Looked at the book ‘thoughtless acts’ which ive got on order now, it made me think about how people’s misuse of products. Most people probably do so. looking at examples round the room i noticed that people misuse products in sevaral ways. for example chris was using a plastic disposable cup as a desk tidy, and on tara’s desk she was using a toilet roll.
My thinking of it was that people like to misuse or misrepresent products, and it gets me thinking about what other ways people misuse products.
we had a chat about when people buy games console’s such as Ninetendo DS, people don’t think they should have to pay for games and that people shouldn’t have to use the DS in the way that Nintendo are wanting people to use it.
So we have this ‘hacker culture’ in which people take products and electronics and make it into something that works for them. The images from ‘thoughtless acts’ show people using everyday products – most of them stationary objects – using them as bins, bins being used for graffiti. Hackers take technology and change them for their own use. Products become available from the misuse of products that border on illegality and become legal products that can be used. It becomes an issue of power and control between the companies/ designer and the end user. I think that the end user also becomes part designer. By making products that are pretty illegal and making them into legitimate legal products they are adapting them into their own lifestyles – and a lot of other peoples as well.
This got me thinking about designing for adaptation which i found a presentation on by Dan Hill from www.cityofsound.com/blog. it goes on to give examples on adaptive products (bbc home page – how it saves what people click on and shows less and less of what you aren’t reading – over time).
Then there was what i read from the Digital by Design book by Troika. An interview with Dunne & Raby that brings across the ideas we chatted about earlier.
Right now what im thinking is that companies are releasing products to be used in certain ways. So designers are trying to influence behavior. From everyday objects that people take no notice of in the streets, to electronic objects, people adapt these objects to their own need. People are becoming designers in there own sense and reiterating for their own use and their own preferences.
the main focus of my dissertation is to focus on how people take designed objects and adapt them for different needs and uses.
Filed under: Uncategorized
