First, I thank everyone who responded to the several threads on the
topic of Design and Culture. The replies have been constructive and
educational. In many cases, it is clear that much thought and time
went into the individual replies. For this I am very grateful.

For those readers who complained about the quality and value of this
list, consider this a dramatic counterexample. This discussion is an
example of the best that these kinds of groups can provide. Several
differing views, but discussed in a way to enhance understanding.

-----------
I read most of the contributions as critical of the major point of my
essay. I was not surprised because the conclusion I had reached is
indeed a controversial one. Moreover, it was not what I had expected
when I started my studies. But the critical essays made me rethink my
conclusion. As a result, I have a more nuanced view. My original essay
was wrong.

(My refined view appears later in this note. I know that many of you
will believe that i still do not understand, that it is still wrong.
I, myself, am still rethinking it.)


I was impressed by the cogency and persuasiveness of the counter
arguments. We debated the nature of society, the role of mass
production, the debilitating impact of modern, technological
industrialization and its conquest of the world. We covered differing
views of design, of culture, and even of activity theory. Although I
disagreed with some points, including some of the characterizations of
my own beliefs, I found that even when I disagreed, I was still
learning from the disagreement. Where my own views were
misrepresented, I thought that this was due to inelegant, imprecise,
or incomplete descriptions on my part.

Thus, I like to think I have a deep understanding of activity theory,
having spent time with many of the originators, in the United States,
in Scandinavia, and in Moscow, but this was not clear in my writing.
Moreover, activity theory, like so many other frameworks, comes in
many different variants, and the variant I primarily follow is my own.
No wonder people I thought I was misrepresenting Luria or Vygotsky or
Engestrom or .... name your favorite theorist. I wasn't
misrepresenting them but I was building on their work in my own
direction. (I have published many of these ideas, but incorporated
within my books and other articles, never as a clear statement of
"Activity Theory.") Moreover, my argument that an "Activity-Centered
Design" philosophy is superior to a "Human-Centered Design" one is
orthogonal to the specifications of any particular Activity Theory. (I
have published this argument in the HCI magazine "Interactions.")

Although I am still reading and digesting the discussion, I thought it
would be useful to summarize the changes in my ideas that resulted
from the discussion. These thoughts will continue to change as I
ponder the various messages.

First, here is a rephrasing of what I said in the original essay:

---
The essay was focused upon mass-produced products. For these, I asked:
Is culture important?

I started of by saying "Of course. It never occurred to me otherwise."
But I then asked, "Does culture impact mainstream, mass-produced
products?" and my answer was "Not very much. Perhaps not at all."

I also addressed design education: "Does culture impact the way
product design is taught in the major design schools across the
world?" My answer was the same: "Very little, if at all." In my
original essay I gave examples.


A simplified review of the lessons I learned is this:

I may be correct in my assessment of both products and education, but
that doesn't mean this is proper. Mass produced products may be
similar across the world, but only because of then arrow,
profit-driven view of industrialists. Education may be the same across
the world because many designer professors are trained in the same few
universities across the world, so they all belong to what one might
call an "establishment" of people, all of whom have converged upon the
same design philosophies. This is especially true at the PhD level,
given the limited number of institutions offering PhDs in design.

The design research community is especially annoyed at my conclusions,
for this community has been heavily influenced by anthropology, so
culture is in its lifeblood. The study and understanding of cultural
differences is of critical importance. If modern products fail to
recognize these differences, then we need to change the products.

Finally, people's activities are highly determined by the culture in
which they live, so that even if they all use similar products, they
create very different experiences out of them. We should be focusing
upon what people do with the products available to them, not on the
products themselves. This focus will also direct to design products
that are better attuned to their real needs.


I conclude that my essay might have been correct, but I derived the
wrong conclusion from this. It was correct insofar as it reflected the
practices of large, multinational companies who mass-produce consumer
goods of all sorts across the world. Call this the homogenization of
culture through the lens of profit-driven, cost-conscious
manufacturing companies in Asia, North America, and Europe. Life is
far simpler for the companies if they can simply manufacture a single
product and role it out across the world, bowing to cultural demands
only in minor ways, such as language (what is called "localization" in
the product industries), packaging, and possibly marketing.

Is this proper? No. It isn't. It diminishes the richness of life, the
importance of historical roots, ritual and custom.

In some cases people can work around the issues by using the very same
product in very different ways, the better to fit their cultural
needs. But workarounds are never optimal. The demands of efficient
manufacturing tend to enforce a form of hegemony upon the peoples of
the world.

--------
Jinan started this discussion by asking about the "impact of design
education in destroying cultural diversity." He argued, "The biggest
threat of modernity is homogenization of the human cultures." And he
stated, "The basic issue that I am addressing is the homogenization of
all cultures due to architects and designers creating artifacts and
habitats with decontextualized aesthetic sense."

I started off by disagreeing with this evaluation of the role of
design. I argued, essentially, that the lack of cultural diversity in
mass-produced products was a side effect of the growing
industrialization of the world.

As a result of the discussion, I have now changed my mind. I agree
with Jinan. In fact, I would go further: he focused upon a
"decontextualized aesthetic sense." Why restrict oneself to
aesthetics? Culture is more than aesthetics. It is beliefs, actions,
and activities.

So, yes, I still believe I am correct in my argument that
modernization has desensitized the world of product design. But I was
wrong in thinking this was natural and reasonable.

I am not entirely won over, however. I believe that there is much good
that has resulted from the standardization of practices across the
world. The industrialized nations all have similar views of legal
obligations and of what is proper and improper in business. As a
result, we now have far more industrial trade across the world than
ever before. The same forces that led to increased interchange and
understanding among many nations of the world has also led us to the
path of rough standards of conduct, behavior, living styles, and even
dress and foods to eat. There is now an international culture, common
to many people.

Of course there are still many valuable differences among the peoples
of the world. And yes, there is still exploitation, inequality, greed
and corruption, but I think that one could argue that there is less
than ever before in history. (See Steve Pinker’s latest book "The
better Angels of Our nature," in which he convincingly demonstrates
that crime, terror, murder, warfare, and torture have all decreased
over the millennia so that today is the best period in history. Best
does not mean we cannot do better.

=====

One of my major concerns, addressed in many of my writings, has been
the cultural gap between academics, design researchers, and even
design consultancies and the practices of industry. The profit motive
drives most decisions in industry, which does not have time to engage
in the type of deep, thoughtful academic discussions we have on this
list.

How can the learnings of this and other discussions be translated into
an actionable form for industry? Remember, their concern over profit
is not misguided: without profit, the company will fail, which does
nobody good.

We need to figure out how to develop sustainable enterprises that also
help sustain the rich diversity of communities across the world.

What is my answer? I am still thinking, still learning.

Again, I thank everyone for the depth and insights of the conversation.

Don


Don Norman
Nielsen Norman Group
KAIST (Daejeon, S. Korea), IDEO Fellow
[log in to unmask]  www.jnd.org http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/
Latest book: "Living with Complexity"