Designing for Humanity

What initially grabbed my attention when reading Kolko’s Thoughts on Interaction Design was the emphasis he placed on humanity being present within the design itself. The designers he champions are those who work “without ever losing sight of the most important facet of design: humanity” (Kolko 12).  This awareness is echoed throughout when Kolko reminds us that “the user is not like me” (Kolko 48), and that “the more one knows about a topic the more one forgets what it is like not to know” (Kolko 48). I think that a designer can place humanity within the design by following two important principles provided by Kolko: the design is a dialogue and it is important to continue this dialogue over time.

In order to create “humanity” within a design, I agree with Kolko: one must consider the end product as a means of communication. Interaction Design should be a dialogue between designer and user, as well as product and user. It’s as if the end product should be a medium (within a medium) through which dialogue can be transmitted. Kolko says this in different ways: “this communication is not a monologue. It is a dialogue” (Kolko 100), “design languages become a connector” (Kolko 101), and “meaning is not simply projected or found but instead created and shared through engagement with the artificial” (Kolko 120).

What allows for this kind of dialogue is the attention that must be given to a fourth dimension, time: “the designer speaks, and the user speaks back. Over time the communication becomes involved” (Kolko 11). I believe that in order for a designer to utilize the dimension of time in a productive manner they must see that  “there is rarely a definitive declaration of ‘beginning’ or ‘ending’” (Kolko 58) to the creative process. Therefore, the design must be open to constant revisions and adaptations, in order to accommodate the user’s needs.

This appears to be in opposition with the process that typically occurs today. According to Kolko, most companies choose to get their “internal criticism” from “public relations or external product reviews” (Kolko 58). Kolko differentiates between the all too common benchmark used by corporate America, a “quality assurance level,” and the assessment that he thinks must occur at the level of “user and project” (Kolko 58).

The Most Wanted Paintings On the Web (1995) in Sturken and Cartwright’s Practices of Looking, helps illustrate this problem of unproductive feedback. This project “posed the question about what art would look like if it were reduced by audience ratings and opinion polls” and showed, “just how shallow opinion polls can be in providing an image of the tastes of viewers” (Sturken and Cartwright 59). I think this example is getting at a very important concept, that design (and art) should not merely try to conform to what the status quo accepts, because the status quo is only informed by what is currently available. It doesn’t do much good to tell people what they want and then ask them what they want.

A better approach would be to open up a dialogue, not with the purpose of reinforcing a stereotype, but to go beyond, in order to fix the problematic aspects of the design. In the above example, what Kolko refers to as “a poetic interaction,” is missing. This interaction “should encourage a state of mindfulness” (Kolko 107). In this state of mindfulness “flow” becomes possible, wherein “people become too involved in their activities to worry about protecting their self-image or their ego” (Kolko 109). This seems to be in conflict with what most forms of entertainment and most consumer products try to do: appeal to consumers self-image or ego, either to reinforce one’s confidence or shake one’s confidence, in order to make the consumer think they need to purchase the product to complete their self-image and ego.

In Kolko’s interpretation of Interaction Design the designer doesn’t merely talk at the person because, “the creation lies dormant until the ‘user’ honestly understands the beauty of what has been designed” (Kolko 11). In order to prevent the design from reinforcing a stereotype about the user or the world they live in, there must be an element of challenge or impetus for creativity: “in order to realize the state of awareness…. an element of challenge must be present” (Kolko 110). Here, Kolko presents us, with what I think is a very useful question: “Can our Interaction Design solutions encourage users to be creative?” (Kolko 110).