The Design Experience

The Role of Design and Designers in the Twenty-First Century

Mike Press, Rachel Cooper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351891707
• Subtopic: Architecture General
• Index: Business

How are we to understand the changing role of design and designers in the new age of consumer experience? Drawing on perspectives from cultural studies, design management, marketing, new product development and communications theory, The Design Experience explores the contexts, practices and roles of designers in today's world, providing an accessible introduction to the key issues reshaping design. The book begins by analysing how consumers acquire meaning and identity from product and other experiences made possible by design. It then explores issues of competitiveness, innovation and management in the context of industry and commerce. If designers are creators of human experiences, what does this mean for their future role in culture and commerce? Subsequent chapters look at new ways in which designers conduct user research and how designers should communicate about design and decision-making with key stakeholders. The authors conclude with a discussion of the design 'profession': will that label be a help or hindrance for tomorrow's designer? Written for students of design, design management, cultural and business studies, The Design Experience is also of interest to practitioners of design, marketing and management. Illustrated case study material is integrated into the text, and the book also includes a glossary, and extensive references.

1 Design and consumer culture

Let’s start here: ‘culture’ is everything we don’t have to do. We have to eat, but we don’t have to have ‘cuisines’, Big Macs or Tournedos Rossini. We have to cover ourselves against the weather, but we don’t have to be concerned as we are about whether we put on Levi’s or Yves Saint-Laurent. We have to move about the face of the globe, but we don’t have to dance. I call the ‘have-to’ activities functional and the ‘don’t have tos’ stylistic. By ‘stylistic’ I mean that the main basis on which we make choices between them is in terms of their stylistic differences.

Brian Eno¹

WHAT’S THE MEANING OF LIFE?

In former times we derived the meaning for our existence from God. Religion provided a framework for human behaviour, defined our place in the overall scheme of things, and provided individual and collective aspirations. God’s power and our relationship to it was expressed symbolically through the scriptures and the rituals of the Church.

In the industrialised world at the very start of the third millennium, God would appear no longer to provide the same sense of social coherence and individual purpose. So how do we derive meaning and gain a sense of identity in a complex and confusing world? Most of us go shopping.

Consumption provides meaning, or at least legitimises the lack of meaning, in the secular modern world. Through consuming we meet individual needs, construct our identities and confirm our membership of social groups. Increasingly we define ourselves in terms of our styles of consumption and the values about our lives that they express – our lifestyle – rather than the job we do. Ours is a culture of acquisition, possession and consumer experience. One hundred years ago an average household could count probably around 500 objects in their home – utensils, furniture and so on. Today a typical home bulges with over 3,000 bits of stuff – and that’s just the hardware, in addition to which we must consider the programs within our PCs and the multiplying channels on our cable TVs. Acquiring all this stuff is now our number one leisure activity. The average adult spends six hours each week shopping. By way of contrast, the average parent spends forty minutes each week playing with their children.

To consume involves far more than just to shop and possess; it provides a range of experiences gained through our relationship with material culture: we eat out, see a band, watch a video, surf the net, go cycling. The designed products, communications and environments of our consumer culture – the tableware, set designs, VCRs, web browsers and sports goods – are the media that provide these experiences. Together, these experiences help to define our culture, and indeed to define ourselves – they provide us with meaning.

This chapter will examine the cultural context of design. It will begin by exploring the concept of culture, then examine various accounts and perspectives of consumer culture. The notion of lifestyle is vital for understanding the differences and diversity of today’s world. Using examples, we will show how design gives form to those differences. We will present a view of design as a cultural production and consumption system – the engine of cultural experiences. This is not to say that professional designers are the sole creators of these experiences – far from it. The point is that design should be seen as both a specialised professional practice and as a creative means of consuming: for example, designers design items of clothing while consumers design how they go together and how they are used on different occasions.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

You enter the bathroom and are confronted by a low stool, plastic bowl and small hand towel. What do you do? How should you behave? What does all this mean? This is a bathroom in Japan, and you are desperately trying to understand Japanese culture.

People’s behaviour, rituals and values vary from country to country and in our multicultural and socially diverse world, within countries as well. The objects used and their configuration reflect and reinforce the expected behaviour of everyday life. When we travel to other countries we are all the time trying to interpret the designed environment to figure out how to eat, how to buy a bus ticket and how to bathe. In short, we are trying to understand the underlying culture.

Understanding culture is clearly essential to the process of design. According to American marketing professor Michael Solomon, ‘culture is the lens through which people view products’.² It is culture that gives products meaning, that provides the rituals within which they are used and the values that are often reflected in their form and function.

There are many ways of defining and understanding the term culture. Its meaning has evolved historically from ‘the tending of natural growth’, as in agriculture, to ‘a general state or habit of the mind’, linked to ideas of human perfection and ‘the general body of the arts’ where it is associated with ‘high’ culture.³ Such conservative definitions of culture have been challenged in recent years by the rise of cultural studies as a field of inquiry which draws on anthropology, sociology, linguistics, history, psychology and other disciplines to explore culture as ‘the social production and reproduction of sense, meaning and consciousness’.⁴ Cultural studies has been greatly influenced by ideas from Marxism, feminism and multiculturalism to become a radical project viewing culture as a terrain upon which different social groups play out power struggles, seek to resist subordination and assert their identities. While we shall be drawing on some perspectives from cultural studies later in this section, at this stage we will settle with a broader definition of culture as distinctive patterns of social life that reflect shared values, meanings and beliefs expressed in preferred material objects, services and activities. However, you will notice as our discussion develops that other definitions will be used. For the student of design it is essential to appreciate and interpret the various uses of this term.

We find references to culture in a variety of discussions that concern design. In James Pilditch’s account of how innovation and design are harnessed by successful companies, he draws attention to corporate culture as the ‘soft’ shared values that create vision and commitment to excellence through particular styles of management.⁵ Dick Hebdige has advanced the idea of youth sub-culture in his analysis of punk that explores how the punks of the late 1970s created meaning and identity through fashion and style.⁶ Peter Dormer entitles his examination of the values and role of contemporary studio crafts as ‘the culture of craft’.⁷ There are also explorations of national culture to account for the characteristics of design in particular countries, such as Frederique Huygen’s examination of the Britishness of British design.⁸

Box 1.1 summarises some of the key factors that account for the differences between national cultures and determine their constantly changing nature over time. These factors also explain variations in design between cultures. While the figure within Box 1.1 focuses on national culture, it could be adapted to account for other forms of culture.

Box 1.1 Dimensions of culture

Source: Adapted from M. R. Solomon (1994), Consumer Behaviour, Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Ecology refers to how a social system and its culture adapt to their immediate habitat. The system’s geography will determine the resources at its disposal and the technology that can be developed within the constraints of those resources. The distinctiveness of Japan’s culture, for example, is very much a product of its ecology. The limited space for cultivation on Japan’s islands led to a premium on living space and an aesthetic for the miniature and portable that is seen from Bonsai to consumer electronics. A country with virtually no energy reserves of its own, which had to import most of its raw materials, Japan could not industrialise simply by making things cheaper than other countries. Rather, Japan had to add value to its manufactured goods, thus concentrating on product areas which were knowledge based, such as computers and robotics.

Social structure is often a consequence of this ecology. Overcrowded countries, such as Japan and the Netherlands, find different ways of maintaining a well-ordered, cohesive society. Political structures can determine the degree of cultural diversity and are linked to the notion of openness. The distinctiveness of Japanese culture, for example, is a consequence of its insularity for several hundred years. Opposition to a dominant power system is often expressed culturally, as in the youth counterculture of the 1960s that produced new fashions, music and art. Changing gender relations have a major impact on social structures, ways of life, and demands on design. Finally, the more individualism is stressed in society, the more diverse the culture and its material forms. Here we can contrast Japan’s collectivist culture with the more individualistic ‘American way’, w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of boxes
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Design and consumer culture
• 2 Design in industry and commerce
• 3 Designing the experience
• 4 Research for design
• 5 Communicating design
• 6 The design professions
• Glossary
• Index