coexist | chapter 1
Designing in a technological context, what does it mean?
Welcome to coexist ✌️
I’m so glad and honored that you are here.
Before starting, I would like to brief you on the existence of this place of reflection.
It's been a while since I wanted to create something. In 2017, I started studying how the design's role was changing; and how our practice was evolving in unexpected and fluid ways in the different contexts, we found ourselves.
As many of you might know, I'm part of the Service Design Drinks Milan team. The goal of SDDMilan was to create exchange among designers, bring new content and create awareness on the act of design. Soon enough, SDDMilan became a playground of research, experimentation, and new dialogues. We realized that the SDDMilan community needed to know the meanings and implications of doing design and the opportunities that a very complex context offered.
In 2017 we created an event format called Transforming Designers. After a couple of years, Transforming Designers became a collaborative research to assess, discuss and envision the evolution of the role of design around the world.
Doing this research, we found fascinating insights on the hybridization of the design practice, the acquisition of new capabilities and literacies, the rise of upgraded design roles, and finally, a new concept of creativity in the design field. Another important aspect was the identification of new subjects such as behaviors, business, technology, ethics, and pos-human that will be more than relevant for the designers of tomorrow. These subjects opened the question and reflection on being generalistic vs. the need for specialization and different fields.
In my opinion, some of us might need to specialize in specific subjects to deliver more value and tangible results. I decided to provide my design capabilities in a context driven by technology. Yes, I'm obsessed with technology because it transforms us and how we behave as individuals and in society. So yes, my interests go around understanding and learning literacy about mainstream technologies, studying the different behavioral patterns humans might develop; and finally and its consequences. My personal and professional objective is to indagate the concepts and paradigms technology brings to our society and planet as a designer.
Sorry for the extended context. I hope you are not annoyed.
What is coexist?
coexist is a place of reflection and interpretation of design, technological, human, and ethical paradigms.
The scope is to understand concepts and technological definitions, acknowledge the transformation of the design role in a new complex context, per-sue justice, and ethical values. But also, we are going indagate how we can create a fair coexistence between humans, algorithms, and other entities of the planet.
Let’s Start!
coexist | chapter 1
Designing in a technological context, what does it mean?
Let's start with some design foundations. In the early 90's we saw many theories, movements and, characters that helped to give birth to a new concept called design. The act of design was related to the "creativity" applied in different fields such as engineering, architecture, and communication.
The principle "form follows the function" stuck around for a long time. Even though design needed to accomplish a practical purpose, most of the products designed in those times are the outcome of real ingenuity, humanist culture, intelligent experimentation, technical expertise, aesthetic sensibility.
In those times, technology was strictly related to materials and production processes: "technology was part of the craft."
So, let's remember this: creativity, fields of applications, products, experimentation, and practical purpose.
Over the years, a significant shift happened: humans started to be at the center. Design Thinking was born and gave place to an entirely new definition and approach:
-Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols.- Change by Design.
The design discipline adopted a more empathic meaning and a collaborative mantra to create impactful solutions. Not to say, design started to be a verb in business.
Design became a multi-faceted practice, working not only in design studios but working for the private sector, mid-large-sized consultancies start-ups, and governments.
As designers, we are facing a fluid transformation of our role and identity due to two factors: complexity and new contexts of application. Design became like water and started living in different ways within organizations and other entities.
We have faced a new era of design in business. We have seen the transformation of creativity into sensemaking, orchestrators, strategists, process supporters, etc. Our role is in continuous hybridization depending on the context and the subjects we manage in our journey.
In the meantime, the 4th industrial revolution arrived. Mainstream technologies (AI, ML, Blockchain) started making space and changed how we consume, behave, and interact. Big data became the main ingredient of a system full of personalization, complexity, and ethical paradoxes.
In the following lines, you might find six subjects that define the different moments and paradigms we are experiencing:
New product baseline
A fact: we are still designing products/artifacts with new materials and upgraded processes. We are solving a practical purpose focusing on human needs and behaviors. Though, products are no longer "still."
Designing a new product baseline means how the product interacts and communicates with the end-user; we talk about digital interaction through physical artifacts. The "intangible" digital interface and services are the ones that create differentiation and value for humans now.
We have seen new collaboration between designers, engineers, developers, and data scientists in this context.
The shift?
The value is now "intangible."
The success of the design relies on transdisciplinary collaboration.
New interactions are creating new behaviors.
Gig Service Experience
In this dimension, the transformation happened with the rise of digital platforms offering different services. Those services could be only digital or digital&physical. What made the difference? The servitization of traditional products and assets; and a new economic model.
We saw the rise of platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Amazon disrupting the way we consume and what we expect from organizations (everyone awaits an answer, a service in three minutes. Thank you, Uber). Also, we are living the "impact" of this new model positively but also a bit blurry. It has brought significant consequences that we can't avoid or "not see."
The shift?
The creation of new expectations and behaviors
A new digital economy
The velocity of development and innovation
A data-driven engagement
Organizations started to develop strategies to answer thematic humans journeys (Ex. Airbnb) or life cycle journeys (Ex. Amazon)
Seamless interactions
Is your home connected to Alexa? is your car connected to Alexa? Yes, we are talking about interconnected systems and new seamless interactions. IoT is allowing humans to mandate, manage and decide their experience journey.
Integrating different artifacts and systems allows multiple experiences to feel just like one. At home, at the supermarket, wherever you are.
The shift?
The creation of new journeys that involve the integration of different systems
The centralization of digital interaction (Alexa, google home, etc.)
Seamless and effortless is the new black
The interconnections and successful responsiveness are thanks to your data.
A robotic friendship
Have you noticed the robot utopia going on lately? Robots are slowly becoming "vivid species" in our daily routines. - I made up “vivid species,” don’t worry -
We have seen the development of robots that could handle many different types of practical and repetitive tasks. It's getting common to see a robot serving people's food in a restaurant, making food, parking your car, or even cleaning workplaces (as the latest invention of everyday robots). Though the scope is practical, those "new vivid species" are being developed to understand us and are capable of generating a conversational language with us. Robots are becoming our friends, weird, right?.
The shift?
Automation is here to stay
We are designing new bounds of interactions between humans and machines
It will be expected to design hybrid experiences and services (humans, machines, physical environments, etc.)
It will emerge new roles for either humans and robots
We might need to create new value assets for experiences that balance the influence of humans, machines, and brand purpose.
Augmented Journeys
They call it Metaverse.
We see the rise of virtual and simulated worlds that create new authentic/meaningful human experiences. The technologies behind these virtual journeys could be virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, and the creation of digital twins.
The Metaverse creates sophisticated simulations involving social dynamics, objects, and complex situations. Somehow we are going to be involved in a "mirror-world."
The shift?
The coexistence between the virtual and physical world.
Amplified expectations
New patterns of interactions and behaviors
New paradigms of balancing a new living in "simulations" or "the real world"
The search of ethical consumption in and of The Metaverse
PS: Remember The Sims 👀?
Decentralized systems
Welcome to Web3: emerging economic models and decentralized power.
In Web2, we saw the rise of "Big Tech," companies that centralized and owned our data. The idea behind Web3 is decentralization and the power of communities of people who will own/have rights of data.
We will see a new era of power, new economic and collaboration models, and innovations that thrive this decentralized mechanism and that is enabled by cutting-edge technological development.
In the following two years, I think we will see a lot of innovations that might change the market and others that are just going to make unnecessary noise.
The shift?
People own and decide what to do with their data
Emerging community movements with similar characteristics aim to belong and own similar things.
Economic models based on blockchain and new ways of transactions (NFT/Smart Contracts)
The status symbol might be a relevant aspect behind these movements
Emerging ways of collaboration, new ways of creativity.
What about if we analyze these cases?
Ping An Good Doctor - One Minute Clinic
Ping An Good Doctor is a health ecosystem platform born in 2019. The principal scope is to provide fast and convenient one-stop healthcare services to drivers and passengers.
One minute Clinic incorporates "AI Doctor" technology and the Company's over 1000 in-house medical team and nearly 5000 renowned external contracted doctors to provide users with self-serve medical and healthcare services, including medical advice, rehabilitation guidance, drug-taking advice, and to-be-paid for drugs.
Why is it interesting?
The commercial conception of the healthcare ecosystem might be changing
The conception of customer experience changes; now I go to a sort of "bending machine" to be diagnosed and buy the medicines. What's important here is how this kind of solution empowers human convenience (reachability and time)
One of the key stakeholders, the doctor, is an AI.
Scaled computed clinics compete with the traditional model.
Embodied Moxie
Moxie is a companion robot explicitly made for kids to play with every day. Moxie can learn to recognize a child's face and their particular learning needs and develop a very accurate conversational language.
Why is it interesting?
The robot is not developing a practical/specific task; its purpose is to build a relationship with the kid.
The meaning of a feeling will be shared with other humans, other beings, and machines.
The stronger bound you to create with these objects is because of the kids' behavioral data.
The value of the experience regards how empathetic the machine could be with you. Interesting to see if we are developing hybrid experiences. What kind of shared value between different touchpoints will we design?
Botto
Botto is a decentralized artist that generates art based on community feedback. Botto is a complementary system based on AI and humans' active collaboration and created in Germany by artist Mario Klingmann.
Botto has already made $1 million via the auction of its first artworks.
How does it work?
Botto generates a stream of random sentences, feeds it into a neural network, and gets an image back
Every week, the community votes those fragments generated, and by the end of the week, one gets chosen to be art.
The piece of art will be auctioned as an NFT on a Super Rare platform for collectors to buy it.
The system’s first work, Asymmetrical Liberation, sold six weeks ago for $324,000.
Why is it interesting?
Botto is a vivid example of coexistence between humans and algorithms; we might see this kind of collaboration achieve relevant results.
The fact that decentralized communities will give shape to ways of collaborations and meanings on creativity
The rise of communities and the search for new status symbols
I consider Botto a fascinating case to observe. The cases like Botto are opening new ways of conceiving meanings, disruptive economic models, and machine/human collaboration experimentation. This kind of innovation might have essential impacts on our everyday context.
Tinderverse
Tinder plans to rebrand itself with a new name that focuses on the Metaverse. CEO Renate Nyborg said, "from a Tinder perspective, we've been talking about a Tinderverse internally, which is more about blurring the boundaries between offline and online."
Even though Tinder will bring a new dating mechanism, they are still focused on helping people meet in real life.
Why is it interesting?
New hybrid experiences where physical and virtual are going to question what's valuable for humans.
The dating Metaverse will bring new complex and relational paradigms
The meaning of love and friendship might evolve, creating new behavioral patterns.
Why do all these matter in the design world? Well, I can not be more longer. Leave some comments below :)
See you in our next chapter and thank you for reading.
Cheers,
Marihum
PS: If you want to be part of the discussion, sign up to coexist newsletter. If you want to debate about those topics, drop me a line.