Brave New World: Understanding Authentic Human Behaviour
Design practice has become increasingly dominated by the need to create new technologies with the intention of making peoples lives better. As a result technology has advanced exponentially and changed the way that people are able to communicate, work, play, and live. Although there are many examples of life-altering technological products, there are also many examples of products where designers did not stop to think whether that product was necessary, needed, and/or useful. With a focus on technology-driven innovation, the designing process moved towards placing people secondary to technology and final design outcomes (products). This paper asserts that there is a need to understand authentic human behaviour in order to design products with imbedded meaning, value and usefulness. Understanding authentic human behaviour requires exploring the cultural values, physical experiences, and emotional needs of people. This relies heavily upon the designer to reflect upon their own personal value systems and experiences before exploring and developing empathy with others. This paper contributes to a more holistic understanding around and integration of real people, with real needs leading to real design solutions. A range of approaches is illustrated and discussed that leads towards designers gaining deeper more meaningful awareness and appreciation of others. The approaches discussed herein tend to appear straightforward and even simple on the surface; however, these require designers to move outside their personal comfort zones in order to shift their perspective; therefore, embracing a brave new world into people-centred and empathic design.
Deana McDonagh Megan Strickfaden Joyce Thomas
School of Art + Design /Beckman Institute, University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), USA Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta, Canada School of Art + Design, University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), USA
国际会议
The 4th International Conference on Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics(第四届国际机械工程与力学会议)
苏州
英文
856-862
2011-08-11（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）