5. About Personification
Design is concerned with complexity. There is enormous complexity in the ways things, both tangible and intangible, are parts of larger systems, influenced by culture, exist in a social context, and more. It raises the question: How can a Designer think through the complexity of things when they Design? I believe the answer lies in using new metaphors to change the way we think about artifacts.
Metaphors exist in more than just poetry. In the book, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that not only are metaphors a central part of language itself but also to our conceptual system itself. Metaphors limit and shape the ways we think. One type of metaphors is personification. Personification helps us understand our experiences with nonhuman things, again both tangible and intangible, through human characteristics. They give the example, “Inflation has outwitted the best economic minds in the country”. Here inflation is personified as not only a person but as an adversary capable of outwitting humans. The metaphor here provides a way for us to conceptualize inflation. Bruno Latour does this for Design through his Actor-Network Theory.
The foundational metaphor of the Actor-Network Theory is that things should be thought of as humans. He argues that nonhuman objects are the missing factor of sociology. Thus, both nonhuman and human entities are “actors” within the network. He uses a seat belt in his car to illustrate how a nonhuman actor is able to have a motivation and take action. He is unable to drive without putting on his seat belt because the car will continue to sound its alarm as he tries to drive without putting on his seatbelt. He reflects on the situation by saying:
“Where is the morality? In me, a human driver, dominated by the mindless power of an artifact? Or in the artifact forcing me, a mindless human, to obey the law that I freely accepted when I get my driver’s license?”
The seat belt is described with morality and agency because of the way it forces the human to obey a law. While it is possible to describe the seat belt without personifying it, you can see how personification helps us understand the artifact through our personal experience with human relationships. Personification gives us language to conceptualize and discuss the complexity surrounding the Design of artifacts ranging from tangible objects to systems and policies.
To conclude, let us take a quick look at the metaphor that personification allows. Actors in Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory need a “script” or program of actions. Just like how a screenwriter would for a movie, designers can use a script to plan how actors are introduced, their motives, the ways in which they interact with one another, the sequence of interactions, and more. Design is concerned with complexity. For that very reason, we need the dual metaphors of personification and actors in a script to open up new ways for us to process the systems in which things and humans exist.
