Dear Francois, Chris and others,
Thank you for the interesting thread on design instigations, and apologies
if what I say in the following has already been stated by others.
If one turns it around as Chris suggested and asks how design can
accommodate the ways people use (and design) things, then there are some
recent publications I can think of quickly, but surely lots that go a lot
further back. For example, the work of the “Design Age” people at the RCA
from the early 90s onwards had an element of supporting users in the ways
they design their lives.
Lots in the literature on participatory design and inclusive design is
oriented in this way.
What the literature has perhaps not considered sufficiently to date is how
to conceptualize the connection between the activity of design and the
activity of use (or just life). There is little theory yet on product use as
a design equivalent activity and vice versa. I believe Ranulph Glanville has
written a lot about this but I’m not very familiar with his work.
Recent publications on product use as design:
Elisabeth Shove’s work has been mentioned.
Then there’s
Brandes, U. & Erlhoff, M. (2006). Non Intentional Design. Cologne: daab.
and
Fulton-Suri, J. (2005). Thoughtless Acts? Observations on intuitive design.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books. (+ accompanying website)
Both books present collections of photographs taken all over the world,
showing how people use and adapt things for their purposes. I think neither
of the books’ titles quite do justice to the phenomenon. They seem to imply
that only designers design rationally and intentionally (as well as
intuitively and serendipitously, of course).
They don’t really address the question of the conceptual connection between
the activity of design and the activity of product use.
I would be interested in contributing to work on this, if others are too.
Our present approach to the topic of how consumers use and live with things
is to look at it from the perspective of a designer, accepting
(provisionally) that designers have the initiative in seeking to bring
products to market. We call this designer an “investigative designer”. The
question we seek to answer is: which forms of communication and activities
do we need in the design process, in order to bring product use into design?
Regards,
Stella Boess.
|