Convenor
Siew-Peng Lee
Brunel University
Co-covenor
Genaro Castro-Vázquez
Nanyang Technological University
Abstract
The use of ethnography in industrial design is not a new phenomenon (eg Wasson 2000). Whether design projects are physically large like factories (work) or parks (play), or digital ones such as websites for shopping (commerce) and newspapers (information), or even smaller ones like medical devices to support frail patients or key fobs to facilitate internet banking, people are the end-users. Apart from the technical (is it ‘do-able’?) and ‘health and safety’ (compliance) issues, there are also many ‘non-technical’ perspectives that designers must bear in mind. The most sophisticated and secure IT system can be easily compromised not by a rogue virus, but by the user who clicks on a link in an email sent from a dodgy address that had gone unnoticed, or a sticky note on a laptop with the login/password. The human person is undoubtedly the weakest link in systems, process and product designs.
Trainee designers (eg in engineering, architecture, IT, design schools) need to know how people function alone and in groups but they often perceive anthropology and/or sociology (Anthro/Soc) to be too esoteric and are often loath to study these subjects. This panel proposes first of all to identify the different ways that Anthro/Soc teachers have managed to ‘cross boundaries’ in teaching such reluctant students. Theoretically, to what extent can these reluctant learners be compared to Paulo Freire’s ‘oppressed’ and therefore need a very different pedagogy? If, on the other hand, you have students who are enthusiastic about incorporating Anthro/Soc into their design and engineering studies, then we need to learn how such a positive learning culture had been engendered. What are the various (institutional) factors that contribute to ‘making’ such a culture and can it be replicated elsewhere?
The panel would also welcome contributions from anthropologists and sociologists who have worked in any form of design environment (print, advertising, garden, building, product, process, systems, etc) to explicate how their design projects had been undergirded by anthropological and sociological principles and methodologies. How did they relate to the other designers on board? If anthropologists/sociologists were perceived as an exotic species, what strategies did they use to bridge disciplinary differences? What lessons can we learn from the way professional anthropologists/sociologists have ‘disarmed’ their detractors? It is hoped that presentations would help us consolidate the role that anthropology and sociology can play in design processes both inside and outside academia.