Comfort in Complexity?
An Invitation to Touch. Picture: Lena Frank
In summer 2019 I participated in an essay competition by the Design Management Institute dmi: . The question to be answered was which skills/knowledge I considered most valuable within my Business and Design education. My essay turned out as a verbalised attempt of the capacity to and fostering of reflective and critical thinking and action. Here it comes:
It is interesting to follow the development of design as a practice and as an academic field - from its expansion of areas of inquiry and its appreciated ways of working and possibly knowing. There are debates in practice and academia about an abstraction of the design process, especially as applied in business contexts. This evolvement would lead to a repression of aesthetic considerations and possibly a more formulaic way of designing.
What if allowing and embracing tacit ways of knowing was design’s real strength - as a practice and as an academic field? What if design is losing its core values, compromising its silent processes for the attention and recognition in the business disciplines? Aesthetic decisions might be perceived subjective and possibly unpredictable for management. But failure-friendly iterations are repeatedly praised as part of design as a business and innovation practice.
“It is too easy to regard design as a set of tools or skills that may be employed without reflection, imagining that only by applying a few techniques or methods an organisation can achieve the innovations and entrepreneurial spirit of a ‘design centric’ culture”
(Buchanan, 2015, p.17), might be a claim to be seriously considered.
How to solve something ill-defined like a wicked problem, with something pre-defined, like a pure method-based design processs (anyways)? Knowledge inherent in actions and bodies should be harvested, not neglected. What if the focus on rationalising processes is nothing else than fostering longings for security and control in a world full of wicked problems? Management requirements and concerns as security, a level of control and a degree of predictability could be approached through the possibilities of security, comfort and steadiness provided through working with and through an embodied tactual approach.
“It is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all the senses simultaneously”
(Pallasmaa, 2013, p.12).
What about life-enhancing design as Human Centered Design claims to be? What about placing real-world tactility at the core of experiences offered and approaches taken? This essay seeks to revive considerations of touch within a human approach to Business and Design resulting from a reflective and critical stance towards its own field in general and a personal practice in particular.
Buchanan, R. (2015). Worlds in the Making: Design, Management, and the Reform of Organizational Culture. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 1(1), 5-21.
Pallasmaa, J. (2013). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley & Sons: Somerset.
The essay took up discussions from my Master Thesis “Design for Tactile Human Interactions - An Explorative Study Within the Workshop Space”. Reviving aspects of touch within a human-centered approach allowed to deepen methods employed, knowledge triggered, insights gained and the relationships created in aesthetic experiences for human interaction. My Master Thesis was awarded by Prof. em. in Design Management Lisbeth Svengren Holm as the “Most Valuable Business and Design Master Thesis”. The essay earned me an invitation to dmi:s Design Leadership Conference in Boston as one of the selected winners.
Lessons Learned: Follow your interests and intuition in identifying topics that feel relevant to explore. Don’t be afraid of the subtlety of your discoveries. You will find your voice to communicate silence.
Next Steps: How to translate life-enhancing real-world tactility into digital experiences? How to enable a digitalised society to nourish from pleasurable and tangible social interactions?
Do you know possibilities of involvement? Let’s take the initiative.
