Hi Johann,
How does what you say work for theories about improving how individuals and
teams work in designing nuclear power stations or the rockets for uploading
communication satellites or the design of new equipment for making better
steels? There is an awful lot of this kind of design activity that doesn't
appear to primarily involve the experiences of users.
Warm regards,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johann
van der Merwe
Sent: 12 March 2013 21:58
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Illusion of Self? How is This Relevant to Design Research?
As a designer you will only leave the consumer with the notion that the self
is stable if you work for an advertising company, since you would not want
to admit that you created the fleeting "self" in the first place ...
"buy this dress, and you too can look like a star ..."
It is an accpeted fact that "the self" is unstable, a construct that we add
to (orsubtract from!) just about everyday ... what does this have to do with
design research?
Everything.
Design (on this list) is not (and should not be) engineering design, nor
civil, nor any design discipline that requires nothing but hard (stable)
facts. Our design deals with the human spirit, which is why so many people
can speak about "experience" design as if it encompasses all of design ...
it's not the product (anymore, on its own), nor simply just the process.
It's really about the experience (widely stated) that is/can be created
between the designed object/system and the user/viewer/observer, and,
however slight the change might be, every experience adds to the "self" of
the person being designed for ... as a discipline design itself cannot
ignore this unstable fact ... and design research must keep up (catch up?)
with reseaqrch in other fields that study human beings.
Sociologically speaking the self must be seen as temporary (to understand
that people "change their minds", i.e., that "the self" changes over time),
or laws and rules and whatnots will be rigidly enforced and the
transgressors punished ... as has happened in the past and still happens in
too many parts of the totalitarian wolrd today.
Design research should find itself on the cusp between choas and order:
surfing is more exciting that a train ride any day.
Johann
--
Dr. Johann van der Merwe
Independent Design Researcher
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