Practice-based innovation and the remit of the designer
If you design products, you'll love everything about this video.
What people really do with things is different than what they're designed for a lot of the time. They do with them what facilitates their life. And the most simple example I can think of is the crisp packet. And you design a crisp packet so that it holds the graphic, it looks good, it has some pockets of air so that you can open it up
you can hold it in your hand and you can put your hand in it. And the first thing that happens is you go to a bar, somebody buys a packet of crisps, and they very demonstratively and kind of gesturally tear the bag open, place it on the table and then open it up because it's about sharing and they're showing you how good they are at sharing. That bag was never designed to do that.
The remit of the designer has to be beyond just designing things. It has to be involved in looking at the practices of the people who use them are involved in.
We forget that the things that we produce are not simply about packets of liquid or expanded corn starch, they're actually things that let people live their lives. And we need to kind of open up. And for me, that's the next stage in where we go. We call it practice-based innovation, which is looking at the real practices that people are involved in. And It's not about consumption. It's not about the sales. It's about how people digest the products that we produce, take out the bits that are great for them and then get on with their lives with them. And ultimately that may be beyond the control of suppliers and producers and it puts the people who are buying it in control of what they buy.
Comments [0]