Humanism

“To design is to give shape, structure and form to an idea.”

Jennie Winhall, Design Strategist with the UK Design Council, floats a draft definition of design for comment.

It seems reasonable enough, and I’m particularly attracted to the notion of participatory design that includes users in the design process.

But its focus on reason, practicality, and business strategy misses one dimension: the human.

Design proceeds not just from the knowledge of the designer, but from experience. Design is not just an expression of ideas in physical form, but a concrete embodiment of assumptions, values, desires, ideals, dreams, expectations, and prejudices.

Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law put it concisely, “Our technologies mirror our society. They reproduce and embody the complex interplay of professional, technical, economic, and political factors.”

Design is an expression of what (and who) we believe are “normal” of how much we value certain costs over others — financial, social, and political.

But there’s also that additional feedback loop. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we shape our design, and thereafter our design shapes us. Design both reflects and creates relationships of power and authority — and can be a vehicle for change.

With regards to design as creative problem solving, I would point out that there’s almost always more than one solution to a problem — more than one way to do it, always another world possible. Design shapes the manufacture of the physical world, our interface with it, and, where mediated, with each other. It is formed by and gives form to the culture and images that frame our understanding of the world. Why one solution is picked over another is often as revealing as the solution itself.