Education guide 'Eindhoven designs' - Technische Universiteit ...

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Responsibility of designers:
towards transformation
In the last century, several disciplines
emerged which study the relationship
between products and society, such as
the sociology of technology (Bijker and
Law, 1992), the philosophy of technology
(Heidegger, 1962; Achterhuis, 1997) and
design history (Forty, 1986). Designers
are not sociologists, philosophers
or historians; they create and build
intentional technology. Therefore, we
support Peter-Paul Verbeek’s notion that
‘the ethics of engineering design should
take more seriously the moral charge
of technological products and rethink
the moral responsibility of designers
accordingly’ (Verbeek, 2006).
At the Department of Industrial Design,
we believe that our design students need
to take an active position in thinking
about the social and moral role of design,
about social and societal transformation.
They should be aware of and address
the mediating role of technology during
the design process. Designers have
to put this topic of social and societal
transformation on the table despite the
fact that it is not their sole responsibility,
because designers often work in
multi-disciplinary teams and because
technology is context-dependent and
multi-stable.
ID is not alone in this focus. In 2004
the British Design Council set up RED,
a ‘do tank’ that uses innovative design
to tackle social and economic issues.
They challenged accepted thinking and
used creativity in close cooperation with
users who are part of the design team,
to design new public services, systems
and products that address social and
economic problems. And they called
their approach ‘transformation design’
(Burns, Cottam, Vanstone and Winhall,
2006). Also in 2004, Matthijs van Dijk
stated that industry and, consequently,
designers need to put more emphasis
on true innovation based on a contextdriven
design strategy that evokes a
paradigm shift which opens up and
requires a redefinition of the interaction
between humans and products (Van
Dijk, 2004). Robert Fabricant, Vice