i saw design: thoughts on the meaning of good design

Several years ago, Metropolis Magazine asked a good and timely question: what is good design? The question is personally interesting not only because it indulges my propensity to pontificate, but also because it relates to the work I do and the industry I work in. And so, Peter Hall’s view that design is an argument. To quote:

Many objects are designed not to be useful but to make an argument. And my contention is that every object is an argument of some sort, and its strength or weakness as an argument is a good guide to its value. The theorist Richard Buchanan once identified three rhetorical characteristics of a product’s design: Its logos, or technological reasoning, is the clarity of its ­function—the way in which, say, a spoon is an argument for getting food from the plate to the mouth, or a clamshell shape suggests that the cell phone needs to be opened to be used. Its ethos, or character, is how it reflects its maker; a Dieter Rams–designed Braun product conveys an unobtrusive, efficient quality. Its pathos, or emotion, is how it persuades its potential users that it is desirable and useful to them—its sexiness, if you like.

But the most valuable effect of considering an object as an argument is that it allows us to look under the rhetorical hood and consider it not as an inevitable or neutral invention but as something that embodies a point of view.

Hall then goes on to offer examples, such as the iPod as an argument for how we should consume music instead of merely a music-playing device and the Model-T as argument for fossil-fueled transportation.
It’s an interesting perspective. Yet it strikes me as overly rhetorical, even problematic as it uses one vague concept (“argument”) to define another. And when Hall suggests that the implied timelessness of the traditional notion of “good design” glosses over the fact that problems are “too big and slippery to stamp or fix,” his argument in favour of design-as-an-argument risk even more puffery, since it is by no means philosophically necessary that any act of design can, or should be, divorced from its (historical) context.

The biggest shortcoming of defining design as an argument is that it ultimately fails to distinguish the activity of design from other activities. Hall writes:

Viewing designs as arguments frees us from the art world’s tendency to evaluate on aesthetic criteria alone. It insists on contextual evaluation: design is not just about how a thing looks or how it works; it is also about the assumptions on which it rests.

But can’t we say that art is an argument in favour of a particular insight into the human condition, that in art, aesthetics is the medium of communication? If we grant that art is also an argument, that, in fact, any action is an argument promoting a certain set of assumptions, then we are left with the question as to how to distinguish design from any other activity (such as art).

Suppose that, instead, we create a model based on the elements of form, function (how something works), and purpose (i.e. the goal). A dialectic of these elements leads to a clear and distinct definition:

Design is the purposeful synthesis of form and function. 

Purposeful, because design is an intentional act, which distinguishes it from the non-conscious, non-volitional occurrence of creation in nature. It a human act.

A synthesis, because it is a dialectic of function (thesis) and form (anti-thesis).

(By implication…

Form without function or purpose is ornament. One could argue that the aesthetic is its own purpose, which would be fine, but not really saying much at all.

Form without function but with purpose is art.

Function with purpose but without form is engineering, although it’s more accurate to say that the form arises directly out of the function. You can make a tool that solves a problem, but unless its form is accounted for it might unusable in other important ways.

But I digress.)

The next question it the question raised by Hall, namely, what is good design? Hall offers a list:

• Good Is Sustainable
• Good Is Accessible
• Good Is Functional
• Good Is Well Made 
• Good Is Emotionally Resonant
• Good Is Enduring
• Good Is Socially Beneficial
• Good Is Beautiful
• Good Is Ergonomic
• Good Is Affordable

And it’s a good list, although relative. A space shuttle is beautiful, well made, socially beneficial, emotionally resonant, and so on…but affordable it is not. (Or, rather, affordable is relative; the government can afford it, but you and I can’t.) Hall acknowledges the problem …

No argument could meet all these criteria, but it might satisfy a few. More to the point, a loose framework gets us beyond the problem of labeling design as good or bad, or seeing problems as solvable. There are no solutions to design problems. There are only responses in the form of arguments.

… and takes us right back to the shortcomings of viewing design as an argument.

I think the answer to what constitutes good design can be simple and straightforward: good design is design that solves problems while eliminating, or minimizing, new problems that arise out from the solution. Because of course there are solutions to design problems. Scissors are the solution to the design problem of cutting paper. Cars are the design solution to the problem of high-speed mobility. But the extent to which a solution is a good design depends on how few problems are created as a result of the design. The combustion engine, for example, is a good engineering design to propel cars, yet it creates the problems of fossil-fuel dependency and pollution. An electric motor solves this problem while accomplishing the same goal, yet there is the problem of battery charging and disposal. This means that the good design isn’t necessarily the result of an absolute measure, but a relative measure. And it takes into account all the good things Hall enumerates, and perhaps more. An ergonomic chair is a better design than a simple chair that consists of a flat seat and flat backrest. A biodegradable fork made from natural, non-toxic materials is a better design than a plastic fork.

Putting it all together:

Design is the purposeful synthesis of form and function in a way that solves a problem while minimizing the creation of new problems.

What do you think?

social movements of conservation and evolution

If we were to distill society into a dichotomy of impulses, one that underlies not only cultural attitudes but the narrative structure that defines political discourse, the poles would have to be conservatism and progressivism. With each generation, both in terms of government and population, as well as paradigm shifts brought about by advances in science and technology, the fundamental challenge for any society is learning to adapt to changing circumstances without losing its core character. That is, without losing its core character in a sudden, cataclysmic change that can create social unrest – as opposed to the change in character that can occur gradually over the course of a society’s unfolding history. Although by no means the only possible or necessary dichotomy, it thus seems reasonable to interpret societal dynamics on the basis of the ideas and practices society conserves and those it changes in an effort to maintain stability.

Unfortunately, the discussion about these two inherent impulses is too often reduced to the simplistic all or nothing confrontation of Right vs Left, Conservative vs Liberal, and the straw tigers (the metaphor is deliberately mixed) that emerge from both. Although there are differences between how each “side” presents the other (to be partly glib, liberals rail against social injustice while conservatives rail against liberals), interprets policy, and governs in practice, it is the massing of partisan ideological forces that creates the problem.  

The point isn’t to call a plague on both these houses, however well deserved, or to repeat reasons why the partisan divide is antithetical to good reasoning, but to suggest that the rhetorical trappings of the Conservative vs Liberal distinction ultimately obscures the character of the conservative and progressive impulses by focusing on rigid idealistic categories. Dogma, in other words. And what is being obscured is not the product of a dialectic but the way in which conservation and progress essentially occupy the same space and time while simultaneously delineating opposing movements. Conservation and progress function as opposing forces that nevertheless come together in the end.

To understand what this means in practical terms, we can begin by sketching how the rhetorical manifestation of these impulses ultimately shares a similar set of assumptions. In the simplistic pundit terms, conservatives are right to be suspicious of government excess, to emphasize personal responsibility, and to value family and community. Interestingly, these are also liberal values albeit in a context rejected by conservatives, namely, the view that inequality is in itself a social problem. There is a risk, of course, in drawing that contrast. Definitions of conservatism and liberalism are all too easily adjusted for the sake of scoring rhetorical points. However, it seems sensible to enough to suggest that there is agreement when it comes to the basic human goals of safety, happiness, and social harmony – the difference is methodological, and ideological differences coagulate around differences in method.

Consequently, the idea of conservation, narrowly defined as preservative function, is necessary to keep within society those ideas and practices that work. To this is opposed progress, which strives to develop new ideas and practices as solutions to existing problems. Both serve as a counterpoint, in that conservation rejects change for its own sake, and thus the false positives of progress, while progressiveness rejects the movement from function to dysfunction when tradition is ossified into the status quo. What we are left with is something evolutionary, but not in the sense of “social Darwinism,” and certainly not in the misapplied conception of evolution as a kind of teleological process. Rather, it is a matter of adapting to circumstances that are sometimes variable, even volatile, and sometimes persistent. While I don’t want to suggest some sort of societal dynamic that is homeostatic in its effect – that would imply that a given society has a natural balance to which it returns to when disturbed, an implication that is upended by historic examples of large-scale upheavals (think French Revolution) – I do think we need a better conceptual framework to encapsulate the tension between conservation and progress that is necessary for society to exist.

As a point of clarification, it’s worth noting here that I define “society” narrowly, to some extent, as the numerical aggregate of individuals. Yet it is also necessary to account for the fact that the dynamics of the aggregate can in turn influence the individual. So while I would reject the idea of society as an emergent organism that is greater than its constituent individuals, I would suggest that insofar as individuals have common needs, shared cultures, and political/economic cohesion there is a construct we could refer to as “society.”

Returning to an organizing concept that brings together conservation and progress (or evolution) while also refuting the often vaguely articulated partisan distinction of conservative versus liberal, it might helpful to shed to idea of social engineering that is implicit in policy. Although the term is unpleasant, as it suggests an active and mechanistic manipulation of society towards a particular goal, that is nevertheless what goes on when governments pass laws. Certain behaviours are punished, others are rewarded or, at least, tacitly accepted simply by not being disallowed.

But what if instead of engineering, with all the rigidity that comes with the concept, we turned towards design as a conceptual model? As an active disciplines informed by give and take, a feedback loop between problem, solution, context, and the way in which the solution itself alters the context thereby altering the overall system, design offers a useful analogy to interpreting policy. To borrow a cliché, the concern is on figuring out how to fit society’s form to the various functions we want it to perform, recognizing that it’s not a question of function then form, or form vs function, but that good design is the result of function and form working through each other.

Thus, among the qualities of a desired conceptual framework are:

• Seeing society, its strengths and weaknesses, as it is.
• A focus on practical rather than ideologically pure solutions.
• Working with the fluidity inherent in social organization.

So: fact-based (“reality” based), practical, and adaptive, resulting in the wisdom to know what to conserve and maintain in society and what to reform or revolutionize. Is it even worth labeling this to distinguish it from the pop-punditry terms “liberal” and “conservative?” If so, what word would be suitable?

Ideas, comments, suggestions ?