I agree with *both* Ursula & Don.

That might sound rather unhelpful, but I think that there's (at least) one
feature of this situation that hasn't been brought up yet: agreement on the
relative effort being expended on different "types" of dispreferred states
we're grappling with these days.

I propose that no one would much mind designers working on "smart baby
diapers" if one also knew that there was a proportionally "appropriate"
effort being expended on other design problems like, say, climate change.

I think that reaching a societal consensus on what is "appropriately
proportional" is the real issue. There will be many sources of variation:
cultural, geographic, economic, technological, social,... All the usual
factors will come into play. For instance, I'm pretty sure - though I have
absolutely no data to back this up - that in Canada, the amount of effort
we would consider an appropriate investment in weapons development
(including hand-guns) will be lower when measured on any reasonable
(probably ordinal) scale compared to the US. I'd also expect there to be
substantive variation within each country on the very same measures.

Another way to look at it is to start with two alternative Earths.
Say we had one Earth where climate change had been mitigated, poverty and
starvation essentially eliminated, cancer and HIV routed, etc. On that
Earth, developing a smart baby diaper could well be a matter of national
urgency.
Now say there was another Earth where unemployment was 50%, where the
average lifespan was 40 years, where the common cold was a death sentence,
and where the most one might expect in a day was 1000 calories of food. On
*that* Earth, I could easily see how any effort expended on smart diapers
could warrant a charge of crimes against humanity.
The views on both Earths are equally valid - but only within their contexts.
Reality is somewhere in the middle, but it's not a crisp, razor sharp
balancing point. It's a huge smear of middle ground the exact location of
which will vary widely. We want to find a nearly common context within
which we can then reach agreement on appropriate proportionality.

I would suggest a worthwhile project would be to study that middle ground,
figure out its extent, what factors define it, and why it is that it varies
from circumstance to circumstance - and then to have a frank and open
discussion of where we'd want those balance points to be, and how we might
move them there without causing anyone else any (further) grief.

\V/_  /fas

*Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.*
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
ORCID: 0000-0002-3689-5112 <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3689-5112>
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

On 11 July 2016 at 12:58, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 1:37 AM,
> ​ this was sent to all of us
> :
>
> > in light of the many severe important and, for many, life threatening
> > problems humanity is facing today do designers really have nothing better
> > to do than designing baby diapers with sensors that tell parents when
> they
> > need changing?
> >
>
> ​Personally, having diapers that would tell parents that their baby's
> diapers need changing might be useful  In today's modern world, neither
> parent is a full-time baby-minder and few households can afford (or have
> the desire to) have a full-time nanny. Having a diaper send a signal to a
> smartphone may sound horrible to some of you, but reassuring to the parents
> -- and probably to the baby.
>
> ​Design is no different than most other professions.
>
> Should Journalists expose the evils of the world in an attempt to get them
> remedied? Yes. Should Journalists report on the Children's soccer league?
> Yes.
>
> Every profession can contribute to a better world, but oftentimes that
> comes about in small ways.
>
> Should designers solve the world's problems? Nonsense: no single field can
> do that.  Should they work on these problems? If possible, but it isn't
> always possible.
>
> Most people have to earn a living. I see nothing wrong with making a better
> coffee maker, a better cooking appliance, a better ornament or jewelry.
>
> I also try to save lives by designing better relationships between
> automation and people, especially in aviation and automobiles. I also try
> to save lives -- and make existing lives more comfortable through our
> research and implementations in healthcare.
>
> But I am also working with a client to improve home lighting systems,
> designing better switches and better wireless connectivity to the
> controlling unit. Does his sound worthwhile? Well, it will eliminate a lot
> of unnecessary copper wiring. That's good for the environment, right?  This
> will reduce the cost of building a home and make it a lot easier to change
> the location of switches at any time. It might also put people
> (electricians) out of work. That's bad, right? Should I be working on this
> project? Who has the right to decide?
>
> I also teach how to make signs more legible, to put up better maps across
> campus (here, the problem is not the skills of the university's map makers
> -- it is financial, convincing the administration to give those people a
> sufficient budget).
>
> Designers -- and all professionals -- work in an ecosystem: they cannot put
> ideas into practice by themselves. Few work in a place that has the
> resources and funding to make major changes in the world.
>
> So most of us must deal with the problems as they come to us. Most are
> small. Many are unimportant, but through design can at least mitigate some
> existing problem.
>
> And most of us have to do what our clients or employers ask us to do. Can
> we change their minds? Not without changing a lot of other factors.
>
> Some things we do will be ecologically bad, some ecologically sensitive and
> positive. Is it bad to do something that is ecologically bad?
>
> (Do I need that extra light above my keyboard, a light that was
> manufactured in a plant that might have burned coal, that the metal
> ion the stand might have been in an ecologically unsound factory (how would
> I know), and that the chemicals in the LED bulb might have had bad residue
> that had to be disposed of?  And the light itself uses energy, even an LED
> light, and that energy comes from some generating plant far away. What kind
> of energy did it use? Coal? Oil? Hydroelectric (which is the most dangerous
> in terms of deaths because of dam failures)?
>
> Everything in life is a tradeoff.
>
> Do not take umbrage at those who make tradeoff decisions that you would not
> prefer. After all, few of us can make a difference: to make a difference
> requires time, energy, money, and a group of like-minded individuals who
> will try to work to change the system. A job that can take decades.  This
> doesn't mean it isn't important. It does mean that we should not assume
> that every single person on earth will be able to join the movement.
>
> Don
>
> Don Norman
> Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
> [log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/  www.jnd.org  <http://www.jnd.org/>
>
>
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