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Wednesday, December 3, 2003
Awareness
The principles of Design we're used to talking about aren't really principles at all. They are usually methods or rules of thumb about design. They aren't about ethics. Ethics is the study of moral behavior. It is talking about how you talk about moral issues. As science and technology have moved forward, we've begun to understand the consequences of what we do, and those consequences are becoming more far-reaching and more significant. It's disturbing that no earlier than the mid-1990s ethics was a formal study in design at all. Carl Mitchum in the early 90s wrote "Ethics in Design" which is one of the first writings about ethics in design. There had been lots of discussion about morality (from George Nelson and others) but none of ethics itself. In the article, Mitchum makes the claim that you cannot have a comprehensive theory of design that does not consider ethics. Design itself can be considered as ethics; the task of design is about navigating the moral dilemmas that we face in our lives. In interaction design, we're looking to promote certain kinds of actions between people. Our fundamental guide should be the quality of those interactions. To be a designer requires principles, because you have to guide what the interactions between people should be. We need to ask ourselves how do we use our talents and to what ends? Some principles, causes, and values in Design: - Good: Affirms the proper place of human beings in the spiritual and natural order of the world.
- Just: Supporting equitable and ethical relationships among human beings.
- Useful: Supporting human beings in the accomplishment of their intentions.
- Satisfying: Fulfilling the physical, psychological, and social needs of human beings.
The first two values have to do with the whole, seeing the big picture. The last two have to do with the parts, the more conventional and more apt to change with the times.Ethics are how you reconcile the notions of design as a science vs. design as an art. The principles we use should organize our designs and ground us. When buttons are in the wrong place, it is an ethical matter. If we discuss ethics well, we address issues of form, methods, and techniques. In this era, we have a big problem with Pluralism: everyone holds their own beliefs. Without ethics, the person or group with power, the one holding the gun, wins. And, in the words of Dick Buchanan, "that ain't right." Design allows us to bypass these ideological battles. We are able to hold our personal beliefs but continue to move forward in action via (of all things) projects. Who would have guessed it? But projects are opportunities to circumvent ideological differences in favor of what can be done here and now. Ethics is all about human decision making, centered around emotions: our desires, enthusiasms, and fears, and Design has been centrally concerned with emotion from its earliest period. Indeed, interaction design is all about emotion: emotion and thought woven together, unfolding over time. "Emotion is the state or capability of having a feeling aroused to the point of awareness." (Dick's definition of emotion) Arousal is form and it develops, as Dewey tells us, over time. The products we make are experiences, arguments as to how we should live our lives, and out of them comes awareness. Emotion makes us aware and awareness leads to decisions. Awareness is ethics, and it leads to actions. What shall we do with our lives? So why be a designer? It goes back Seamus Heaney's argument about doing poetry: The way something is made ends up having a grounding that goes beyond pleasure to wisdom and connects to the outer world. If we do our art well, its value becomes apparent and we are asked to do more. And in doing (and our core competence, making things), we can change the world.
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posted at 11:33 PM in
big ideas
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Blue Slide
My final project for Design Studio's Unconscious Competence Project (which also happens to be my final project for my Computing in Design class) is finished. All ActionScript, all the time! Blue Sliding (570k Flash).
posted at 05:21 PM in
projects
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Tuesday, December 2, 2003
Ethics in Design
The final section of Design Seminar is about ethics and principles in design. It is about why we design and how we judge.There are a lot of reasons to be embarrassed or ashamed to be a designer. We often serve commercial interests. Our stuff is ephemeral and often trivial. It's not an activity for adults. So then why do we do it? What is the redeeming value of what we do? Seamus Heaney in his Nobel speech "Crediting Poetry" asks the same question about poetry. He's seeking a principle to justify being a poet. Poetry is pleasurable, but it isn't enough. It needs to be grounded in principle. Principles are what organize. They ground us in organizations and in the world. Principles are values, which are facts, which equal status in the world. It is a fact that people value things. People will die for their values. Navigating remarkably conflicting values is one of the central problems of design. Caroline Whitbeck in Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research argues that ethics is traditionally regarded as judging something that has already been done. But the bigger challenge and what ethics should be is about the way to act. And that is a problem of design: devising ethical courses of action. Design itself is ethics. It is all about what is the right thing to do, and not just technically. Everything that is made is an argument about how we should live our lives. The world is filled with competing objects that are arguing amongst themselves for our attention. "Live my way! Live my way!" Deciding where and how to employ the art of design is an ethical issue. Designers need to be both technically right and compellingly wise. Wisdom is about evaluating and choosing between competing principles. And to be wise is to be aware. And awareness is the passage to action.
posted at 12:32 AM in
big ideas
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Ethics in Design Readings
The final set of readings for Seminar, on pluralism and objectivity in design.- On Christian Doctrine, Book I, iii-iv by St. Augustine
- "Lifestyle Technology: Shaping Human Character and the Ideal of the Single Blossom," by Kenji Ekuan from The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox
- "Communication, Truth, and Society" by Richard McKeon from Selected Writings of Richard McKeon, Vol. 1
- "Human Dignity and Human Rights: Thoughts on the Principles of Human-Centered Design," "Design Ethics," and "Branzi's Dilemma: Design in Contemporary Culture" all by the man himself, Richard Buchanan
posted at 12:00 AM in
readings
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Monday, December 1, 2003
Last Week of Fall 03 Classes
This is one of those weeks that needs to be lived and taken one day at a time. I have something due every day this week. I can only think a day in advance or else it is too overwhelming. As always, the last 10 percent is the hardest. One day at a time. One day at a time.Friday I plan to get good and stinking drunk though.
posted at 11:46 PM in
student life
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