of people), planners (still external, because only in anticipation of how rules may be followed by the future players), and the 'insiders' (playing crowd). And that went also beyond simple person-to-person relations in the sense that your 'we' above need not in first place be composed of multiple 'I's of individuals, I think.
play
I think the playfulness is really great. To refer to Eagleton again: the main point of the jazz band example is to illustrate how we are all bound up with each other. each musicians free expression forming the context for each other musicians free expression. He then goes on:
"what we need is a form of life which is completely pointless, just as the jazz performance is pointless. rather than serve some utilitarian purpose or earnest metaphysical end, it is a delight in itself. it needs no justification beyond its own existence. in this sense the meaning of life is interestingly close to meaninglessness…"
I like your observation about 'we' - relating identity with situation - do you want to expand?
play(er)s
Hi Ben (and others, too), sorry for not having come back earlier (for travel reasons). Concerning the 'we' pointed at, I suggest to think of that in sense of a, say, 'sociological turn' in design research. That means that (any individual's) identity would not relate with situation directly but rather refer to ways of socially dealing with stimulations to (conventionally) relate with certain phenomena and situations that such current experience could be assimilated to. No human individual becomes 'self' without social stimulation (even Kaspar Hauser developed somehow).
What 'meaning' in actual case will or can be (re)constructed individually will have to be at least roughly 'known'(i.e. cognitively structurally determined) ex ante - after having been learned before, eventually (eg from surprise/mis-fit of anticipations and accomodation; cf. J Piaget schemes).
'Pointlessness' may with some regard be constated by an observer - but already another one observing this one (with same(?) regard) may see that differently. Likewise, one may always relate 'creativity' to an observer being surprised. And that may provide both of them with pretty stimulation (or: delight) as well as with worries. I remember that in at least one of his papers ('mind the gap'), Jonas probed into handling 'non-knowing' some time ago.