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What is critical about critical design?
Abstract
Critical design is a research through design methodology that foregrounds the ethics of design practice, reveals potentially hidden agendas and values, and explores alternative design values. While it seems to be a timely fit for today's socially, aesthetically, and ethically oriented approaches to HCI, its adoption seems surprisingly limited. We argue that its central concepts and methods are unclear and difficult to adopt. Rather than merely attempting to decode the intentions of its originators, Dunne and Raby, we instead turn to traditions of critical thought in the past 150 years to explore a range of critical ideas and their practical uses. We then suggest ways that these ideas and uses can be leveraged as practical resources for HCI researchers interested in critical design. We also offer readings of two designs, which are not billed as critical designs, but which we argue are critical using a broader formulation of the concept than the one found in the current literature.
... Design however, rejects the status quo as the only possibility and critiques the existing system through the application of alternative values systems. Bardzell and Bardzell (2013) contest that this binary categorisation is unproductive and inappropriate, as not only does it oversimplify a highly complex and nuanced context, but it also has the potential to have an oppressive impact, as one world view is likely to be more prevalent in influencing what design is seen as critical and what is affirmative. As Jakobsone (2017) describes, critical design approaches are often "elitist and patronising in their discourse about the society" (p. ...
... 5). Bardzell and Bardzell (2013) provide a more nuanced description of what makes critical design critical by outlining the following five characteristics of critical theory which designers can engage with. Critical design should promote perspective-shifting holistic understandings of phenomena, rather than seek to reduce the phenomena to an atomic level of scientific explanation. ...
Learning Design continues to emerge as a distinct area of professional practice in both corporate and education contexts. This practice must now adapt to meet the challenges of increased expectation of learner experience, an exponential rate of global change, and the need for learning experiences to be future-fit. However, there is a lack of a coherent framework to guide Learning Design practice in addressing these challenges. There is a lack of a framework that supports the learning designer as a leader of change for a thriving future.
This thesis proposes an emergent framework: Leadership by Learning Design. The researcher adopts a pragmatic approach, which draws upon both existing research and professional experience across a range of design related themes including anthro-complexity, future studies, decolonisation, transformational learning, and systems transformation. Key literature in each of these areas is explored, contextualised to Learning Design, then applied in a manner that pushed beyond the boundaries of prevalent practice. Together these themes form an emergent, yet coherent, framework which allows Learning Designers to explore their role as leaders for a thriving future - Leadership by Learning Design.
... Contrary to traditional design, speculative and discursive practices do not respond to precise success indexes or measurable standards. Pulling from critical theory and meta-criticism, these processes do not claim to be "right" in the way that scientific conclusions are; instead, they challenge audiences or users to think about a subject in a new mode and temporarily inhabit the designer's position (Bardzell and Bardzell 2013). This research, along with all work in the category of criticism and speculation, poses a challenge to the prevalent models of knowledge accepted by society. ...
The paper illustrates a case study developed within the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai), focusing on the future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The interest in the topic of aerial transportation followed a recent partnership between Hyundai and Uber Inc., aiming to commercialise an electric flying taxi service in 2028 in the city of San Francisco. In response to the increasing need for sustainable options, this research project explores the risks, alternative trajectories, and socioeconomic and environmental implications for the future of UAM. The work is generated at the conjunction of the Anthropocene, Aerocene and Biocene, which, besides representing both the conceptual and operational context, provide the inspiration for a multilayered conceptual framework. The Anthropocene, characterising the human species, flows into critical practices; the Aerocene, as a future scenario, engages with speculations; and the Biocene, as a new environmental order, fosters a post-human-centred approach.
... Over the past decade or so, what might be considered as a "speculative turn' has taken place in HCI, whereby methods such as Critical Design [19] Speculative Design [20], Adversarial Design [21] and Design Fiction [22] are increasingly used to create imaginary visions of potential futures. Knowles et al [23] assert that sustainability-focussed Design Fiction proposals can, in particular, help increase environmental consciousness of technological impacts amongst a broad range of audiencesfrom academia, through industry, to wider publics. ...
Given the climate emergency, the growing environmental challenges that come with increased adoption of digital technologies are rightly beginning to come under greater scrutiny. Yet, it is not our devices nor systems that have led us into an era of unsustainability, but how we have continued to design them to deplete precious natural resources, generate copious amounts of carbon emissions and create mountains of obsolete technology. These harmful impacts are, for the most part, a symptom of the problematic design patterns and rhetoric persistently put forward by technology firms predicated on commercial gain and market growth. Our current technology research paradigm also actively contributes to these problems. In response to these critical issues, this short position paper argues for a new vision for HCI which transitions beyond purely human needs and places environmental and social sustainability firmly at its core. To do so, the paper harnesses Design Fiction and More-than-Human-Centred Design methods to outline a design futures model for facilitating Sustainable Transitions for HCI.
... Therefore, scholars from diverse academic fields, including design, industrial ecology, waste management, and law, along with the industry, have started to explore more sustainable smartphone alternatives [5,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], with which the society might 'move the needle' in the right direction towards a safer space for humanity [22]. Not least, fields such as transition and interaction design have raised attention to sustainability [10,23,24] through their streams such as responsible/sustainable interaction [24][25][26][27][28] or critical-speculative design to discuss future technologies [29][30][31][32]. Ideally, all design should take place within the planetary boundaries and social foundations or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as suggested in [33][34][35][36][37] and strengthen particularly intergenerational justice, discussed in diverse definitions of sustainability and SDGs [33,35,38]. ...
The smartphone industry is undergoing a slow transition towards sustainable design and circular business models in response to mounting social and ecological concerns. This paper discusses a smartphone concept regarding sustainable value creation over its entire lifecycle—thereby urging the creation of alternative designs and future-fit businesses. Hence, drawing inspiration from existing start-ups seeking to establish a sustainable smartphone market, a speculative business proposal is synthesised. It employs an analytical framework, with the three layers ‘agent-situation’, ‘product system’, and ‘business/venture’, custom-made to explore value creation in smartphone design, production, and consumption for both existing businesses and this study’s case. Through the simultaneous consideration of designing and business modelling, this case exemplifies a sensible navigation between sustainability values, regardless of whether trade-offs or even synergies emerge. The resulting cross-fertilisation of the two fields contributes to stretching notions of what is possible and desirable in an advanced circular society future.
... In this sense, Dunne and Raby argue for design to speculate about possible futures rather than to merely realizing market-feasible futures. Although Dunne and Raby's A/B Manifesto has been criticized for its vagueness and strong value judgments [5], it is valuable to grasp the potential diferences between traditional design practice of industry and the more academic-driven speculative design. In general, speculative design bears strong parallels to design fction. ...
During the year 2020-22, millions of people around the world had to quarantine, self-isolate, and apply physical and social distancing[1]. Our lives, our family and work have drastically shifted into what many are increasingly calling the “new normal”[2]. People work, study, shop and even get health advice remotely. Yet, not everyone enjoys suitable spaces for conducting virtual lives. While much of the public attention has been given to medical experts and government guidelines; de facto, it is clear that the way we have designed and planned so far our homes and cities has been shaping how we were facing the pandemic at an individual and social level. The web reports and scholar articles on the role of architecture and urban design and planning on the post- pandemic life and city are thriving daily. Indeed, there are so many fundamental questions to raise on the societal response in the post-pandemic city. Meantime, several strong earthquakes hit capital region of Albania leaving behind thousands of destroyed houses and tens of human victims. The incidence of flooding and fires has been doubled and tripled due to climate change. The global economic crisis and the logic of stabilocracy has worsened the situation. On the top of such general instability stay the events of last pandemic crisis and a desperate need for resilient actions.
This research explores the concept of ethical design, its application areas, and the responsibilities that designers undertake in the process of ethical design. Ethical design represents a value-oriented approach that prioritizes societal benefit and the safety and well-being of users. The article provides a detailed examination of how ethical design can be applied in fields such as healthcare, technology, environment, and others. Furthermore, it emphasizes the responsibilities of designers in the ethical design process and the necessity for them to embrace ethical values. This article is written with the aim of highlighting the importance of ethical design and encouraging designers to act more consciously and responsibly in this field.
The first book to be published on the work of their partnership (in 2001), Design Noir is the essential primary source for understanding the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings for Dunne & Raby's work.
Consisting of three elements - a 'manifesto' on the possibilities of designing with and for the 'secret life' of electronic objects; notes for an embryonic network of critical designers and, most famously, the presentation of the Placebo Project – a prototype for a critical design poetics enacted around electronic furniture-objects – Design Noir offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most seminal design projects of the last two decades, one that arguably initiated speculating through design in its contemporary forms.
By detailing the logic and character of the objects that were constructed; the involvement of users with these objects over-time, and in the creation of a new kinds of spatially and temporally distributed moments of critique and engagement with things, Design Noir presents the case-study of the Placebo projectas a far more complex and subtler project than is often thought.
As a bold and in many ways unprecedented experiment in design writing and book designing, Design Noir is itself an instance of the speculative propositional design it expounds.
This book examines the intellectual contribution made by Frankfurt School Critical Theory to our understanding of modern life. Thematically organized and offering a strong mix of historical and contemporary material, it considers the work of both the first and second generation. While the work of the latter is often taken to exceed that of the former, the author suggests that insights gleaned by both, regarding the human subject, offer a significant alternative to post-modern ideas.