Video Relflection 4th August 2009
David Kelly. Human centred design.
The most significant statement, for me, in this video is the last one... ”Designers are more integrated into the business strategy of companies.” Unhappily this statement informs most of the video. We see, with the exceptions of ApproTec projects and the Heart Stream Difibrulator, a succession of designs that place design, and hence the designer , at the heart of naked commercialism. This, in my opinion, renders the designer nothing more than a instrument of or an extension of the marketing process. The designer has abdicated his responsibility to the wider community in favour of the corporate community. I also find the concept of designing “behaviours and personality” into products a darkly Orwellian concept. Products are inanimate objects, by definition they cannot have personalities, so why would we want to assign them one? (v. scarry!)
If we look at the Prada store, New York. Custom technology in the form of RF tags (radio frequency tags: or simply “tags,” which are small electronics devices used for communications in a wide variety of tagging, tracking, and locating (TTL) applications. The common feature of all RF tags is the use of radio frequencies (kHz -> MHz -> GHz) over the air as an information-transport layer•) Each RF tag consists of the following:
RF transmitter, or transceiver
Antenna(s)
Internal battery and/or external power port
Control and timekeeping electronics with embedded software and hardware
Internal sensors (temperature, movement, GPS, etc.)
External data I/O ports
Efficient mechanical and environmental packaging
(I include this information to focus attention on the amount of energy consumed in the production of each tag unit.)
These tags are located all round the store so that any of the merchandise can be coded and stored as the customer (or should it be unit?) requires. Other parts of the store feature mirrors that have a 3 second delay so the customer may see what the clothing looks like from behind. Booths that opaque on demand, LED screens that bring up the previously coded product in variety of colours, sizes and textures etc. These are all incredibly exciting, interesting, innovative ideas. The products interface with the user at a high level i.e. the end user has a lot of control etc. but, the function of all this innovative design, technology and energy consumption is simply to sell another pair of jeans. So much skill,talent and technology utilised for such a trivial thing. This, in my opinion, is why the designer is culpable. He/she has become part of the problem not part of the solution. The problem, of course, is environmental degradation, due in no small part to over consumption. We are only just beginning to realise the enormity of the consequences of the issues surrounding sustainability, energy consumption etc. in both the production and disposal of products. It seems to me that encouraging any amount of unnecessary consumption is at best irresponsible, at worst hugely damaging to the planet. This is seemingly a rather grand sentiment but, there is a direct line between the designer and consumption, between consumption and disposal and disposal and waste and therefore finally, with the well being of the planet. Unlike David Kelly I find the prospect of designers climbing Maslows hierachy a very bad thing indeed, they have no place there at all.
However, on a brighter note, I do like the whole recycling project at the Millenium Dome. This is what I call positive, purposeful design. For me it has the twin virtues of a being a beautifully conceived idea expressed in an meaningful, fundamentally useful way.
As for the Spyfish, again brilliant thinking, great concept and the technology seems astonishingly sophisticated. The design issues seem to have been resolved very elegantly ie the hand unit that guides the camera. The camera itself and interface unit. However I do have deep reservations as to uses this product could be put. Is this the designer's concern? Should he /she just shut up and do what ever is asked of them and simply collect their pay at the end of the month or do they have a greater responsibility? Should the designer make personal/moral judgements regarding the use to which his design may be put or, what it will be made of or, how it will be disposed of ?
Anyway, unlikely as it may seem from my rantings above, I enjoyed the vid. It gave me a lot of things to think about... the good, the bad and the ugly sides of design!
I would really like to know what you guys think!
