Design
What is design?
Designer
Artifact
World
design process
integration
Paul Bennett (IDEO) - TED 2005
Aspects of design
designer
designed artifacts
design space
requirements
constraints
stakeholders
clients
materials
empathy
possibilities
Some definitons of design:
changing existing situations into preferred ones (Simon)
the ability to imagine that-which-does-not-yet-exist, to make it appear in concrete form as a new, purposeful addition to the real world (Stolterman)
A designer brings:
skills
experience
reflection-in-action
character
values and biases
Reflective Design
"Designers should use reflection to uncover and alter the limitations of design practice"
the ultimate particular
craft
service
constraints
'wicked problems'
example: the smart house
Do smart houses prevent you from watching dumb TV?
How smart does the bed in your house have to be before you are afraid to go to sleep at night?
Is the family dog considered an occupant of the house?
When you return to the house in which you grew up, do you want it to look the same or different?
Does an intelligent house need a door at all? Would it make sense to ask if an intelligent house would rather have a mouth than a door?
Can an intelligent house fall in love with the house next door?
Who will program the user preferences for the intelligent house? Mom? Dad? The kids? Will the intelligent house be able to meaningfully average these preferences? Does control of the intelligent house's preferences alter the balance of power within the family? Will this make the family more or less stable?
What if some settings are good, but not perfect, indicators that child molesters live in the house?
If you or one of your family members was often constipated would you want your smart house to automatically blast low frequency waves out over the PA system if such waves helped? What if they were activated by a button which had to be pressed? What if you frequently forgot to press the button would you then want the waves to be automatically activated?
What if your smart house remembered important dates like birthdays and sent cards and balloons, baked special cakes and chilled the champagne on the right days? Would you feel good if you received a card generated by your lover's house? If your otherwise always forgetful lover started remembering your birthday would you become suspicious? Would it be possible that you would break up with your lover based on the forgetting or the remembering to program their smart house to send a birthday card?
the whole
systems
emergent phenomena
experience
design as opportunity
design is a way of acting intentionally in the world
design is creative in that it allows us to create a world that didn't exist before
design is ultimately about changing the world
your homework:
design the rest of your day.
We can use designerly thinking everywhere...
even this lecture is the result of a design process!
What examples have we seen of values embedded in design?