Hi Don

Some brief points in response, pending clearer thought:

1) Are mass-produced products really as homogenised as you claim? Electric power sockets, toilet flush systems - travellers know these cultural differences that are regionally specific. There is no good reason for them I can see in terms of activity mapping, yet they occur. There would be little point in claiming that the activities are usable in other regions if we wanted to account for them. If activities were the key, would these regionalised events occur? Should a theory account for the world, or should it prescribe, or will it do both?

2) Further, is the qualitative "size" of a difference as relevant as you claim? Are the differences in mass manufacture more subtle, but still effective? Do they require a more subtle product literacy in the user base?

3) Musical instruments- do they really operate like you claim? Is a violin played in China because its interactions are appropriate to its activity, or because it functions like a super-erhu, even more expressive and nuanced than an erhu and thus better able to express prior cultural tendencies?

4) How do you distinguish between elements that are of the activity and those that are not? Is the violin part of the activity? The bow? The arm? The octave structure? Musical theory? Paganini's techniques? How does one have violin playing without a violin? Can there be an activity in which the formal structure of the object is able to be considered as arbitrary in relation to the activity definition?

5) What about software? Given it is made by hand in many cases, is it a craft activity per Sennett and McCulloch? If so, how can you square the mass manufacture of craft objects by digital replication with your primary distinction between products and crafts? If this exposes a hole as I think it does, is it not fatal to your case, in that it cannot account for a major modern industrial output? Does not a varied culture of literacy surround the multitude of alternate ways of interacting with digital work processes?

6) Have you ever seen a photo of a bed from a Franco Cozzo showroom? (one for the Melbourne crew, there). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ54AubvFwA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Seriously, I couldn't sleep in one of those Milano wedding-cakes. Or near one. But that's just me. Is Franco selling to me? Or are mass manufactured products not necessarily aimed at everyone? Does mass manufacture really define all industrial output as being a global scattershot?

7) Further, is style in your view simply a surface over a Platonic ideal of an object? Could style actually be the basis of the object? Are the decorations as "unnecessary" as you claim, or are you instead determining them as such in support of your claims? Would you use funeral chopsticks at a dinner table? Could you avoid the beatings your elders would impart?

Cheers
Adam

Sent from my iPad

On 15/12/2011, at 6:58, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Recently, Jinan posted a query on this discussion list about the role
> of design and culture. To be specific, he stated:
> ----
> My name is Jinan from India and my  research is around the impact of
> design education in destroying cultural diversity. If any one is doing
> some work i this area I would like to connect. This is a study of 20
> long years working with rural/ tribal artisan communities, children
> and design students etc. The study focuses on how a homogenized and
> ontologically reversed design education impact the learner.
> -----
> 
> I have long pondered the role of culture in product design. Jinan's
> request triggered me to write up my thoughts, which I paste below.
> Yes, this is a long essay because, after I get feedback from you, I
> will revise and submit it as my column on the internet design
> magazine, core77.com.
> 
> Although I disagree with Jinan's premises, I hope that this
> disagreement can be viewed as a positive critique and difference in
> approach and philosophy. That is, it is my intention that any
> disagreements are informative and constructive. This is how we al
> earn. I have long believed that I learn far more from people who
> disagree with me than from people who agree.
> 
> What do I disagree with in his question? First, I disagree that the
> lack of cultural differentiation in today's products have much to do
> with design education. Second, I disagree that we are losing critical
> cultural diversity. Third, probably because of serious deficiencies in
> my education and self-acquired knowledge, I have no idea what the
> phrase "ontologically reversed design education" could possibly mean.
> And fourth I believe that what Jinan is really talking about is crafts
> whereas what I talk about is mass-produced products.
> 
> Here is my essay. I welcome constructive criticism.
> 
> Don
> ---------------------------------------------
> 
> Note: my essay has, as Figure 1, a photograph from the bedding section
> of a department store. Alas, in this primitive, text-based list-serve
> technology we use, I cannot include the photograph. But the
> description above will be sufficient to understand the purpose of the
> photo.
> 
> 
> 
> Does culture matter for product design? On the face, this seems like a
> silly question. Of course culture matters. Just go to any good
> bookstore, whether a real, physical one or your favorite internet one,
> and look at all the books on cultural differences, teaching the
> traveller how to behave differently in the different cultures of the
> world, explaining the differences, and illustrating them. Why would I
> even ask the question?
> 
> In what city – or country – was the photograph in Figure 1 taken? It
> could be anywhere. I have a collection of photos taken around the
> world of appliance stores, restaurants, and street scenes. I sometimes
> use them in my lectures, asking the audience to state where the
> picture was taken. People respond with great confidence, but they are
> invariably wrong. Why? I can find store displays similar to that shown
> in  Figure 1 in Asia, Europe, or the United States. The English words
> in the background are misleading because English words are displayed
> throughout the world. My street scenes often display multiple
> languages. One scene, taken in Hong Kong, has less Chinese characters
> than pictures I have taken in San Francisco, New York, and London and
> people frequently guess it to be from Europe. So where did I take the
> photograph shown as Figure 1? A department store in Seoul, South
> Korea.
> 
> Once upon a time, when I visited other countries, I would head to the
> department stores so I could experience the wide cultural variations
> in such things as cooking ware, cutlery, and tools for crafts and
> gardening. The differences in knives, hoes, kitchen utensils and
> appliances. Today, I seldom do this anymore because all the stores
> look the same. Rice cookers and woks may have originated in Japan and
> China, but today they can be found in kitchen appliance stores all
> over the world. Italian, German and American appliances are for sale
> in Asia. Asian appliances are for sale in Italy, Germany, and America.
> The country of design and manufacture no longer matters much. A
> television set looks the same whether made in China, Japan, Korea, or
> Europe. The same for automobiles, cellphones, cameras, and computers.
> 
> When I go to design schools across the world, I find that their
> curricula and methods are very similar across the world. I find more
> differences in the curricula of schools within the United States than
> between Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Italy.
> 
> Crafts are different than products. Crafts reflect centuries or
> millennia of customs and behavior. There are many books, stores, and
> museum dedicated to displaying and cataloging the vast cultural
> differences in crafts. But the subtitle of the marvelous book by
> Ranjan and Ranjan, of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad,
> India, "Crafts of India: Handmade in India," indicates the difference:
> Handmade. Modern products are mass-produced, intended for use by
> millions of people around the world. When we move from handmade crafts
> to mass-produced products, cultural differences vanish.
> 
> A few decades ago, I believed that cultural differences were
> fundamental. Moreover, they were exciting and interesting. Today, I
> believe that cultural differences are still just as fundamental and
> exciting but they primarily exist in governing social interaction, the
> types of foods that are eaten, and stylistic preferences. Modern
> products are designed to support particular activities, so that it is
> the activity itself that controls how they should be designed and
> used. Many activities are independent of culture.
> 
> Thus, the automobile, the rice cooker, the mobile cellphone, whether
> smart or dumb, the camera, dishes and eating utensils, cooking ware,
> refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines are all basically the
> same across the world because the activities are much the same. The
> same applies to office work.
> 
> Yes, there are differences, but mostly determined by factors other
> than culture. Koreans eat kimchi, highly spiced, and fermented
> vegetables. Traditionally, Kimchi was made at home and stored for many
> months, so they needed Kimchi refrigerators that could keep different
> batches at different temperatures. But the Kimchi refrigerator is
> fundamentally a standard refrigerator with drawers instead of doors
> and I have seen it being used in other cultures by non-Koreans who
> like the flexibility it affords them. Moreover, today, many Koreans
> simply buy Kimchi at their supermarkets, so the Kimchi refrigerator is
> either no longer being purchased or used instead as a flexible drawer
> refrigerator. In Wikipedia’s description of the kimchi refrigerator it
> states “They are also great for storing wine, vegetables, fruits,
> meat, fish and other foods because these refrigerators are designed to
> offer a constant-temperature environment so that you can store foods
> fresh much longer than ordinary refrigerators. They can also be used
> as freezers” (as of Dec. 14, 2011). It is the activity that drives the
> product, not the culture.
> 
> There are other regional differences. Some countries eat with
> chopsticks, others with other cutlery. Korean chopsticks are metal
> with a matching metal spoon (used for soup and rice). Other Asian
> countries use wood, ivory, or plastic – not metal. Some cultures
> prefer more ornamentation thank others, so that, for example, many
> Asian products have decorative scrolls and artwork on their face. When
> the same product is sold elsewhere in the world, it is often identical
> except for the removal of the ornamentation. Style differences? Yes.
> Fundamental differences? No.
> 
> People drive very differently in different parts of the world, from
> safety conscious, law-abiding drivers in the United States, Japan, and
> parts of Europe, to the free-wheeling driving style of other
> countries, where the death and injury rates soar. But the design and
> control of the cars themselves is still done the same way, whether the
> car is used in Delhi or Milan, London or Tokyo.
> 
> Yes, the culture of teen-age Japanese girls is very different from the
> culture of mature businessmen (salary workers) in Japan, so they
> demand different cellphones, but these same –phones will also work in
> other countries for teen-age girls and business people.
> 
> I conclude that when design supports activities rather than people
> designs will be culture-free, except for minor stylistic, surface
> differences.
> 
> Modern products are driven by activities. Today, products are sold all
> over the world. Designers talk a lot about Human-Centered Design where
> it is important to design for the needs of the person. Well, this
> doesn’t work when the goal is millions of people all across the world.
> Computers and software, phones and applications, automobiles, kitchen
> appliances, and household ware are intended for consumption by
> millions. Human-Centered Design can longer apply: what does it mean to
> discover the precise needs of millions of people? Instead, I have
> argued for Activity-Centered Design, where the activity dictates the
> design (Norman, 2006).
> 
> When the design is appropriate for the activity people accept it,
> regardless of culture. See musical instruments as a good example. Many
> are difficult to learn, such as the violin that requires an awkward,
> injury-sensitive posture and hand configuration. Consider the awkward
> fingering of musical instruments across the world. People learn these
> with incredible skill, not because they fit the body, but because the
> designs seem quite appropriate to the activity.
> 
> Should we worry about the loss of cultural differentiation? I still
> see huge variations in culture in the way people interact with one
> another, in the foods that they eat, and even in the ay the food is
> eaten. I relish the differences, but I also relish the similarities.
> 
> Does culture matter for product design? Not really: activities matter.
> 
> References:
> 
> Norman, D. A. (2006). Logic versus usage: the case for
> activity-centered design. Interactions, 13(6), 45-ff.
> http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/logic_versus_usage_the_case_for_activity-centered_design.html
> 
> Ranjan, M. P., & Ranjan, A. (Eds.). (2007). Crafts of India: Handmade
> in India. New Delhi: Council of Handicraft Development Corporations :
> Office of the Development Commissioner Handicrafts, Ministry of
> Textiles.