ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book reflects Dilnot's perspective – people are not prescribing a system for doing personalisation but rather identifying instances of design that facilitate personalisation, and considering their implications for different futures. It considers ways of thinking about how the future might unfold through the intertwined development of society with technologies, to understand the potential of design in personalization. Technologies that facilitate personalisation, like additive manufacturing, have consequences for our ideas about what it is to design. The interpretive flexibility of personalisation constitutes an opening for design's future orientation, an opportunity, albeit one hedged round by its 'subaltern' status and the fact that it co-exists with the other elements in what has been referred to as an 'innovation ecosystem'. Personalised medicine seems to be an example of personalisation where the promise of increased autonomy equates to atomisation rather than empowerment for individuals.