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Taking Design Seriously

Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a talk to a large group of UX specialists at the Lilly company in Indianapolis (thanks Samantha Merrit for the invite).  I chose the title "Taking Design Seriously." The purpose of the talk was to discuss the idea that design must be understood at a higher level than it usually is. Design is not a method or particular process. Instead, it should be understood as one of the major approaches that humans have developed to cope with their reality, such as science, art, politics, economics, etc. Each approach has been designed to fulfill certain purposes and to deal with specific aspects of our reality.  Designing has to be seen as being one of them. Each approach has its own disciplined logic of thinking and action.  In the talk, I compared some of the approaches, their similarities and differences, to each other and to design. Understanding this makes it easier for designers to understand the challenges they face when dealing with people fr
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 Back to my old blog site Well, after some time, I am back to my old blog site. I am getting closer to retirement, so I do not expect a lot of activity here, but who knows?
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The Future of Interaction

 In the last chapter of our book "Things That Keep Us Busy - the elements of interaction" we spend some time on what the future of interaction might be. We tried to do it by extrapolating the analysis that we had done throughout the book. We did to be real and not too speculative. If we are right or wrong is up to you to decide.  I have included the first page here and the rest of the chapter can be found if follow the link . 11 Full Speed Ahead We would like to believe that a deeper examination of interaction and interactivity would make us better equipped to imagine and approach the future of interactivity. Obviously we cannot reliably predict what will happen, but our examinations, conceptual developments, and terminological emendations should at least improve our ability to explore different possible futures. We have already engaged in explorations of some ongoing or imminent developments by extending our understanding of interactivity with ideas such as faceless interact
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Going back to Bruno Latour and the role of "things"

Over the years I have returned to the writings of Bruno Latour. Every time I do that, it excites me in different ways, sometimes because his ideas are extraordinarily creative, sometimes because they are overwhelmingly complex and rich and, of course, because they always provoke and challenge me.   Today I re-read his article from 2004 called "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern". It is a long and complex text with highly delicate argumentation and reasoning. As always when reading Latour, he forces you to think and tricks you to believe that he is arguing for one position while in the next paragraph he turns it upside down. I will not go into what the text is about or his arguments. But briefly, it is about the confusing situation that many "constructivists" found themselves in when they realized that their attempt to "deconstruct" facts and truth had similarities with the work of those who advocate conspiracies a
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The Evil of Design

  In design theory or design thinking, we do not often talk about the evil of design. However, we all know that design, with or without intent, can lead to outcomes that are undesirable or even destructive to the world around us. In our book “The Design Way – intentional change in an unpredictable world” we dedicate one chapter to the notion of the evil of design. Below are a couple excerpts. “Good design’s most interesting paradox is that it is both magnificent and evil. This is not the same pairing of apparent opposites as the more common duality of good and evil. We are not talking about Evil, with a capital E, designating malevolent forces dedicated to the destruction of everything that is good in the world, or counter to the positive presence of God as in many religious traditions. It is true that design has been considered evil in this way. Some designs have been attributed to the work of the devil or the influence of evil spirits. For instance, a European bishop banned the use o
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