Dichotomies in Framing Design Problems
“Do we design for the world we have or do we design for the world we want?”
-David Danks
During our class discussion with David Danks about ethics and values in design, Danks posed a very interesting question, do we design for “the world we have” or “the world we want” and after that, I couldn’t help but frame design projects this way. We see many avant-garde projects that make use of the latest technology available aimed to challenge the status-quo. Such projects are situated in a world envisioned by the technologists, a “world they want” with a lofty conception. Such projects evolve according to the real world problems that arise from the deploying of such products. And then there are those projects that are conceptualized for the world we have and iterated towards an ideal world. Designing for social innovation often starts with the conception of a service or a product to address an issue in the present. It is for a particular time and context and factors into consideration all the variables and possibilities before being applied. With time, the design is iterated on and improved by making changes that lead the stakeholders towards a better scenario, that address the root cause of the issue. This piece explores three different facets of the two dichotomies, viz.
Idealistic vs Pragmatic
On the one hand, a design that has been conceptualized for the world we want is idealistic, and on the other side, there is design is deeply rooted in pragmatism, imagined for the world we currently have and gradually evolves for a world we want. An example of the former is Uber’s self-driving cars that were launched in 2016. The idea was conceived for an idealistic world where everyone had a mental model of the self-driving car and would be able to predict their behavior, and all the self-driving cars would seamlessly communicate with each other. However, following the incident of the death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona by one of Uber’s self-driving cars, Uber reacted by introducing a driver monitoring system to ensure that the safety driver in the self-driving car is attentive making the design more for realistic (Hawkins, 2018). An example of the latter is the low-cost sanitary napkin project by Arunachalam Muruganantham aka “Padman,” a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore, India. Muruganantham was distraught by the fact that his wife would use very unhygienic methods to manage her period.
“The cloth my wife was using was so dirty, I would not even use it to wipe my scooter”
- Arunachalam Muruganantham
His wife wouldn’t use sanitary napkins made by multinational companies as they were costly for them to afford (Matharu, 2017). Following this, Muruganantham was determined to make a low-cost sanitary napkin to help several women like his wife manage their period safely and cleanly.
Plans vs Situated Actions
During week six of our Interaction Design Seminar, we read Lucy Suchman’s piece Human-Machine Reconfigurations, in which she discusses two alternative views of action, plans and situated actions (Suchman, 2006). The planning view is described as being “prerequisite to, and prescribe action at every level of detail” and is explained with through the examples the European navigator (Suchman, 2006). Like the European navigator, the conception of Uber’s project of driverless cars has abstract and analytical reasoning behind its plans and there exists “mutual intelligibility” through the “recognizability” of plans (Suchman, 2006). As per plan Uber hired researchers from Carnegie Mellon’s robotics department and set up Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh to develop self-driving cars. Then in September 2016, Uber put out their first fleet of self-driving vehicles using Ford Fusion cars equipped with cameras, lasers, GPS, radar and lira in Pittsburgh (Muoio, 2016).
“Mutual intelligibility is a matter of the reciprocal recognizability of our plans, enabled by common conventions for the expression of intent and shared knowledge about typical situations and appropriate actions.”
- Lucy Suchman
Muruganantham, on the other hand, had no such pre-made plans that had to be understood and recognized by others. Much like the Trukese navigator, described by Suchman as acting spontaneously, without any “ideological commitments” he conceived a solution to an immediate problem that needed intervention (Suchman, 2006). Muruganantham took apart a sanitary napkin that he had bought for his wife and made his first sanitary napkin out of cotton after assuming that the sanitary pad was filled with cotton and gave it to his wife to try it. Following her disappointment with his design, she went back to using a dirty rag and refused to test his sanitary napkins after that. As a last resort, Muruganantham asked medical college girls to collect their used sanitary napkins so he could see how they worked. Upon finding him do this, his mother got very upset and left the house to stay with his sisters. Then, in 2000 Muruganantham researched and learned that the material used in sanitary napkins was cellulose fiber. He imported a sample of cellulose sheet and realized that it had to be torn to be used as filling in a sanitary pad. Soon he realized that he needed to make a machine to automate the processes involved in creating a sanitary napkin. However, a plant like that was, and Muruganantham couldn’t afford it. He sought out to make the same machine at a very economical cost, and that occupied very little space, a situated action without a pre-made plan for a particular time and context.
Exclusive vs Inclusive
When conceived for a world we have, an idea tends to be intrinsically exclusive. It tends to exclusive not just regarding the people it serves, but also the various possibilities that may arise on deploying such an idea. When the driverless cars are deployed, it is important to consider situations where people might not have a mental model of how driverless cars behave and might not be able to predict their behavior like how they do for cars that are driven by other humans. Besides this, the communication systems of these cars may also fail at times and could lead to fatal accidents. This is not to say that there are no fatal accidents caused by human drivers. However, accountability becomes murky when a machine is at fault. As the design is iterated, more real-world scenarios are factored into consideration, and the design is made more realistic.
On the contrary, when designing for social innovation, such as the low-cost sanitary pad, the solutions are more grounded in reality and are highly inclusive. After successfully automating the process of producing sanitary napkins at a frugal price, Muruganantham supplied the unit to over 200 districts in India. He has provided his units to women’s cooperatives to empower. The women of the villages run and own the units which gives them steady employment while spreading awareness about hygienic period management making his venture highly inclusive. Muruganantham also believed that it is easier for women to talk about menstruation with other women in countries like India where it is almost taboo for a man to discuss such issues.
Further Thoughts
Through the course of this seminar, we looked at design problems at various scales, platforms, media using different materials both tangible and intangible for different times and contexts. This piece allowed me to explore the dichotomy stated above through various the various lenses that we discussed each week in class. The materials I read as a part of this class gave me a rich vocabulary to frame, understand and situate design problems. However idealistic a design maybe in its conception it ultimately gets grounded by the messiness and the chaos of the world we live in.
References
Danks, D. (2018), Head of Department of Philosophy, Values and Ethics. Seminar: Interaction & Service Design Concepts.
Hawkins, A. J. (2018, July 24). Uber’s self-driving cars are back on public roads, but under human control. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607898/uber-self-driving-car-public-roads-driver-monitoring
Matharu, S. (2017, December 20). The real Padman: How A Muruganantham launched a sanitary napkin revolution in India. Retrieved December 10, 2018, from https://www.firstpost.com/living/the-real-padman-how-a-muruganantham-launched-a-sanitary-napkin-revolution-in-india-4268315.html
Muoio, D. (2016, September 14). We rode in Uber’s self-driving car — here’s what it was like. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-driverless-car-in-pittsburgh-review-photos-2016-9/#to-try-the-cars-we-lined-up-at-ubers-advanced-technologies-center-in-the-strip-district-of-pittsburgh-a-small-neighborhood-on-the-allegheny-river-with-nearby-warehouses-the-atc-is-tucked-under-an-overpass-for-a-freight-train-keeping-it-secluded-1
Suchman, L. A. (2006). Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr.
