Dear Victor and List
On the issues you raised while concluding the exchange:
Quote:
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. (...)
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.
Unquote
I wish to especially draw attention on point 3 above.
First, there is a forthcoming publication (announced last Spring in VOICE OF DESIGN Vol. 12-3, issued by the Japan Institute of Design), an "Illustrated Book on Design for Children" due (in Japanese only!) this fall or early in 2008. I guess if we are many of us requesting a copy, translations in other languages will seriously be considered.
Second, as one of the outcomes further to my internship at CCI-ISUC, I wrote my Master's (Industrial Design, 1979) dissertation in which I made a short survey on "Les Systèmes d'information sur les produits manufacturés" (Information Systems on Manufactured Products). The overall conclusion was that we all know very little about the artefactual world into which we are daily immersed, and that we continuously interact with from "cradle to... grave". Hence my recommendation, then closing the dissertation, to expand by all means knowledge on daily use artifacts, and at all levels starting even at kindergarden level up to University graduates, not forgetting needed refinements on Consumers Education programs now found in most industrial countries like Japan and others. Not forgetting also that in the so called Third World societies, the situation is just pathetic...!
Francois
Montreal
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