I would like to come back to Victor Margolin's message (20/9/02) on
design for social responsibility to suggest some consideration that I
think are relevant for the development of his proposal.

In a previous post Victor Margolin suggests that Social design be
considered as a new paradigm. The aim of this proposal is to make social
design free from the limitations that emerge everytime this approach
(social design or design for social responsibility) is proposed as part
of the existing and dominant market-driven paradigm. (How many times
assisted to discussions between designers who proposed socially or
environmentally oriented initiatives and managers who locked up the
discussion with a simple question: "who pays for this?")

There are some considerations, however, that should be expressed in the
idea of a social design as a separated paradigm. 


1)      the notion of paradigm suggests a series of interesting
parameters that can be used to develop Victor's proposal. For instance a
paradigm requires that the social context in which design is situated is
better defined (see point 3), a series of solutions that can be
developed, but also a series of problems that should be considered.
Consequently a paradigm also defines a series of problems that CAN be
considered, other problems are inadmissible for that paradigm, therefore
the solution that solve inadmissible problems do not make sense in that
padadigm. There are problems such as empowering the users, in order to
make him/her capable to produce his/her own solutions (products or
service) is much less relevant in the market-driven economy than in the
socially-driven design. Of course a paradigm also includes admissible
and inadmissible methodologies.

2)      Since new paradigms usually borrow some of their constituent
elements from the existing ones, we should understand which elements can
be translated from the paradigm of market-driven design to the paradigm
of the social design. Paradigms do not appear overnight, evidences of
the new paradigms can be found in the old ones. We should understand
what are the evidences in the market-driven design practice, that may be
the basis or the amplifiers of a social design paradigm. Such evidences
(that are usually "weak signals" of the possible emergence of a new
paradigm) can be found in many design areas, I would personally suggest
that the corporate trend to mix design, management and ethical/cultural
aspects in the definition of their strategic profile (what I refer to as
"Strategic design") may generate spin-offs that may amplify social
design or methodologies that can be used also in social design. An
example comes from the research of consensus by using scenarios that are
usually generated not only by company experts, but also by the actors of
a local socio-economic context. This methodology can be translated in
situation, such as the ones mentioned by Victor Margolin, in which the
social participation in the definition of a solution is fundamental. I
am not aware of the use of scenario-building methodology in social
research (just because I'm not a social researcher, not because I think
that this methodology is not used), but I think it would be interesting
to discuss the use of such methodology in the perspective suggested by
Victor Margolin.

3)      The notion of paradigm would suggest to look at a wider context
in order to understand and direct some design choices. An analysis of
how informal economies (e.g. voluntary organizations, such as "design
for the world", self-service systems, such as sharing systems) are now
regaining ground to provide remedies for those social, and geographical
areas that are not served by the market-driven formal economy, would
help generating a map of the possible "clients" for designers (a warning
is needed here: in the new paradigm the definition of the
client-designer relationship should probably be reviewed). 

4)      Finally, in the new paradigm the idea that the output of the
designer's activity should be a (material) product needs to be reviewed.
I read Victor Margolin's paper for common ground with extreme interest,
but after reading it I tried to think how the perspective suggested by
the paper would change if we think that the designer could aim at
providing something different than products, such as services,
information or simply know-how. This perspective would be much more
suitable for designers working in an informal system. In an informal
system, for instance, designers could do a better service than "serving"
the "client" by providing a product. He could empower the "client" by
providing him/her with the logical and physical tools to auto-produce
his/her own results (i.e. to meet his/her needs)

* CAVEAT        The idea of paradigm must not evoke the big shadow of
Kuhn's definition of paradigm. The introduction of Kuhn theory would
bring to a halt the debate in search of a clear logical frame to define
the paradigm. Victor Margolin proposal, as I understand it, is to
configure a paradigm within the design discipline, while Kuhn's
definition of paradigm involve a series of social and economic actors,
that introduce, shape and select technological innovation on the basis
of social, cultural, economic and technological parameters. The analysis
proposed by Kuhn and developed in many other studies on technological
innovation ({Nelson, 1982 #42}, {Dosi, 1982 #37}, for instance) may
prove to be too complex for the use we want to do of the term paradigm.
It may be more useful to use other terms, rather than "paradigm" to
avoid dangerous theoretical jamming. I personally used the concept of
Socio-technical frames, proposed in studies on the social construction
of technology {Bijker, 1995 #21}, because it contains more operative
parameters for the analysis of a socio/technical context in which the
design action was taking place.

References
Bijker, W. E. (1995). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs : toward a
theory of       sociotechnical change. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
Dosi, G. (1982). "Technological Paradigms and Technological
Trajectories: A         Suggested Interpretation of the Determinants and
Direction of    Technical Change." Research Policy 11: 147-63.
Nelson, R. R. and S. G. Winter (1982). An evolutionary theory of
economic        change. Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press.


Nicola Morelli, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Institute of Architecture and Design
Aalborg University, Denmark
Web: http://www.aod.auc.dk/staff/nmor