Industrial Design

“Understanding Industrial Design” by Simon King and Kuen Chang retraces the history of industrial and interaction design. They present a chronological overview of design from the industrial revolution and the computing revolution to the information revolution. They also retrace the work of the most influential designers. This chapter has an informative tone as it aims to teach a general audience, with seemingly no previous experience in design, the essential elements of what constitutes design. The example of Apple and Microsoft, two well-known companies, as well as the discussion on smartphones, used daily by a large portion of the world’s population, emphasise the fact that the authors are appealing to a lay audience. Not only do they seek to inform this audience about design, they also pass along implicit ethical messages. Designers must design for people and focus on their users’ needs, for technology by leveraging the opportunity to redesign and improve their products, for behaviour by taking into account the relationship of people with objects as well as for businesses as both can be mutually beneficial. Finally, the authors consider the future where the digital and physical will blur. Their message: interaction designers need to understand industrial design as user experience isn’t based solely on a screen. This highlights the importance of this chapter which teaches its reader about the history of industrial design.

Similarly “Black People Invented Everything” also has an informative purpose as it teaches its audience about the deep history of indigenous creativity across various fields (agriculture, animal breeding, architecture, art, astronomy, business and trade, clothing, ceramics, dance, economics, health care, housing, medicine, mining, music, sports, technology ect.) and cites the work of prominent Black designers (Carver, Latimer, Mccoy, Drew, Jackson, Johnson, Boykin, Dean, West, Croak, Golebtor ect). However, it’s main goal is not to inform but to denounce the fact that, while Black people invented most of the things our modern society could not function without, they have been written out of historical records. This message has a strong and explicit ethical message oppositely to “Understanding Industrial Design” which is much more factual. It appeals directly to its white audience through “you” and rhetorical questions to make its denunciation furthermore efficient. The author’s voice and opinion is therefore much more present than in “Understanding Industrial Design”.