Sociology and Design

Transcription

1 Sociology and Design Magdalena Piłat-Borcuch (Ph. D.) The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Faculty of Management and Administration, Institute of Management, ul. Swietokrzyska 21, Kielce, Poland

2 Abstract Design is an activity involving a wide spectrum of professions in which products, services, graphics, interiors and architecture all take part. Answering the question, how sociology might interact with design it is worth to underline that social engagement was a main driver of design theory from the time of the emergence of the profession of designer in the context of industrialization. The main goal of this article is: to investigate how the design and designer operate in the consciousness of the examined group. The main research problem explored in this paper is: what is the attitude the employees/employers at design studios, design students and students of economics/management towards social values. Main hypothesis is as follows - for employees/employers at design studios, well-designed product, primarily should be unique, in turn, students of management/economics emphasize the usefulness in the design. Introduction Keywords: sociology, design. The 21st century shows that the design practice is maturing, and what was once a focus on aesthetics and usability is broadening to include interdisciplinary knowledge from a sociology. Sociology offers an understanding of human needs through social and cultural perspective. From this interpretation, product is perceived as artefact, having meaning and relevance to the world around them beyond pure function. However, design is more than products and their interaction with users. The term designer refers to an individual who practices an intellectual profession, and not simply a trade or a service for enterprises. The study is divided into four parts. In Section 1, the relation between sociology and design is presented. In Section 2, design - definitions and determinants are presented. In Section 3, Method/ Methodology/ Conceptual framework and hypothesis development are presented. Finally, the results of own researches are presented and implications are discussed. Relations between sociology and design If we combine knowledge of how and why people engage (or do not engage) with each other and with groups and institutions (sociology) with the creation of product, service, graphic, etc. (design), we can identify design-based solutions to address complex societal problems. The historical perspective of sociology and design needs to look at the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain (the cradle of the Industrial Revolution) in the 19 th century, when the relationship between design and social issues was a main concern [3]. During that time J.

3 Ruskin and W. Morris established a critique of industrial society. The Arts and Crafts movement promulgated the role of the craftsman-designer as a means of reviving a lost unity of design practice and social standards [5]. Concerns about labor conditions in industrial production and the poor quality of industrial products were at the base of design theory and education [3]. Next period, the New Objectivity movement characterizes the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it. Rather than some goal of philosophical objectivity, it was meant to imply a turn towards practical engagement with the world an all-business attitude. The movement essentially ended in 1933 with the fall of the Weimar Republic and the raise of the Nazis to power [1]. The Good Design (Gute Form) movement was a design concept that originated in the 1930s, but took form principally in the United States immediately after the II World War. Designs made under the influence of Good Design include buildings and furniture, but also everyday objects such as household objects and garden tools. The design of Gute Form is in many ways a prolongation of the functionalist style of earlier. Modernism (design that honestly) shows the product s function and the materials used, without useless decoration. It is worth mentioning, that GertSelle tried to connect design theory with the critical theory of philosophers such as Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. Technology is seen as an important element of societal development. Later critical thinkers like Ulrich Beck have introduced the notion of reflexive modernization for this transition from a paternalistic form of Modernism into a reflexive form where there is awareness of unintended consequences and the need for continual evaluation and corrections [3]. Table 1. Movements in design from social perspective Movement Description The Arts and Crafts Saw the quality of technical products as a marker for the condition of society as a whole, and tried to avoid too much influence of new industrial technology. New Objectivity Trusted both in technology as a driver of social transformation and in the value of technical rationality for providing directions for a desirable future. Good Design (Gute Form) Was concerned with readapting the direction of technically conditioned social improvement to the outlines of properly human needs and values. Postmodernism Set its hopes in the possibility of a universe of unlimited human plurality, where products would adapt to and facilitate any singular way of living Source: S. Dorrestijn, P-P. Verbeek, Technology, Wellbeing and Freedom: The Legacy of Utopian Design International Journal of Design 2013, Vol. 7, No. 3, p. 52.

4 The other dimension of relation between sociology and design could be analyzed through social change understood as the main focus of shifts in the attitudes and behavior that characterize a society [4]. The dynamic nature of social relations and networks required those theories to address the constant movement, variation, transformation and change in social life [9]. The most influential theorist of design for social change is American designer Victor Papanek. The theories posited in his book Design for the Real World published in 1972 still remain highly topical and contemporary in design. His work advocates for a human-centred design discipline that integrates a number of design thinking-type tools such as empathy, tests with real users, iterations and so on. Among other statements Papanek argues that design fails to address real needs because it has been reduced to its most simplistic aspects. For him to define design as a discipline constraint to its objects overlooks the qualities that entitle design to tackle effectively social challenges [10]. Social change leads to social design, that means the satisfaction of human needs [8]. Definition of design The meaning of design has changed over time. One key agreement is that design should no be seen as a core technical element or activity, central to industry and services throughout the economy. Herbert Simon defines design as the transformation of existing conditions into preferred ones. Sir George Cox states that design shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for user or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end. It means, that the concept of design, like innovation, has recently broadened to include non-technical areas of human activity, such as policy, organization, and social issues [6]. Design is defined as the shaping (or transformation) of ideas into new products and processes; and innovation is defined as the exploitation of ideas, i.e. the successful marketing of these new products and processes [7]. The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design underlines that design is important in analysis new directions in the economy [11]. Design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish the multi-faceted qualities of objects, processes, services and their systems in whole life cycles. Therefore, design is the central factor of innovative humanisation of technologies and the crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange. Design seeks to discover and assess structural, organisational, functional, expressive relationships, with the task of:

5 Giving benefits and freedom to the entire human community, individual and collective; Final users, producers and market protagonists (social ethics) [9]; Supporting cultural diversity despite the globalisation of the world (cultural ethics); Giving products, services and systems, those forms that are expressive of (semiology) and coherent with (aesthetics) their proper complexity [2]. Design is an activity involving a wide spectrum of professions in which products, services, graphics, interiors and architecture all take part. Together, these activities should further enhance the value of life. Therefore, the term designer refers to an individual who practices an intellectual profession, and not simply a trade or a service for enterprises [2]. Methodology and hypothesis development The main goal of this article is: to investigate how the design and designer operate in the consciousness of the examined group. The main research problem explored in this paper is: what is the attitude the employees/employers at design studios, design students and students of economics/management towards social values. The detailed research problems explored in this paper are: Q1: What is the role of the designer in society from the point of view of: employees/employers at design studios, students of design and students of economics/management? Q2: What features of design, are appreciated: employees/employers at design studios, students of design, and students of economics/management? Q3: What is a well-designed product in the opinion of employees/employers at design studios, students of design and students of economics/management? Accordingly, I offer the following hypotheses: Main hypothesis is as follows - for employees/employers at design studios, welldesigned product, primarily should be unique, in turn, students of management/economics emphasize the usefulness in the design. The detailed hypotheses explored in this paper are: H1: Employees/employers at design studios appreciate the uniqueness as a feature of the product more often than the students of economics/management.

6 H2: Employees/employers at design suggest that the role of the designer in society is to create products that respond to social needs more often in comparison to students of economics/management. An open-ended online survey instrument was developed for this study. Data were collected from practicing designers, and students of design and students of management/economics. To encourage response and to speed the data gathering process, I constructed an Internet-based survey. The questionnaire was published in February 2014 and closed one month later. The survey received a total of 65 responses (15 employees/employers at design studios; 18 students of design from the Concordia Design in Poznań; 10 students of design from the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce; and 22 students economics/management from the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce). Data analysis and results The first question concerned the role of the designer in society. In the opinion of employees/employers at design studios, first of all, designer should design well-designed products/services (30% of answers) and should design products/services which are thoughprovoking (25%). There is an interesting difference between the answers of design students from the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce and the School of Form in Poznań. For the Jan Kochanowski University students of design, the designer in society should design products/services as a response to social needs (39%) and should improve existing products, giving them a new life (39%). However the students of design from the School of Form in Poznań, pointed out that the designer should design products/services as a response to social needs (27%) and should design well-designed products/services (27%).

7 Figure 1. The role of the designer in society 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% Source: Own analysis. Employees/employers at design Design students - School of Form in Poznań Design students - The Jan Kochanowski University Economics and Management students - The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce Analyzing aspects (beautiful and/or useful) that should be first and foremost important in a design, all respondents ticked that the product/service should be beautiful and useful. It is worth adding, that students from the School of Form underlined the meaning of usefulness more than the other respondents. Figure 2. Beautiful and/or useful - aspects that should be first and foremost in a design % % 80.00% 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00% Employees/employers at design Design students - School of Form in Poznań Design students - The Jan Kochanowski University Beautiful and Useful Useful Beautiful Economics and Management students - The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce Source: Own analysis. Differentiation occurred regarding the question: the essence of the designed product. Students of design from the School of Form in Poznań indicated, that designed product should

8 be especially useful. On the other hand, students of design from the Jan Kochanowski pointed out, that the designed product should be unique and should be a response to social needs. To employees/employers at design studios, that kind of product should be mainly unique. The lowest difference in answers was demonstrated by students of economics and management from the Jan Kochanowski University. Although in their opinion, the designed product should be first of all unique, but it should be useful, should provoke thinking and should be nice. Figure 3. The essence of the designed product 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Should be especially nice Should be Should provoke especially useful thinking Employees/employers at design Design students - School of Form in Poznań Design students - The Jan Kochanowski University Should be a response to social needs Should be unique Economics and Management students - The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce Something else Source: Own analysis. Discussion and Conclusions This study examined the main research problem from which it follows, that the students of design from the Jan Kochanowski University are more sensitive to social values than the other analyzed groups. The detailed research problems were presented at the table below. Table 2. The detailed research problems Researched problem The role of the designer in the Employees/ employers at design studios Should design well-designed Students of design School of Form in Poznań 1.Should design well-designed Students of design The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce 1.Should design products/services Students management and economics The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce 1.Should design products/services

9 society Features on design Beautiful and useful Well-designed Should be product unique Source: Own analysis. products/services products/services 2.Should design products/services as a response to social needs as a response to social needs 2.Should improve existing products, giving them a new life Beautiful and useful Beautiful and useful Should be Should be especially useful unique as a response to social needs Beautiful and useful Should be unique The main hypothesis was partially confirmed. For employees/employers at design studios, well-designed product, primarily should be unique. Surprisingly, for students of management/economics well-designed product first of all turned out to be unique too. Table 3. The detailed hypotheses Hypothesis H1 Employees/employers at design studios appreciate the uniqueness as a feature of the product more often than the students of economics/management. H2 Employees/employers at design studios suggest that the role of the designer in society is to create products that respond to social needs more often in comparison to students of economics/management. Source: Own analysis. Verification Positive Negative For all respondents, the expensiveness and exclusiveness or/and cheapness and mass production when taking into consideration the role of the designer in society is less important. All respondents noted, that first and foremost in a design is beautifulness and usefulness. The less important aspects when taking into consideration the essence of the designed product are: being especially nice and thinking provoking. Bibliography 1. Crockett D (1999) German Post-Expressionism: the art of the Great Disorder , University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania : Definition of design ( ) 3. Dorrestijn S. and Verbeek P-P. (2013). Technology, Wellbeing and Freedom: The Legacy of Utopian Design.International Journal of Design, 7 (3): Greenwood J. and Guner N.(2008), Social Change. IZA Discussion Paper 3485: p Heskett J.(2005). Design. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford New York: 18.

10 6. Hobday M., Boddington A. and Grantham A.(2011). An Innovation Perspective on Design: Part 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology27 (4). 7. Hollanders H. and Cruysen van A. (2009). Design, Creativity and Innovation: A Scoreboard Approach, Innometrics, Pro Inno Europe, Maastricht: Margolin V. and Margolin S. (2002), A Social Model of Design: Issues of Practice and Research. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Design Issues 18 (4). 9. Palafox A. (2010), Think design change. How can design thinking be applied to the achievement of positive social change?, MA Design Management, University of the Arts, London: Papanek V. (2005), Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Chicago Review Press, Chicago. 11. Smolicki J. ( ), Projektowanie doznawania,