Dear Terry and others:
Terry asks whether a critical view would widen the net to include
engineering and manufacturing. I would say yes on the premise that
the more we know about how the process of designing, manufacturing,
and using products works, the more we can distinguish between
favorable and unfavorable aspects of them. But favorable or
unfavorable to whom? Simon's definition of changing existing
situations into preferred ones is not satisfying because everything
depends on who is being satisfied. Who decides which situations are
most satisfying. Well, I think that becomes part of a social debate
in which designers should participate. Regarding the extension of
criticism to manufacturing, I recall a story told to me by a design
professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design. She had designed
some dinnerware for a large manufacturer and then persuaded her
client to have it manufactured at a greater cost at a factory in
China where labor conditions were better than at other factories.
This is an example of how designers can become advocates for the
quality of products, including the labor conditions of their
production. I concur with Erik Stolterman that the critique of
products has implications for users as well as designers. I would, in
fact, argue that it is the role of design researchers to contribute
to the "thick critical discourse" in which new products ought to be
embedded. We are seeing some of that on the manufacturing side in the
movement against poor labor conditions in developing country
factories. Also in the promotion of fair trade coffee and other
products. Political positions are being drawn on the basis of
existing values about justice, fairness, and other aspects of social
relations. We ought to be thinking more about how products - objects,
systems, environments - do or don't contribute value to a situation.
I recall here the documentary film, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I
was not even aware that there had been electric cars until I saw the
film. Subsequently everyone began praising hybrid cars as if they
were the ultimate solution. Well, they are the compromise solution
that did not rile the gasoline companies up too much.
From the discussion on the list thus far and exchanges off
list, I have concluded the following:
1) the social consequences of products is an under researched topic
within the design research community
2) the work that has been done on this subject thus far is still
little known and has certainly not been collected into bibliographies
or data bases
3) there is a need for courses on this topic at all levels of design education
4) in certain product fields, criticism is intense but it usually
centers on technical functions of products. This is the case in the
computer field as I can attest to from belonging to a Mac list. Apple
takes it on the chin every day but also receives praise for good
moves. Such intense and informed feedback makes Apple products
better. But we still don't know enough about how products like the
iPod are changing social relations and commercial practices (i.e.
downloading music, personalizing all music experiences, shutting down
music programs on the radio, turning what was once a more public
experience of discovering new music and listening to it into a
private one.)
5) we need to think more about the personal social norms that we as
researchers would use to develop critiques of products. these will
not be the same for everyone but they will and should become
articulated positions in public debates about how we do and might
live. The product world in all its forms should be part of that
debate.
Victor
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Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois at Chicago
935 W. Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607-7039
Tel. 1-312-583-0608
Fax 1-312-413-2460
website: www.uic.edu/~victor
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