Dear colleagues,

I have been following the discussion about social design and social
responsibility of design etc., and we seem to have very constructive
and positive positions and also experiences and history to learn from.

However, there seems to be an eternal problem facing us: the
undeniable necessity of the designed product to be commercially
viable. This 'fact of life' seems to limit our freedom to envision
how social design could be a really powerful transformative force in
society, with tangible consequences that make a difference in
relation to the social issues we are concerned about. Professional
designers who need to make a living with their practice have a hard
time finding the context and business partnership that can make their
social design aspirations also successful in the marketplace. To
compete successfully with the existing set of rules is hard core
innovation, indeed.

Unfortunately, we seem to live in a society that is designed so that
irresponsible, exploitative and destructive ways of producing and
competing in the market are cheaper and more profitable. The society
does not care about the fact that these kinds of business activities
are for society, from a life cycle, future generations, and social
cost perspective, much more expensive. The operations of
irresponsible players are subsidized by the society; we all pay for
the consequences while the owners of the business reap the short term
benefits and outperform the 'good and responsible designs', basically
because of dramatically cheaper prices.



What is a designer to do?

I propose that designers should not see 'the product' as the only
important outcome of design. Design operates in the context of
society, constrained by the rules, regulations and beliefs dominating
at any time. These too are designs; they can and are being designed
all the time. Some features by few identifiable individuals, mostly
by very messy evolutionary processes.

'Social design' can be dramatically more effective when its
practitioners realize that they are engaged in a political and social
mission that requires many kinds of changes in society, and when they
strive to apply their understanding of design problems in the fields
where society exhibits bad designs, and develop a transdisciplinary
interest and competences in relevant areas.



For example, designers who are intimately involved in the production
of ecologically or socially unsustainable products could analyze what
kinds of factors in the market/political/financing system today are
pushing them and their clients to use bad solutions and inform the
political decisionmaking process about these, and maybe design and
illustrate new rules for the system that would change the balance in
favor of more sustainable solutions.

As another kind of example, designers involved in the design of a
health care information system might be able to identify a problem in
the way how the whole system leaves some patients in a limbo - a
topic again probably outside of the scope of their project - and
could report on their findings and maybe envision more fair
principles and practices for the system.

Most clients would not want to fund such work, but maybe these
activities can run in parallel to the business cases as a personal
R&D activity, or even as a funded research project. Of course, casual
findings within projects must be expanded with research in
appropriate fields and through consultation with true or perceived
'experts', in order to avoid clearly 'dilettante' results.

In a more distant future we could envision designers who [among other
things] specialize in the design of laws, regulations, plans or
social systems, participating in or driving design processes as part
of the political/business/expert system that actually produces the
texts/designs that are then implemented in laws, political
initiatives, public investment plans, development funding programs,
world trade agreements and international treaties.



But how can designers gain the necessary credibility in society,
which sees them as designers of 'products'? While individuals can do
a lot, design institutions need to see this as an important direction
and propose research projects and found units to raise the awareness
and fund the development of understanding of designers and to
manifest to society that it is taking this kind of a new role
seriously. But to move anywhere, first we need the pioneers, some
designers inside the community who want to be proponents of this kind
of direction - of engaging in the 'redesign of society'.

Is this too grandiose a mission? I think that we [in all countries]
are clearly in the midst of a very dramatic and rapid period of
redesign of society, regardless of the efforts of designers. Whether
the outcomes will be good or bad depend on the social processes that
produce the new designs. The more design expertise these processes
would be able to take advantage of, the better the chances that the
resulting designs would be better.

Are designers interested? Many (most?) probably are not, but maybe
even those should recognize that there is a lot of design taking
place in society without the involvement of designers, and it might
be beneficial for the whole field if a certain new breed of designers
would emerge that could represent the field in these efforts. Maybe
design institutions should open doors for new kinds of people, even
from weird backgrounds.



I believe it is wrong to push the blame of unsustainable or
exploitative lifestyles and products on consumers or designers as
long as the world political, trade and media system is clearly
designed to cater to the exploitative and unsustainable practices. As
long as we do not see changes in the rules of the game, many of the
social and ethical design attempts will be hard or futile, or
restricted to marginal luxury markets where price is not an issue.
Let's start to question the designs that form our constraints and
expand the scope of our concerns.


Kari-Hans

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Kari-Hans Kommonen, ARKI research group
Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH
Hämeentie 135 C, 00560 HELSINKI, Finland

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