- dEsiGn for tHE nEtworkEd worLd (^) | 329
people’s ability to comprehend, manage, and benefit from the things
we design. Returning to our traffic sensor example, when a hidden sen-
sor at a busy traffic intersection is designed to trigger the lights based
on certain physical aspects of a vehicle, the designer of that system
needs to decide what types of vehicles are allowed to trigger the lights.
Will it work for cars, bicycles, or humans? That choice is a decision that
will impact the shape of the urban environment in a way that most peo-
ple using the intersection will never fully see. How do you indicate the
system’s texture, agency, opacity, and reflexivity? Do you add symbols
to the road to indicate the existence of a sensor and what will activate it?
Do you opt for a different solution entirely because of the needs of the
city? These are design problems at a systems scale and are becoming
more and more common in the work we do every day. We need to make
sure we are arming designers with the tools they need to make these
types of decisions intentionally.
Design is a special craft, one that allows us to imagine the future as
we would like to see it, and then make the things that will help get us
there. Pre-industrial products were the output of a single craftsperson,
and expressed their understanding and view of the world. Industrial
products represented a move to mass production and consumption,
where a designer could envision a product and millions of people could
receive an identical object. This was the expression of the collective—
the design of objects shaped our environment and culture on a large
scale.
As we move deeper into a post-industrial era new products are the
expression of the network. Small groups can now cocreate and produce
objects at industrial scales, or can create complex objects at minute
scales for their own needs. Where pre-industrial objects represented a
one-to-one relationship between creator and consumer and industrial
objects were one-to-many, post-industrial moves into a many-to-many
world. Everybody is enabled to create and consume. With this comes a
great freedom, but also a great dilemma. Do all these new objects help
us create a better future? Do they represent the world we want to live
in? Each new creation warrants a consideration of these questions as
we continue to redefine our environment using new technology, and to
see the world through our new, networked lens.
This era of post-industrial design brings with it new opportunities and
more complex challenges, and we should dive in headfirst.
nandana
(Nandana)
#1