Dear Toon
Ten years ago, in my Master's dissertation in Sociology, I suggested the
idea to consider artefacts as full-fledged social actors, almost at the
same level as humans. In that sense, users do not only "change products",
they fully and continuously interact with them as 'intermediaries', both
changing them but at the same time being changed by them.
In the designing perspective, that means there are two categories of
designers: on one hand technicians or crafts persons who, as you say, have
as their goal to give an 'intermediate' / provisional 'physical' / tangible
shape to artefacts. On the other hand, there is a new category of
designers still in the making (incidentally thanks to exchanges on this
this list), that of those professionals looking at artefacts as in a
magnifying lens. For these latter professionals, giving shape to artefacts
is not their immediate goal; rather, artefacts are first viewed as
'intermediates' towards other ends such as contributing to users'
happiness, comfort, etc., to realizing monetary returns to economic
investors, to eventually furthering community empowerment, to eventually
inducing political policies, etc. etc. Ultimately, the aim pursued by the
second category of designers is to "hear", as in Court of Justice, all
those particular desiderata and, at the end of the exercise, bring the
expert judgement or "render a sentence" up to the technician table as
requirements or specifications to embody into the final physical shape of
artefacts.
Both categories of design professionals would thus consider artefacts as
'intermediates' or intermediaries, but not with a samilar view on artefacts
"intermediatness". At this moment, still, there seems to be a confusion in
the two views above. But we all on this list particularly are working hard
towards clarification of roles; the only way that, as French people say,
"les vaches du roi seront bien gardées".
Good luck in your search!
Francois
Montreal
|