ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on the idea that design actually impacts the values that people have and by extension their ongoing behavior–for better and for worse. As some of the examples and case studies will show, design can do this knowingly or unknowingly and have longer-term effects on how we interact with one another. Because of this, designers cannot be divorced from the impact of how their designs encourage new moral and cultural behavior and norms. This idea may seem daunting and even paralyzing. How can designers foresee all of the impacts their design will have? And, wouldn’t that pressure prevent them from designing in the first place? One could argue that no one could have foreseen the impact that the car would have on travel, pollution, gas consumption, or the scarcity of oil. But, we now see all of the implications that the invention of the car has. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? This is the question that designers today face, and a critical one to integrate into design education and practice. We know that wicked problems don’t have single solutions, just better and worse ones. We also know that the complexity of design problems necessitate an examination that involves different scales, orientations, and timelines. In addition, these examinations need to include the assumptions that design solutions are based upon–assumptions guided by individual experience of the designer, or the client, or even the community itself.
