Rethinking Design Thinking in the Pluriverse
CfD Conversation Series | April 21st 2021
Written by Estefanía Ciliotta
Design has shifted immensely since its beginnings — from craftsmanship to a way of thinking and being. Michael Arnold Mages, our conversation series curator, defined design as a fundamental act of humans and design thinking as a way to know the world — through objects, by objects, with objects.
Regarding the specific topic of this conversation, Michael brought up Arturo Escobar's book and approach to designing for the Zapatista Pluriverse — where many worlds fit. This way of seeing design incorporates ways of being.
With this initial framework, we dove deeper into the panelists’ discussion. Dimeji shared his perspective on collective history and how it has influenced the way we think and work today as designers, and this collective history is deeply intertwined and impacting the lives of others.
He also raised the concern regarding design thinking for being too problem-solving-oriented when perhaps, designers should be paying more attention to problem tracing and finding since current problems are more complex and wicked.
As designers living in and designing for a multicultural society, we need to ask ourselves more questions before jumping to conclusions, we need to be more critical thinkers and provocative.
In addition, Dimeji shared some of the Pluriversal Principles:
Pluriversal principles
- Be egalitarian
- Use a multimodal approach
- Act as an ally
- Lend your upstream privilege
- Adopt collective agency
- Steward the rights of others
- Fight symbolic violence
- Stay with the problem
To add to this pluriversal view, we need to consider people’s perspectives regarding tradition and sacredness. Hajira Qazi’s research approach incorporates sacredness in transition design and calls for systems-level change for transitioning to more equitable and sustainable futures, arguing that the things we design, design back on us.
She also raises a new view for design thinking and argues that instead of focusing only on innovative approaches, design thinking should consider traditional views and approaches towards the sacred, as traditions may offer radical creativity to solving modern problems by providing centuries worth of wisdom, culture-specific know-how, and experience.
Finally, Alexandra To added to these pluralistic views of design by sharing her research on design for empowerment and joy. She believes that HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and Game Design can provide an interesting approach to thinking about racial justice.
She argues that as technology continues to develop, gaps between communities with access and without access continue to enlarge, thus, technology perpetuates marginalization of already marginalized groups. Alexandra is looking to combat this marginalization through design interventions and tools to provide and enable visibility, awareness, and community empowerment.
One of her projects, for example, focuses on participatory workshops to imagine speculative futures by coping with daily experiences of interpersonal racism using social technology (CARE Project). This project’s goal is to provide participants not only with visibility to the issue but also with safety and dignity.
Conclusions and Further Questions
Design Thinking is not apolitical
Designers make judgments and decisions that influence people’s lives… that is politics and design needs to be aware of it and take responsibility for it.
Human interaction is complex — culture and contexts
Traditional design methods are not enough. We need to incorporate new ways and approaches, new ways of thinking of design.
Embrace Diversity and Design for Dignity and Empowerment
Storytelling is key for accessing and participating with each other
Whoever holds the story holds the perspective. As designers, we should build and enable platforms that share different perspectives of the same story.
We need to Reframe Design Education
Design not for problem-solving, but we should be teaching a design approach that is more of a social collective process that is beyond problem-solving.
Some questions we may want to continue to think about as we develop the design practice are:
- How might we redesign the practice without the influence of western/single-sided perspective?
- How can we blend in a new way of being in a new world?
- The future that we are designing is designing others’ futures too, so how might we do it in a more responsible way?
- How might we incorporate different perspectives and traditions into design and design approaches?
- Sacred vs. Profanity: how might we build a bridge between them to not see them as two completely opposite things?
Written by Estefanía Ciliotta
Center for Design, Northeastern University
Interested in knowing more? Watch the full conversation!
For more information on this event visit https://camd.northeastern.edu/event/cfd-conversations-04/
CfD Faculty Curator
Michael Arnold Mages is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art + Design. His research interests include developing a rich understanding of the ways that service design, technology, and the material environment facilitate human conversation. Professor Arnold Mages is especially interested in creating work that supports participants’ understanding of their own intersectional identity as a component of a conversation and creating work that can support conversations that are difficult, or high-stakes, or where one or more participants are in a leveraged position.
The Panelists
Dr. Dimeji Onafuwa is a designer, artist, and researcher with several years of UX design and research, transition design, service design, and social design experience. He has worked as a design studio owner, UX consultant, and researcher. After working as a senior design researcher at Microsoft, where he explored the future of work, Dimeji recently joined Google as a senior researcher in the Cloud Commerce space. Dimeji also teaches courses on Design and the Pluriverse at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC. Dimeji earned a Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University. His doctoral study at CMU sought to understand commons-based approaches to user experience on platforms. To investigate this topic, he worked with various collectives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Portland, Oregon. Before his Ph.D., Dimeji also earned an MBA in management from UNC Charlotte and BAs in design and studio art from Concord University. Dimeji recently co-founded Common Cause Collective, an interdisciplinary group of designers exploring transition design methodologies for social impact in the Pacific Northwest. He has published papers, written a book chapter on design for the greater good, given talks, and conducted workshops on design’s role in social justice.
Hajira Qazi is an accountant-turned designer currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Transition Design. She worked for four years in finance and then in a nonprofit organization, where she first began to recognize the value of systems-level approaches to design. In 2016, she joined the School of Design Master of Arts program and received her Master of Professional Studies in 2018. Her doctoral research is centered on how conceptions of the sacred can inform an alternative worldview that moves away from the consumeristic aspects traditionally associated with design towards design that fosters resilient and cohesive societies. Past work and research interests include participatory design, decolonization, and design for political change.
Alexandra To is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University jointly appointed in the Art + Design (Games) department and the Khoury College of Computer Science. Her core research interests are in designing social technologies to empower people in vulnerable and marginalized contexts using qualitative methods to gather stories and participatory methods to design for the future. Her most recent research focuses on designing social technologies to empower support-seeking and coping with interpersonal racism. Alexandra is an activist, a critical race scholar, and an award-winning game designer. She previously received her Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. and M.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. She has published work at CHI, CHI Play, DiGRA, FDG, UIST, CSCW, and DIS.
