Just like how job descriptions for interface designers have been evolving, the definition of designers was also never static across history. By looking at designers in the context of design and history, we are able to understand where design today is coming from, and where it is heading in the near future.
Designers as Democratic Participants
“Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!”
— Walter Gropius
When it comes to modern design, Bauhaus is the most influential icon for modern design, architecture, art, and design education from 1919 to 1933. While Bauhaus is famous for its distinct flavor in clean, modern design that is suitable for mass production, probably its most valuable contribution in history is its vision for design education. By blurring the boundary between art and craftsmanship, design can educate a “new man” who can “draw on feelings, sensations, and reason all at once to stay sane at the onslaught of industrial modernity” (Forlano, et al, 2019).
There are two things that are very important in this message. First, the process of designing, which shapes the designer as a better liberal individual who looks back towards his senses and expressions to form a democratic community, is just as important as the design outcome, the product that participates in the modern world. Second, despite the reality that industrial modernity is not an ideal world to be in, designers are encouraged to mindfully engage with the reality of industrial onslaught.
The philosophy is critical, yet pragmatic.
Designers at the time embodied the tension between a romantic individual pursuit, and the pressing national calling for economic growth in post WWI Germany. The Bauhaus became a representation of the conflict between an ideal design education and pressures from funding and the Nazi government. These painful tensions shaped Bauhaus design, a unique discipline where designers shaped interfaces that communicate artistic intention, yet harmonize with the pragmatic product demand.
“The democratic man, we said, must be an artist. The integrity, we said, of the democratic man, was the integrity of the artist, and integrity of relationship.”
— John Andrew Rice
Designers as Scientists
Even though Bauhaus was closed in 1933 in Germany, its design philosophy was carried over by many other designers all over the world. A decade later, innovations in science and engineering during the Cold War created a need for design to be integrated as an intellectual matter, “a process that could be thoughtfully achieved, building connections between fields of urban planning, engineering, and cognitive science”(Rosner, 2018). The purpose of design is to extract human thinking and decision making into optimized formulas, so as to address social problems at a universal scale. Therefore, designers at the time were considered problem solvers — scientists who rationalized the world in mathematical terms. Leading figures such as Herbert Simon, Norbert Wiener, and Buckminster Fuller, approached interface design through a teleological lens. They believed that with methods from economy, psychology, mathematics, and engineering, complex systems could be built from well-structured systems at a smaller scale (Rosner, 2018). Their vision aligned with a future where interfaces would be mediating human-computer symbiosis automatically at a larger scale
With a belief in universal design, another group of designers started to grapple with evaluations of that scaled impact. A group of designer scholars such as Horst Rittel, Melvin Webber, Christopher Alexander, John Chris Jones, and Donald Schön, observed social functioning and design practice, and thus rationalized design methods to educate future designers for management science and social planning (Rosner, 2018). Alexandria Christopher's good design is about a good fit between “form” and “context”, because “the form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the problem.” (Alexander, 2020)
From “efficiency” to “social impact”, the shift in focus redefined interface as the science to bridge form and context, the science of identifying the solution is to frame a problem with appropriate constraints.
From “efficiency” to “social impact”, the shift in focus redefined interface as the science to bridge form and context, the science of identifying the solution is to frame a problem with appropriate constraints. For the first time, the design community started to realize the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration, because in order to address “wicked problems”, there are never enough angles to interpret the problem, enough information to understand the context, and the scale of comprehension is beyond one single discipline can offer (Rittel & Webber, 1973)
Thus, designers in the postmodern era had to wrestle with interfaces that were complicated by exquisite, intelligent inner systems, compounded by unexpected conflicts and challenges from scaled impact.
Designers as Catalysts
“Discursive design seeks an intellectual outcome; it is a catalyst for reflection.”
— Bruce & Stephanie Tharp
Enough of using design to realize the fantasy about technology, and enough of designers’ monologue on problem-solving.
After the apex of design as an intellectual matter, designers started to ask: what’s next? There were two diverging strands of thought. One group of designers used design as a provocative tool for conversations, speculating an alternative future together with audiences outside of the design community. Another group of designers fully embraced the capitalistic virtue of business thinking, integrating design methods into the business of digital products, crafting a future reality that we all live in today.
“Design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality.”
— Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Probably the most fundamental difference between the two groups is how they envision the impact of design. For the discipline falling under discursive design (including critical design, speculative design, and design fiction), the impact is giving people a different pair of lenses to evaluate their reality. Pioneers like Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, Bruce & Stephanie Tharp, rejected the thought that design can elicit a universal response. Yet, they believe in a future where a universal belief can shape a different future. While from a design thinking perspective, it is about embracing the capitalistic virtue to reach technological impact. Designers like David Kelly used their business mindset to formulate product success into design thinking, packaging human-centered philosophy into the product cycle, and customer experience. Commercialized design products are shipped on the boat of capitalism, reaching different corners of the world, seeking to elicit a universal response by reaching a global audience.
The ideological differences between these design catalysts shaped a greater divide of present-day reality.
The ideological differences between these design catalysts shaped a greater divide of present day reality. While one group of interface designers are slowly fixing the inner environment of the socio-cultural interfaces by aligning future speculation from small groups of audiences, the other group of interface designers make rapid changes in the outer environment of market landscape following the morse law, shipping away their visions in packaged goods that penetrates our everyday life.
It is impossible to compare the impact of long-term strategic planning and short termism solutions on the same timeline (LaBarre, 2018), and it has become increasingly difficult for designers to negotiate actions against informed decisions, inaction against the competition of speed.
The role of designers is defined by the technological, ideological and economic reality of society.
The evolution of designers is a reflection of history. The role of designers is defined by the technological, ideological and economic reality of society. Designers in the Bauhaus era were facing a technological advancement in industrialization, an oppressive regime that stifled liberal thinking, and a nationwide agenda to boost the postwar economy. Designers in the Cold War era embraced the new age of computing, a redefined individuality not as a predetermined state but a social accomplishment, and automated infrastructure and production at scale (Rosner, 2018). The postmodern era is when technology finally reached consumers and made an impact on day-to-day life. Globalization encouraged a diversity of culture and propelled capitalism. The revolution of designers opened a window to speculate on the future of our society, and design beyond interface.
This is a chapter of the thought on “Design Beyond Interface”. If you are interested in reading more, you can find the table of content here.
I am an interaction designer. You can find me at https://mikibin.design/.
References
Alexander, C. (2002). Notes on the synthesis of form. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
Forlano, L., Steenson, M. W., & Ananny, M. (2019). Bauhaus futures. Cambridge: MIT Press.
LaBarre, S. (2018, July 9). Beyond The Cult Of Human-Centered Design. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90149212/beyond-the-cult-of-human-centered-design
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Berkeley: Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California.
Rosner, D. (2018). Critical fabulations: reworking the methods and margins of design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
