Victor Margolin wrote:
> 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?
On whoever is impacted by the product. It might sound facile, but there
it is. Engineers (esp good ones) are aware of many of the facets of
"impact" of their work. However, in my experience, they tend to ignore
those over which they have no control or purview. Partly it's a
profession thing: engineers are generally legally liable if they pretend
to have expertise they don't actually have - this makes them naturally a
bit insular.
> 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.
I read Simon from a logician's POV. The term 'satisfied' or
'satisficed' is a free term, not bound to a value (definition). So one
looks in the context of the statement for a value to which the term can
be bound. In different contexts (situations, occurrences, whatever) the
definition holds (or at least is supposed to) with respect to whatever
group have a say in establishing a value for 'satisfied'.
Figuring out who's in that group is a trick because is involves
predicting the future - something we're not very good at - and
establishing the relative weights that all the group's members should
get in contributing to the value of the term - a problem I suspect is
intractable.
> 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.
Sure. But I don't see this as being a particular role for designers. I
mean, in an ethical world, anyone would have suggested the same thing.
It's good and well that designers do this whenever they can, but it
assumes that whoever is listening is sophisticated enough to believe
that a designer's advice on such a matter is worth listening to.
> 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.
Contributing value is also context sensitive. Assigning a value to the
term 'value' is the same problem as noted above.
> 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.
I agree with these 5 points, completely.
> Victor
Cheers.
Fil
--
Filippo A. Salustri, PhD, PEng
on sabbatical until 17 August 2007 at:
Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]
|