Researching culture: a practical how-to for designers
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A presentation with audio that gives a practical way for designers to study culture.
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Researching culture: a practical how-to for designers
- 1. Researching culture A practical how-to for designers Dr. Sam Ladner Copernicus Consulting Be sure to download the accompanying audio!
- 2. Overview • Geertz’s theory on culture • What is culture? – Values – Behaviours – Symbols • Crestwood Heights • Designing doors – The moral implications of design
- 3. “Believing, with Max Weber, that man (sic) is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs.” Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 5
- 4. A twitch A wink A parodied wink
- 5. “Analysis, then, is sorting out the structures of signification.” Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 9
- 6. A twitch is a brute thing. It has no meaning because its creator has no intentionality in meaning.
- 7. “...culture consists of socially established structures of meaning in terms of which people do such things as signal conspiracies...” Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 13
- 8. What is culture? Values Behaviours Symbols
- 9. Why study culture in design?
- 10. Value orientation model Adapted from Kluckhohn, F. R. (1953). Dominant and variant value orientations. Personality in Nature, Society and Culture. . J. a. K. Murrayh, F.R. New York, Knopf: 346.
- 11. Examples of value orientations
- 12. Types of behaviours • Universals • Specialities • Alternatives • Peculiarities Adapted from Linton, R. 1936. The Study of Man. New York: Appleton-Century Co.
- 13. Universals
- 14. Specialities
- 15. Alternatives
- 16. Peculiarities
- 17. Symbols: more than “brute things”
- 18. Symbols: more than “brute things” “This transformation from ‘brute things’ to social objects is performed mainly by the language that gives reality a social existence.”
- 19. Emic versus etic Verstehen
- 20. Crestwood Heights: cohering metaphors House as property House as stage House as home House as nursery
- 21. Case study: doors Values shape design choices Design choices create symbols Design choices shape behaviours
- 22. Designed to guide visitors inside.
- 23. Designed to tell people the rules.
- 24. Who uses this door?
- 25. Designed to be behind a second door.
- 26. Designed to not even be a door at all.
- 28. Who uses this door?
- 29. Who uses this door? Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-a-s/5531154544/
- 30. What are the moral implications of designing a self-closing door?
- 31. The assignment: study door design as a way of understanding cultural values http://copernicusconsulting.net/culture- coaching-sessions-improve/
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- Essential finding from Latour:\n\n- Door-closers can be human and non-human\n- non-human door-closers are just as much a part of our world as human ones\n- We actually include non-humans in our world much more than we think\n- we anthropomorphize these non-humans\n- when we “delegate” our responsibility to close the door, we lose the moral responsibility to do so\n\nWhat happens when you create an automatically closing door?\n\n
- Go out and find some doors in a single, spatially bounded place. A single subway station. A single building. An enclosed park. A single place.\n\nTake pictures. Interview. Record. \n\nSort through the significances.\n\nStart with behaviours:\n- universals\n- specialities\n- alternatives\n- peculiarities\n\nObserve symbols\n\nInfer values using the value orientation model. What do these behaviours and symbols say about this organization’s value system?\n