Recently, Jinan posted a query on this discussion list about the role
of design and culture. To be specific, he stated:
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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.
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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 all
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
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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.
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