Interaction design for and with the lived body: Some implications of merleau-ponty's phenomenology
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) - Special issue on the theory and practice of embodied interaction in HCI and interaction design
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The last ten years we have helped starting up a new faculty of industrial design. What is the result? Or more importantly, what is the message? The message is threefold. 1. Start from a theoretical basis that is about action. We chose to work from a Gibsonian point of view, not because it is better than other points of view, but it is a theory that fits design (Gibson, 1979). It is a theory about action and design is about creating possibilities to do something. Lately, we turned more attention to phenomenology, in particular Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty, 1945). Why? Because designers are more and more designing "living entities", i.e., systems that behave, learn about us, that adapt to us. We then get to very fundamental questions about being-in-the-world. How do I perceive that a system is perceiving me and how does the system perceives me perceiving. These questions can only be answered, I believe, by designing and building the system. This leads to my second point. 2. Integrate Much theoretical work in design research is foreign to design. It is about psychology, engineering, sociology, and making. We built a faculty trying to actively integrate these different approaches, Design should take the lead here, I believe: Research through Design. When I say actively, I mean, that projects, both for students and staff, are defined by a team consisting of people of different disciplines. This is not as easy as it seems. And we are not there yet. Every discipline has its own beliefs, paradigms, output and jargon: its own way of looking at the world. But we need to integrate these points of view in order to give our students a chance to become trans-disciplinary, and to give design a place in the academic world. This leads to my third point. 3. Teaching From the start of the faculty, we chose for a competency based teaching method. The students start to design from day one. They are surrounded by experts that can help them if they ask. We want the students to be responsible for the their development and growth as a designer. We challenge them, they can design their own path through the curriculum (Hummels and Frens, 2008). In fact, we do not have a curriculum. A student can chose which projects ad which assignments she chooses. The programme is in English, as to attract an international audience, starting with the bachelors. Industry asks for a new kind of design engineer. We deliver youngsters that are not afraid for challenges but who do have the maturity to dare to rely on their intuition, skills and knowledge to propose innovative approaches. This can only be done by making. The western culture is based on manufacturing, i.e., thinking with your hand. This leads to my conclusion. The Bologna Process aims to standardize academic degrees and make them more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. I do believe the Process has an undesired side effect. All over Europe the professional schools are being "academized". To teach in a design school you need a PhD. Sure, that is important, but we run the risk of killing the profession. The people who know how to teach the design attitude are running away, or even worse, being driven out of the design schools. I do believe that there is no design research without design practice, as there is no medical research without medical practice. In the past I talked about "Dreaming of the impossible". I think the impossible is coming true, slowly but steadily. I think we have been designing dreams.