Design Anthropology: Designing with and for Others

Design Anthropology: Designing with and for Others

Anastasios Maragiannis

In creating the space for social inclusion, improvements in ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration are essential in considering “the other”1 in creative practices [1]. Since ancient times most disciplines focused on problem-solving for human needs; for example, architecture interacts with physical space as well as with digital; our daily engagement with media technology becomes more and more essential; not only it is empowering our communications, but in addition, is stipulating for those most vulnerable or in need; whereas visual communication satisfies aesthetics and the desire for the “beautiful”, and it creates unadorned but sophisticated ways of seeing and understanding complexity. In a way, “the other” is becoming a vehicle to inform and often liberate obscured information critical to our lives [2].

This introductory writing briefly discusses the amalgamation of design (+) anthropology concerning the ‘other’. However, it only scratches the surface between the two terms and defines how designing “with and for others” could empower participatory methods2 in every creative and non-creative practice [3]. This association is, from the beginning, hesitation about the relationship between the Designer and the end-user and everything surrounding both.

As a discipline itself, anthropology focuses on studying what makes us human. Colomina and Wigley will argue that questioning if we are humans? “Is both urgent and old” is embedded in our lives through interaction with the self, human sciences, and technology [4]. In a broad spectrum, Anthropology takes a comprehensive approach to understanding the many different aspects of our experiences, with a focus on holistic theory. Anthropologists traditionally will consider the past {time} through an archaeological perspective to see how “human societies” lived in previous times ages ago and what was the most important to them at each period of {time}. Aristotle once mused, “{Time} is irrelevant” in the measure of change. It does not exist as a container to put things into; rather, it depends on shifting, reshaping, and what remains the same, always from an inclusive philosophical perspective (Aristotle 384–322 BC).

We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continued existence of air which I am able to offer (Popper, 1974: 33) [5].

As Popper describes in the above quote, the philosophical approach is associated with actions. Design Philosophy arises in this debate. The relatively adolescent field of design practice and research is briefly presented by asking what the “Philosophy of Design” is about and what its use may be [6]. In almost every discipline, philosophies and routes are questionable based on personal knowledge, experiences and understanding. When focusing on the place of design aesthetics, designs related to peculiar

manifestations; the meaning and translation of function; and consumerism, the Designer’s social responsibility is shifting, and the impact of creative practice concentrates on humans. Although this appears as a tangible and ethical cognitive perspective, understanding design can often create misapprehensions. For example, few would argue that design is not just about making things pretty, at least not just for its sake.

In the 21st century, philosophies classify “design” as an elegant sounding world, and there appears to be a certain number of misconceptions surrounding it. However, the reality is far from it. The focus goes beyond the aesthetics and the idea of enhancing ornaments to a product; instead, it is about making the end user’s interaction with the environment further natural, supplementary inclusive, and complete.

It is then when Design (+) Anthropology comes together to form a {new time}, as the Aristotelian quote mentioned above. The {time} could shape the Designer’s role, especially in a post-pandemic era. Design Anthropology3 focuses on how design practice and design research could translate human values into unique tangible experiences. Combining the unique characteristics of each is a way to reveal social aspects of user experience and focus on philosophical and practical ideas oriented towards the world of transformation, innovation, and knowledge exchange. Design Anthropology attempts to combine observation and interpretation to intervention, participation, co-design, and co-creation as an emergent discipline. The design practitioner collaborates in multidisciplinary teams, working towards tangible results for unique problem solutions to evoke methodological processes and empathic assessments used in co-design approaches, and evaluates them in the context of inclusive studies [7].

Can we propose the evolution of deeper co-evaluation processes and practices between the Designer and the Anthropos (human)?

The short answer is. Yes, we can. Niedderer has argued that creative practices have been used as a means of crafting implicit knowledge available to any cross-disciplinarity research, as it includes the empirical part of knowledge about “the other”, which equivocates conventional communication by unwritten or written methods, and which is otherwise neglected by research because of the prioritisation of propositional knowledge [8].

Shifting our thinking in the pandemic can be an excellent example to showcase as a measure of change. With the massive and “unexpected” rise of the pandemic, designers everywhere have been hanging on the research and outputs of the scientific communities, especially the epidemiologists, and building on healthy best practices to date. But the sheer volume of research and data and the professional responsibility we bear can be overwhelming for a designer, so co-evaluation is essential.

Throughout the {times}, anthropologists, among others, have argued that pandemics (e.g. Influenza 1918, COVID-19) have introduced innovation in almost everything, including science, design, arts, technology, and public health and service design. Each pandemic forges us to rethink our preconceptions and explore innovative methodologies, encouraging us to review “the other” beyond the difficult times of any disease instigated and improve our way of living in a non-stop challenging society. The way we address the pandemics can be inclusively connected to what we believe at the time caused the disease. The focus is mainly on processes usually used in professional and creative practice to

produce work for any purpose other than the cautious acquisition of knowledge. Therefore, co-evaluation practices and methodologies could act as problemsolving processes that drive innovation, build business success, and lead to a better quality of life through services, products, and experiences. The focus for humans has always been on finding the best ways to improve quality of life; consequently, when design focuses on the end-users and the environment we live in, it could provide a new and innovative perspective that design could re-design the human.

We live in times where everything surrounding us is designed based on our diverse experiences, targeting individual characteristics. From our inclusive looks to our digital personas to new materials systems and data. To design inclusively could decode methodological approaches where the Designer engages deeply with the end-users needs, from the beginning of and throughout the whole design process, sharing practices and amalgamating potential solutions into what becomes a unique knowledge exchange. This holistic approach to designpractice research enables human inclusivity irrespectively of disability, gender, ethnicity, vulnerability, language, or age. This could occur but is not limited: to the use of makeup, grinding coffee beans, buying a ticket, taking a bus, making a call, having an operation, having sex, praying to Gods or even getting in touch with outer space entities.

Anthropos (human) has been designing the earth for many years now; it is also extended to outer earth space, which has now been surrounded by our designed rubbish, under the lower orbit [9]. As technology is now in everybody’s hands, we can decide if to send waste to space or contribute to recycling it before it gets there. There is no longer an earth-based design. Design has become the universe, and considering what the next 30 years of growth activities in space will bring.

The most certain thing is that humans will be in the centre of every anthropological aspect, capable of designing to solving problems that transcend time and space for life on earth [10].

Notes

1 The “Other”, as another, is not only my alter-ego. He is what I am not (Levinas, 1995). Levinas will argue that “an-other” is the one who is not me, he is the one I am not and at the same time he is the same as me (he belongs to the human condition). 2 Sometimes referenced as Participatory design (or

Co-design) (Simonsen, Robertson 2013), this is a considered act of directly creating, or designing with people for people, explicitly embedded in the design development process, to ensure that results truly meet the end users’ needs [3]. 3 Design Anthropology as a new field is broadly used by designers, sociologies, anthropologists and more. For example, Gunn, Otto, Smith, in their (2013) publication,

“comprising both cutting-edge explorations and theoretical reflections, their book provides a muchneeded introduction to the concepts, methods, practices and challenges of the new field” Routledge.

References

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