Great Design and Responsibility

BDES 1201 — Week 10

By: Antonio Cicchetti

In this week’s readings, we take a look at “The Challenge of Responsible Design” by Jesse S. Tatum and chapter 10 of Jonathan Woodhams’s “Twentieth Century Design” labeled “Design and Social Responsibility”. Both take a look into different perspectives on awareness towards design ethics in both construction and consumption.

In this chapter, Jonathan Woodham explores the history behind the awareness of product credibility. Woodham explores several organizations throughout recent history whose intentions, in one way or another, was to explore product reliability, to then inform and influence customers. Woodham talks about organizations such as Consumers’ Research Inc. The Good Housekeeping Institute, and the Defineator institute all of whom, respectively in their own right’s, provided consumer reviews on particular products and insight on said products. Woodham also describes how certain companies use these reviews as a symbol of approval “Indeed, many manufacturers used the Good Housekeeping star, a symbol of product approval, as a means of promoting their products.”(Woodham)

In Jesse Tatum’s article, we explore the ethical dilemmas surrounding responsible design choices, from the designer’s perspective. Tatum breaks down the problem into seven parts; underdetermination, realm of possibility, consequentiality, political construction, competing images, ultimate ends, and embrace of patterns. Within these sections, Tatum discusses various motivations and potential challenges that as designers we must tackle when pursuing responsible design, such as differing political opinions, cultural views and perception on intention in product design, impact on society and so on.

An example of responsible design would be the recent growth in popularity of electric cars, more specifically Tesla. Tesla’s unique modeling of their electric vehicles have brought a large focus to the electric car market and have kept them competitive within the industry. These electric cars have been popularized at a time when society has shifted its focus to sustainability, and avoiding the negative effects of carbon emissions. This said, Tesla’s electric car designs have allowed customers and travelers to become more responsible in their daily lives.

Questions:

Do you believe that Tesla’s capitalization of the electric car market with design with the intent of profit or for the sake of responsible design?

Do you believe that designer’s are well enough equipped to comprehend overall repercussion a design may have in the future?

Work Cited

Tatum, J.S. “The Challenge of Responsible Design.” Design Issues, vol. 20, no. 3, 2004, pp. 66–80

Woodham, Jonathan M. Twentieth Century Design. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, Chapter 10