Everyone Is a Plumber: Rebutting Nussbaum on Participatory Design

In a presentation at Parson’s School of Design, Bruce Nussbaum discusses the DIY-media movement, sustainability, and rebranding Design as Innovation. While Nussbaum’s conclusions are compelling, the path to those conclusions is fraught with peculiar reasoning.

DIY

Nussbaum first picks up the torch of the DIY movement that was begun out of necessity in the Stone Age, lately revitalized by punk culture in the 1970′s, zine culture in the 1980′s documented by Elliot Earls through Licko and Vanderlans’ emigre magazine in 2001, and profiled by Time Magazine in the “Person of the Year” article several months ago.

Sorry Bruce, but I think that you’re a little late to the party.

Since the introduction of MacPaint and MacDraw in 1984, the tools of the Craft of Design have been slipping through the fingers of designers and top-down managers. But are we really to the point where crafting an iTunes playlist, structuring TiVo recording rules, or navigating the 19,000 potential different combinations of Starbucks ingredients is called an act of Design? Do you become a videographer because nearly 6,000 people watched videos of your dog that you uploaded to YouTube? Designing is a multiform process more complex than arrangement of forms or files or software settings to suit one’s personal preferences. TiVo clients are no more Designers than I am a Plumber (even though I do own a small assortment of pipe wrenches, and know how to sweat a joint). Being a plumber requires a more thoroughgoing knowledge of water delivery systems, that goes beyond the simple act of fixing a leaking faucet. While the creation of forms and the re-shaping of our environment is perhaps one of the most fundamental of human acts, the act of Design implies understanding of a broad range of potential frames of reference that may view the work, and takes into account and accommodates a broad set of potential interactions and reactions that that work may foster.

Designers now can produce products that can become a framework for user interaction. Many of these products are highly configurable and extensible. And Nussbaum is right to say that users now want to be part of the Design sandbox. Enlightened users may even create a portion of a product, or develop an important insight on how an experience is crafted. But it is incumbent upon the designer to observe these acts of design-play, analyze the user’s behavior, draw inferences from the observation and analysis, and apply their Design Thinking to create holistic approaches that meet a range of user goals, and interface well with the user culture.

Sustainability

When global megacorporation Johnson & Johnson hires ex-Aveda sustainability darling Chris Hacker to lead global Design efforts, sustainability is serious business. Sustainability has arrived. But I can’t agree with Nussbaum’s examples of good models for sustainable products. Nussbaum mentions the mink coat as a sustainable product. Fur finishing, a similar process to leather tanning, produces many toxic by-products and emissions. True, better fur finishing processes exist, but like dry-cleaning, it is an ongoing process to switch providers to these processes. As regards the Navajo and Hopi reservation dwellings, the trailers and houses that have supplanted the hogan as the main dwelling for Navajo were often arranged in models of higher-density European-style villages. The trailer-park arrangement of the dwellings is problematic for Navajo culture. Design that does not acknowledge the user culture is a bad application.

Conclusion

The need for broader awareness of sustainable design practice, the need for innovation in product design and experience design to drive profitability in US business are important points. But the problematic statements mentioned earlier diffuse power of these contentions.