HCID Open Day 2019

Liv­ing a larg­er life together. 

ABSTRACT: I want to use this talk to think in broad­er terms about design­ing for good — to ask the ques­tion: “are we think­ing and doing well with design?” 

Step­ping through a num­ber of exam­ples, I’ll invite us to reflect on some of the core tenets in UX design and HCI, ideas like human cen­tred­ness, medi­a­tion and aug­men­ta­tion. Though valu­able in mov­ing us on from a prob­lem-dri­ven and high­ly instru­men­tal ver­sion of design to some­thing much more invest­ed in people’s rich expe­ri­ences, I’m going to pro­pose such ten­ants are now lim­it­ing our imag­i­na­tions. They have us nar­row­ing our atten­tion, plac­ing the empha­sis on the human’s capac­i­ties to act in and on the world. In oth­er words they cre­ate the con­di­tions for a util­i­tar­i­an indi­vid­u­al­ism, and leave lit­tle space for a design open to the always entan­gled inter­play between a full-range of human and non­hu­man actors. 

I’ll argue that there is an alter­na­tive, much more gen­er­a­tive way of think­ing about and mak­ing with design, one that is com­mit­ted to a rela­tion­al becom­ing. This is an idea of rela­tions that does­n’t reduce design to a prac­tice that is good for the cen­tred human, the human sur­round­ed by tools that medi­ate or aug­ment inter­ac­tion. Instead, it is to recog­nise the cor­re­spon­dences, inter­de­pen­den­cies, con­tin­u­al attune­ments and co-mak­ings between diverse enti­ties. It is to ask: what it might be to cre­ate the con­di­tions for more to hap­pen, what a design would look like that holds open the space for rela­tions to pro­lif­er­ate and much more var­ied forms of life to come into being. This I want to pro­pose is a design for good, a design that is full with the hope of liv­ing a larg­er life together. 

“Table“work is the new “field“work… get­ting togeth­er for #HCID2019 #Design­For­Good and mak­ing all kinds of con­nec­tions. @alxndrt @daria_loi @tripsandflips_ @chrisspeed @racheleclarke @jaz_off and now time to lis­ten to Daria and stop find­ing folk on Twit­ter… pic.twitter.com/nxHF3PUzJb

— Ann Light (@StrangertoHabit) June 18, 2019

The kind of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that can occur with­out words is rich and deep. Why do we per­sist upon dimin­ish­ing the pow­er of those who can­not speak? @alxndrt #HCID2019 #Design­For­Good pic.twitter.com/ORtz5GmUcW

— chris­speed (@chrisspeed) June 18, 2019