Design and Society

Design by or for the people?

My 'Second sight' column in the Guardian’s Online section has been published. It argues that although user-centred design is now widely accepted the emphasis on its usability component limits innovation. I contend that designers should trust their skills and design for what people deserve, not what consumer research tells us they need, or usability tells us they are capable of. I have published a longer version of the piece entitled 'Design by or for the people?' on my site. This version is more explanatory and more mediated than it is possible to be within the 500 word Guardian limit.

The impact of UK graphic design on the Web

I am writing a chapter on the impact of graphic design on design for the Web. It will appear in a book, edited by Rick Poynor and published by Laurence King, that will accompany an exhibition opening at the Barbican (London) in September 2004. The exhibition will explore recent developments in British graphic design, focusing on the smaller independent studios and teams that are credited with producing the most creative, innovative and highly regarded design work over the past four decades.

I will look at a number of themes including: the influence of graphic design aesthetics and typography, the transition (and failure to transition) of designers and design companies, and the impact of graphic design process and client disposition. It will also look at where in future Web design (and interaction design more broadly) will need to draw from graphic design.

I will also focus on key studios working in this area:

• From the early days: Webmedia, Obsolete, Hard Media, Wicked Web, CHBi, Syzygy
• Latterly: Brann Interactive, Abel & Baker, Decoda, the Interactive Bureau, Arehaus, IDU, Razorfish, Oven Digital
• Current: Lateral, Poke, Less Rain, Re-collective, AKQA, Rufus Leonard, Fortune Cookie, Edwards Churcher, Good Technology, I-D Media, Kleber, Moonfish, Object1, the OTHER media, 64k, Oyster Partners, Artificial Environments, Boag Associates, Grundy & Northedge, Rom and Son, Tomato Interactive

I would value suggestions of ideas, trends and influences, key studios, and important events in the timeline.

Intellectual complacency

In Conference madness (Eye no. 49 vol. 12, Autumn 2003) -- to which I contributed -- Alice Twemlow correctly points out how few substantial disputes there are at design conferences, but is wrong to imply that the issues discussed today are uncontested. Rather, as conferences have addressed more social and political issues it has become clear how little diversity there is in the views presented, and thus how little scope there is for dispute. And where there is a diversity of views, session moderators tend to be unable to draw them out into a meaningful debate.

Organisers of design events seem to be quite complacent and blinkered when it comes to programming. Discussions around their current issues -- the environment, sustainability, social equality, globalisation, and the power of corporations -- have hardly been resolved in the real world. If they can't create an informed and rigorous debate about them in designland we will stagnate intellectually. In addition, we won't be taken seriously by the people beyond our realm who many event organisers are so keen to influence.

I have always sought to present a real diversity of views in events I have programmed. Even if I disagree profoundly with a particular point-of-view I will invite someone representing it to take part, if their arguments have intellectual merit. Only by subjecting ideas to presentation and debate can develop our views on them. These debates may lead to us changing our minds, or we may come to a better understanding our existing beliefs. In contrast most issue-based design events start from a canon of ideas held by the design establishment and neither challenges nor strengthen them. We owe it to ourselves -- and to future generations of designers -- to do better.

Published as a letter in Eye magazine (UK), Spring 2004

Unsustainable arguments

Professor Martin Charter questions my attack on design for sustainability (Blueprint, Letters, October 2003 [in response to my article The great leap forward Blueprint, September 2003]) but only addresses the practical benefits designers might miss. As ever, the sustainability lobby is so unused to hearing anything but self-interested critiques of its views that Professor Charter fails to engage with the substance of my argument.

The professor is right to observe that business drivers and legislation are pushing sustainability, and that designers could benefit from these dynamics. However, my point is that I object to the increasing focus on sustainability _at all levels_. Sustainability thinking is irrational, fails to understand human ingenuity, and creates barriers to the real progress we need.

Like Professor Charter I am keen for designers to appreciate new trends, be attentive to their clients, and respond imaginatively to their briefs. However, anyone keen to see a better world should appreciate the dubious provenance of much environmental and sustainability legislation. As the UK loses manufacturing to India, the Far East and China such legislation -- for instance that banning CFCs in fridges, or requiring reduced factory emissions -- will be used to create informal trade barriers to these less technically advance economies, and to the detriment of their populations. As Indira Gandhi observed "poverty is the greatest polluter". Let's hope our good intentions don't end up prolonging poverty's grip on our fellow humans.

Letter published in the November 2003 issue of Blueprint magazine (UK)

Utopian Socialism

It is too easy to blame designers for the plethora of unusable Web sites, but the attack on them in Jack Schofield’s article ‘Web users suffer from the fall’ (Guardian Online, 21 March 2002) misses the point. The Web is not some socialist utopia in which everything should be usable, and accessible, by all citizens. Most Web sites exist to support some kind of commercial enterprise and the interests of their owners aren't always compatible with those of their desired users (let alone with the whole of humanity). If a Web site owner wants to communicate a message to a site visitor, or get them to do something in particular, and that person has other interests or objectives they may well feel frustrated, but it can't be concluded from this that the design is bad. That said, it is clear that much Web design does fail both site owners and users, and Online could address this by devoting more space to covering the practice of good design and usability, and less to uncritical coverage of the latest ill-considered gizmos from CeBit.

See letters in response to the article in Guardian Online Feedback, 28 March 2002

Being able to use a word processor doesn’t make you a journalist

Upgrade your CV by learning Web design’ was the enticing intro to the Guardian Online’s last Working the Web piece (Working the Web: HTML, 27 September). In reality the article is about learning to author HTML not about design for the Web. Despite Online’s laudable promotion of usability over the years the article doesn’t mention the concept, and the notions of the user, client or design problem are also completely absent. Being able to author HTML doesn’t make you a designer, just as being able to use a word processor doesn’t make you a journalist. This misconception is responsible for 99% of the badly designed sites on the Web, the other 1% being the ‘over-designed’ Flash-based sites bemoaned by Online’s Jack Schofield.

Published in Guardian Letters Online, 4 October 2001. Responded to in Feedback 'The skilled set' 11 October 2001.