Filippo,
I would actually like to retain the sense that context is an active
participant in the design process and not a static thing.
In your example below, it seems all of the agency resides in "design
agents", by which I assume you mean designers. But in fact the capacity to
cause change may be considered to reside in many other places within a
given context. Not the least in other people who might not (or might not
want to) be characterized as design agents. Of course, we could also
(productively) entertain the notion that nonhuman elements of a given
context also either possess or exhibit agency thus, should be considered as
active.
In fact, context only seems to be a static thing in laboratory experiments,
even then its is arguably not a static thing, rather the structure of the
experiment requires that context be treated as such.
Carl
--On Monday, November 7, 2005 1:46 PM -0500 "Filippo A. Salustri"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> While I see Todd's point, I prefer a different description.
>
> I don't like "Context can guide design decisions" because it might give
> some the sense that 'context' is an active participant.
>
> A context, as I think of it, is a model of a situation that some design
> agents are motivated to change. The agents usually can't change the
> situation extensively, but rather change some particular part of it,
> usually by designing some new product, system, or process that is
> 'inserted' into the situation. The systems nature of the interactions
> between the situation and the thing inserted by the designers brings
> about a change in the situation.
>
> Put another way, the situation is the operating environment into which
> the designers add some artefact, for the sake of causing a change in that
> environment.
>
> As such, the context is a static thing.
>
> So I'd rephrase what Todd wrote as: Context can influence design
> decision-makers.
>
> ...maybe just hair-splitting.
> Cheers.
> Fil
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