Cultural Affordances (3/20/14 IxDA NY)

Cultural Affordances "

@jeanphony"designissocial.com

@momentdesign"momentdesign.com

It’s not rocket science. It’s social science – the science of understanding people’s needs and their unique relationship with art, literature, history, music, work, philosophy, community, technology and psychology. The act of design is structuring and creating that balance. — Clement Mok

Examples

Don't get so far ahead of the parade that no one knows you're in it. — John Naisbitt

Designing new products "

The narrative of history informs us that new forms of social organization trail in the wake of new technology. And when disequilibrium between new technology and the prevailing social structure exists then cognitive dissonance ensues." — Educators Point the Way Toward Decentralized, Networked Learning, PBS Media Shift

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skeuomorph

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skeuomorph

Skeuomorphs are created because the future is built out of the present — Garnet Hertz

We understood that people had already become comfortable with touching glass, they didn’t need physical buttons, they understood the benefits, so there was an incredible liberty in not having to reference the physical world so literally. — Jony Ive

Skeuomorphs visibly testify to the social or psychological necessity for innovation to be tempered by replication... [they] look to the past and future, simultaneously reinforcing and undermining both… — Katherine Hayles

Skeuomorphs are a type of Cultural Affordance…

Photo: Cadillac

Products play a social role in our lives, whether we are using them or not.

Designers work the scene of technological emergence. They hack the present to create the conditions for the future. — Anne Balsamo

Products play a social role in our lives, whether we are using them or not.

Photo: mnr.onthescene

Photo: Lunar Design

Why should you care? "

Ethnography Some people (they are wrong) say design is about solving problems. Obviously designers do solve problems, but then so do dentists. Design is about cultural invention. — Jack Schulze

Photo: flickr/akeg

Bigger, wickeder problems "

Ethnography

ethnography  

Ethnography

ethnography  

While ethnography often includes a description of the activities and practices of those studied, it is more importantly an attempt to interpret and give meaning to those activities. – Jeanette Blomberg

@epiconference"epiconference.com/2014

Critical Design uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role products play in everyday life. It is more of an attitude than anything else, a position rather than a method. – Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby

critical design  

critical design  

Critical Design uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role products play in everyday life. It is more of an attitude than anything else, a position rather than a method. — Anthony Dunne

@dcrit"dcrit.sva.edu

The slow development of criticism within design may in fact be related to the very concept of ‘Good Design,’ which traditionally has prioritized rationalism, functionalism, and aesthetics over a deeper recognition of the broader cultural and contextual implications of design. — Design criticism for the 21st century, Core 77

Thank you. "

@jeanphony"designissocial.com

@momentdesign"momentdesign.com

@dcrit"dcrit.sva.edu

@epiconference"epiconference.com/2014

I have great admiration for designers for many reasons, but when called upon to defend how they create value for the corporation, they could have said, “Without us, you don’t have access to culture.” — Grant McCracken

But they haven’t.