Lataa ilmaiseksi

D W E L L I N G W I T H D E S I G N
60
My analysis of the product biographies did not complicate the categories:
the categorisation is a detailed enough device to make sense of the designed
properties in the data. But the real surprise was the importance of the fourth
category, which I had initially acknowledged but had not paid much attention
to: the “not designed properties” that are not and cannot be designed as part
of the product. I did not even mention this category to our interviewees. It is
telling that for a long time I called the category “the rest” because it constituted
a throw-away bucket for everything that was not directly linked to my research.
But the more the analysis of the data progressed, the more the not designed
properties became prominent.
In the data, the “not designed properties” group consists for the most part
of the personal and social aspects that interviewee related to the product,
but which cannot, strictly speaking, be designed into the product. The links
between the product and the person’s social network, personal interests and history
are examples of the “not designed properties” that the interviewees often
mentioned, in addition to, for example, the product’s value in the pop antique
markets. It seems to me now that it is impossible to understand design’s role in
everyday life and its appropriation within the household without taking these
un-designed, or non-designed, aspects into account.
After having put into place the principles of how to make sense of the product
biographies in the interviews through making use of the above-mentioned
product properties, my analysis of the interviews went as follows: first, I looked
through the photographs and read the interviews and made notes on everything
pertaining to the households’ attitudes and activities in relation to design
or design-intensive interior decoration in general. The quotes and notes fell
into three thematically different categories:
1) The ideals, ideas, conceptions, principles and beliefs linked with
design and furnishing;
2) The efforts, investments and activities linked with design and furnishing;
3) The interviewees’ descriptions and explanations of their particular
household’s standing or character vis-à-vis design and furnishing.
This thematic reading turned a large amount (nearly 600 pages, about 35 pages
per household) of qualitative data into 17 usable household portraits, which
consisted of my notes accompanied by verbatim quotes from the interviews.
In terms of family structures, I interviewed people living alone (4: Ilmari,
Liisa, Tiina and Mervi), professional couples without kids (7: Anniina, Kalle &