Sugared Puppy Dog Tails: Gender and Design

This is a new article in Interactions by Elizabeth Churchill which focuses on questions of gender, identity, and empowerment provoked by design and technology.

In the article, Elizabeth holds the opinion that "designers should think about gender at a level of sophistication beyond color and shape. We should be reflective and conscious of the assumptions of use and user that are being built into our products. We should know how we are reifying and/or reinforcing behavioral norms or challenging them. And just as we recognize white space in graphic design is not an absence of content, we need to be conscious of who is not present in the cast of designed-for characters."

I believe she's bringing into light important questions about how design influences the ways we come to identify the world. And that design has the power to persuade us into believing there are "appropriate" ways of defining and interacting with it based on our gender. It does this by communicating through appearance, (re)actions, gestures, and embodied experiences and exists across the design gamut--communications, interactions, objects, and environments. In her view, "such representations lead to “incidental learning” about who we can be and what is possible/appropriate for us to do, and in this way, these characters embody messages about gender-appropriate behaviors."

Read all about it.

Part II: Senior Healthcare | Southwark Circle

Participle is innovating new approaches to ageing. Since September 2007 they have been working in a unique public-private partnership with Southwark Council, Sky and the Department for Work & Pensions, to design new services that will improve the quality of life and well-being of older people. Working with over 150 older people, they have developed Southwark Circle, a membership organisation that helps people take care of household tasks, forge social connections and find new directions in life. Open to all, regardless of levels of need or income, Southwark Circle is a model of how future services might look across Britain.

This is a social reform challenge, not just a public service reform challenge. The question is not just “What can public services do to improve quality of life and well-being for older people?” but rather “How can a locality mobilize public, private, voluntary and community resources to help all older people define and create quality of life and well-being for themselves?”. This requires radical change in the way resources are defined (beyond the formal social care system) and the way services and systems are configured (away from a near exclusive focus on care and towards building relationships and participation).

Public funding is just one among several flows of resources that go into the support of older people from unpaid carers, voluntary groups, paid-for services, and peer-to-peer support. Public services and systems must be re-designed accordingly. An effective approach must mobilise resources and activity from all these sources, not just redesign the public component.

Participle has developed early answers to these challenges in this project. They have worked with over 150 older people and family members over the last nine months.

The project started with two months of user research with older people and their families, generating insights into their hopes, fears, needs and aspirations. Based on these insights, they generated over 50 ideas for new services. They decided to focus on a service that would create a rich third age, and have spent the last five months refining our proposition, developing prototypes of the service and co-designing with older people and their families. They have tested models of the service with users and recruited people to take part in a rough trial of the service. They have developed a business case, received initial investment and will start to build the actual service, continuing to test with users over the next few months. Responding to demand, we plan to launch the service as a social enterprise in Southwark in early 2009. They also plan to work with additional local authorities to develop a national model.

thinkpublic

What's not going right in London nowadays in design. Here's another example at thinkpublic of great work being done in the public sector.

Delicious Information is up and running

I left my position as a Human Factors Specialist in IDEO's Boston office last week. The economy is weak with everyone scrambling for work; it's the middle of winter; and I don't know if my skills and talent add up to more than two nickels. But as a friend of mine told me last year when he decided to pursue a career in print design after finding a sweet niche in the digital world, "I guess I'm looking for a reverse commute."

Regardless of everything IDEO had to offer from its staggering brain power to the breadth of projects, I never quite got into the groove of the private sector. It made the continuously long hours of discussing brand strategy and ROI hard to feel passionate about. With a heavy heart we all took the plunge and decided to break-up. When friends ask me how I feel, I say, "I feel everything." I feel sad and disappointed that I don't get more time learning from the best. I feel relieved and liberated from the stress of needing to give myself over to products and strategies I couldn't fully commit to. I feel hopeful that I will return to my path in the public sector designing products, services and environments that enable people to connect to the worlds around them. I feel like myself again.

With that, Delicious Information has been resurrected. It will be my own little private/public Think Tank. Going into the mix–any and all ideas that I'm stewing about that relate to me re-claiming my sanity or losing it; to creativity at large; to smart, critical design; to improving the health of our urban environments; to paving the way for shared services; to remembering it's relationships that matter above all else; to my quest for crazy delightful imaginative "what I wouldn't do to be in a space like that" places; to continuing the conversation on what makes a place a place; to disruptive behavior that doesn't shy aware from conflict; to examples of quiet thoughtful resolution. In other words, I'm looking for some inspiration to keep me from slipping so quickly down that black hole I seem to be so fond of. Ideas welcome.