DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2009
PRAGUE DESIGN DAYS 2009
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2009
GIZMODO GALLERY 2009
EUROBIKE 2009
MAKER FAIRE AFRICA
NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL GIFT FAIR
ISTANBUL DESIGN WEEKEND 2009
BAUHAUS SUMMER SCHOOL 2009
Mikal Hallstrup of Designit.dk frames the dilemmas faced by designers, particularly when their product is intended for an entirely different culture or geography. Here's a snippet:
Prabhu Kandachar, associate professor at TUDelft, told a story that illustrates this ethical dilemma perfectly. A company developed an affordable ultra-sound scanner for the Indian market. It was meant to improve pregnancy healthcare and pregnant women's quality of life. But the company soon discovered that the scanners were being used for gender selection.How should the company deal with this? Stop designing? Seek answers from the ethical experts? Keep designing, learning and trying to solve something that seems unsolvable? Or proactively attempt to design new behaviour patterns and value sets in the country so the product is used as intended? That's according to a western value set, at least.
As a designer, I think the way forward is focusing on context. Address and understand the underlying contradictions - whether they be cultural, economic or social - and make the solution fit. And most importantly, remember that policies and visions alone won't bring tangible differences to users' everyday lives - to achieve this, we need well-designed products and services.
What do you think is the responsibility of the designer? What is the role of ethics in product design?
Dutch Design Week
Prague Design Days
1 Hour Design Challenge Winners!
Coroflot Salary Survey Results
Comments
i humbly think this problem is unsolvable, but an interesting provocation nonetheless. one man's trash is another man's treasure. i believe utilitarian objects (like the one in your example) are value-neutral, and crossing cultures has nothing to do with it. it is human nature to apply tools to whatever application they see fit, even if it means subverting its original intent. a designer can ask, sure, but there are too many questions to ask. plus, it is a moving target. ethics, like the wind, shift. guns don't kill people, people kill people. and lastly, those who used the device for gender selection certainly did not find it unethical. design cannot solve relativism.
I agree with Gong. It is quite arrogant to think that you can design out bad intentions. A person will find a way to do something different with a product we design. You can't foresee all the dumb things (and also sometimes very very ingenious things) that someone will do with a product.
I too agree with Gong, it is impossible to design-out unexpected usages. However, I must disagree at a certain point, such as the example of guns...
Certain objects (such as the recently designed pain-ray-wave-gun thingy) offer no constructive benefit to humanity, they benefit only those individuals who wish to impose their terrible wills upon others.