Beyond Interfaces: Exploring the Transformative Power of Design in Human Relationships
We discussed the role of interaction design in building relationships between humans and machines. But what power does design have in creating relationships between human beings?
This type of observation is the fundamental starting point for the implementation of digital projects in iterative work models, where the real needs of real people are highlighted, bringing new ways to overcome the lack of access to services and consumer goods.
“There is a common misunderstanding that interaction design is fundamentally concerned with the digital medium. It is true that the new digital products have helped designers focus on interaction and the experience of human beings as they use products. However, the concepts of interaction have deep roots in twentieth-century design thinking and have only recently emerged from the shadow of our preoccupation with ‘visual symbols’ and ‘things’.”
Among other factors, the Information Age brought the understanding that product development teams did not need to be composed only of designers, but rather, they should group professionals from different backgrounds in different areas of knowledge, who thought like designers and were capable of to absorb concepts from research with users and to prototype viable solutions to be tested.
Adapting to this new work logic, the designer ceases to be the main focus of project elaboration and assumes the position of facilitator of development, an organizer of ideas. The designer can, and should, act as a process mediator and absorb diverse ideas.
Thus, the role of the professional who has technical and theoretical skills that make it possible to connect the humanities and exact sciences, highlighting the user's gaze to everyday problems is highlighted. During the execution of the project, people with valid experiences, possible users of the services, also actively participate in the construction of the product and share the space with designers and professionals, collaborating so that the quality of the final product is high and that the possible problems that may be encountered are mapped and resolved prior to implementation.
The global network
Since the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, we live in a historical period called the Information Age. With the creation of the internet, social and communication structures were remodeled into a model of data distribution, where access to information is democratized and various organizational and social hierarchies are subverted.
From the perspective of social psychoanalysis, the networks promoted by the internet are reversing the classic thought that each individual is a unique and relative being. According to Barglow, 1994 “The historical shift from mechanical technologies to information technologies helps to subvert the notions of sovereignty and self-sufficiency that have served as an ideological anchor to individual identity since Greek philosophers elaborated the concept more than two milleniums."
So, with the emergence of the internet, we could observe a readjustment of society to contemporary technological innovations. We live in a period of transformation of the concepts of relationships between users, services, products and experiences.
According to Castells, societies are historically determined by production, experience and power. Production, the action of humanity on matter (nature) in order to generate benefits through it, that is, creating products and consuming part of them, producing wealth with the surplus and investing this value in the generation of other values. Experience is the action of humans on themselves, determined by the cultural and biological interactions of individuals and those who occupy the same environments. Power is the relationship between individuals imposing concepts of one over the other, through physical, moral and symbolic violence.
In this new social structure, which manifests itself in different ways, depending on the social, cultural and organizational context in which it fits, the elements of power and hierarchy of ownership of the means of production that fostered industrial society and the institutions derived from that historical period lost their relevance, to the detriment of access to experiences and experiences. Experience is the main focus of the postmodern human being and materiality loses importance when questioned by the digital network in which we are inserted. Thus, the great products of today are those that offer services for the management and organization of existing goods, so that through these, services accessible to different segments of the population are incorporated, many of which were previously reduced to a small elite.
“where cultural sevices have taken the place of material goods in the heart of production, the defense of the subject, in his person and culture, against the logic of the apparatuses and markets, has taken the place of the notion of class struggle”
In the current scenario, the role of innovation follow-up companies is to enable connection between people, thus allowing them to foster horizontal sharing networks, meeting everyday demands.
The role of the product designer — which until recently was seen as a workforce in an industrial and capitalist society, restricted to the elaboration and feasibility of material products, completely dependent on an industrial society and oppressive modes of production based on systems of hierarchy, dominance of classes and the workforce — has been transformed and adapted to the current scenario, seeing its methodological potential in understanding the problems and needs of people and groups, enabling the design and prototyping of solutions, and consequently the creation of new values for other non-material means.
Among the various methodologies and work formats adopted to configure these products, the designer's look and work format was expanded to other spheres of knowledge and other people with different backgrounds. This model was called Design Thinking, a commonly used format that describes the designer's way of thinking. The foundation of this thinking model is the exercise of seeing real problems that society and other individuals may have, developing possible solutions, prototyping them and testing them as validation of the solution to this problem. For this, several methodologies of innovation, product design and strategic design are appropriated and combined, people with different backgrounds, repertoires and experiences are brought together to bring different perspectives on the same reality.
The role of the designer
Technological devices adapt to society, just as society adapts to technological devices. These two are connected in a process, also iterative of mutation. As a result, we see technological artifacts that adapt more and more to the needs of individuals and these increasingly create new social and cultural relationships, as a phenomenon of mutual adaptation.
“Of course technology does not determine society. Nor does society script the course of technological change, since many factors, including individual intuitiveness and entrepreneurialism, intervene in the process of scientific discovery, technological innovation, and social applications, so that the final outcome depends on a complex pattern of interaction. Indeed the dilemma of technological determinism is probably a false problem, since technology is society, and society cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools.”
Researcher Kristina Niedderer investigated, through a series of objects, the potential of using design to generate awareness, affection and connections between individuals. The products created were domestic utensils, based on interactive and interface design concepts. The idea was to deconstruct the concepts that underlie a product and understand how these can have the purpose of generating new concepts. By forcing unusual behaviors, we understand how interfaces can be a tool for experimentation and allusion to different ideas, which can be interpreted by the user in different ways. The focus of experimentation is to measure the potential of interfaces as the generation of new relationships, not just between man and interface, but among all those who participate in the experience cycle related to the product.
Objectives such as attention, enlightenment, pro-activity and a sense of community can be the result of products that adapt to a user's routine and transform the way he behaves in relation to pre-established mechanisms.
The researcher investigated this “performative potential” of the products and how there are several possibilities to reach a collective conscience and relationships between other individuals through the experiences they bring.
“The conjecture was that we can design artifacts that communicate and cause mindfulness of others in the context of social interaction by means of a modification of function, and that such artifacts should be called performative objects.”
“Social Cups,” Kristina Niedderer, 1999.
In 1999, Niedderer developed the “Social Cups” project, a set of cups that looked like cups, but without a stable base. In order to remain stable on a surface and perform their primary function (storing liquids and helping a person to drink a liquid), at least three glasses had to be united by a system of connections, which provides stability. The expected result was to convey to users a reflection on the social concept present in the use of cups, the idea of collaboration as a connection device and the possibility of achieving a common goal, in this case: keeping the cups upright.
“…focusing on how human beings relate to other human beings through the mediating influence of products. And the products are more than physical objects. They are experiences or activities or services, all of which are integrated into a new understanding of what a product is or could be.”
The researcher draws a triad of relationships, with cause and consequence, where design and artifacts are horizontally present to human beings, influencing the creation and transformation of social and cultural concepts.
The Triangular Relationship of Interaction, K. Niedderer - Extracted from Designing Mindful Interaction: The Category of Performative Object
Usability and interaction design research generally focuses on user-machine interaction, so even in what we know as user-centered design, attention ends up being placed on the means — technological, material, etc — and not on the relationships derived from the use of the product.
As we delve into the realm of digital interfaces and their intricate functionalities, it is essential to contemplate what truly defines their significance. Is it solely the polished product itself, or do we find the true measure of its worth in the profound impact it leaves on those who interact with it? In this age of ever-evolving technology, the question persists: Should we assess a digital artifact based on its final form and functionalities, or should we place greater emphasis on the transformative changes it instigates in user behavior? Contemplating this dichotomy opens the gateway to a deeper understanding of how technology shapes our lives and influences the very fabric of our society.
