Hugh Dubberly: What do you guys think design is?

Hugh Dubberly Interview 1 Transcription Hugh Dubberly: What do you guys think design is? Interviewer 1: Things get made, but no one knows how it gets made. Hugh: And so what do you think design is? Interviewer 2: That s pretty. Interviewer 1: I think design itself is un- definable. It is more of an action (Hugh: uh huh) I guess I would define it as an action that everyone is capable of doing, but not I mean that is something we come into contact with all the time in our classes its like little d design and big D design. Huh: Uh Huh. Interviewer 1: But sort of I just see it as more of like it shoots out a network immediately where all of these things have to become connected to each other in order for something to live or exist in the world and that is sort of how I see it is as that whole process in between. Hugh: Say that again, the process of what? Interviewer 1: Sort of everything coming together to put something into existence to make it function and live within society and sort of design is that whole process that can include it because it s so complex so like if I am sitting here with a water bottle it is sort of all the things that went into making the plastic all the things that came into allowing it to be in New York City so I could buy it and that these are all a part of the design process and then finally having it in my hand, the label itself, its so its like in our world design is such a complex entity so I am just trying to break down all the things that went into it. Hugh: And so what about you do you have a definition of design? Interviewer 2: I feel that is a pretty good definition I feel, because. the way that I feel, the way that I see it and it is this idea a thousand points of light haha, sort of thing like, where it s like, there is so many different factors involved, but it takes... so many things can take to make one form to make one complete thing so I think that design. Hugh: For example? Interviewer 2: is seen from many perspectives I mean

Hugh: For example? Interviewer 2: For example like I have a background in computer programming so we have to design programs in that way the apps and programs. Hugh: Wait I didn t, so wait I didn t catch the background in computer programming. Interviewer 2: Well I did in library school basically now is learning programming languages it is like sort of. Hugh: What kind of skills did you learn? Interviewer 2: Uh, well C++ C Sharp, HTML, of course. So, uh Java Script of course, so it was like interesting (Hugh: Have you uh) because like a lot of things people do for design go Hugh: Have you made applications then? Interviewer 2: Because I feel like, when a lot of people. think about design they like, you know, think of the Eames chair, Huh? Hugh: Have you, made applications then? Interviewer 2: I have done work, I have not ever made applications enough to be able to like put them on Blike [ICES] or anything like that but I have made some that are for recipes or something that you click through and decide what you re Hugh: So you have done some school projects? Interviewer 2: You decide what ingredient you want to use and sort of do that whole thing so it was, it was fun. I enjoyed it. But, I don t know, I think like design can be seen, for me, cuz of that background I see design as sort of different than thinking of like the Eames chair, you know? It like thinking of it Hugh: What s the difference? Interviewer 2: It s like thinking, well its I guess, because it s more... I feel like when you work in computer languages and designing from that sort of perspective it feels a little bit more... it can, it can feel a little bit more abstract, then actually having to like sit down in a chair which I realize you would go visit a site or you would go and use an application but I think it sort of doesn t have as much of a tactile feel so it feels more abstract to somebody than a physical existence. Hugh: It feels less tangible.

Interviewer 2: Tangible is exactly, that s the word so Interviewer 1: What you sort of see what you think design is from your perspective? Hugh: Well, that can lead to the long answer. Interviewer 1: It s okay we like long answers. Hugh: I think first of all its useful to acknowledge I do agree with the assertion that one of you made that um everyone designs. And I ll come back and explain. Why it is that. But it is also useful to distinguish the difference between product design and what all of us might do as we go about our day and um, design as a... a discipline or a professional domain. It is also useful to distinguish the difference between people who are making art and people who are doing design. This is something that often gets confused particularly because design is often taught in art schools which is not necessarily the place where it should be taught. The distinction is that designers are should be concerned with not just themselves, what they want, the result or the outcomes to be, but they should be designing for someone else and what those people need uh, the outcome to be or what they want the outcome to be whereas artists have no such constraints. The artists can do whatever she wants to do. The second distinction, which is important, is the distinction between design and sciences. even design and engineering. Where science certainly is concerned with seeing things that are and asking why they re that way. Design is dreaming of things that are not and asking why aren t they that way. I think Herb Simon had a pretty useful functional definition of design in talking about a [Unknown Word] changing existing conditions into preferred conditions. And in that definition he he said most of what we think of the professions; whether its business or law or medicine or engineering. That they are all engaged in this activity trying to figure out what s going on now and how it could be better. That s sort of my synopsis or my view of, I guess I would have one other thing. Within that, there are many ways to practice and concepts and concerns that designers can have for Design emerges with the industrial revolution as the making of something separated from the planning or the making of the thing. And early on in, certainly in 19 th century well into the 20 th century most people focus on the form of things. Most designers focus on the form of things. of course there were always some designers who were looking at other kinds of other lenses bringing other concerns. One of the other concerns that emerged beyond the, is concern for meaning, not only what is the form, but also what does this mean. More recently we see a kind of concern for the exterior of using something. What does it look like, what does it mean, but also how does it feel to use this. So you also mentioned that there is a sort of a dematerialization going on. The form of tangible physical objects is the experience of software, uh, which is intangible; you can t see all of it at once it happens over time, it tends to disappear, and it exists within

systems through the communities of systems or ecologies. So that represents an enormous shift in the focus of practice which occurred over the last twenty years maybe thirty years its really happened in almost a blink of an eye in terms of the long history of things. Anyways that s a little bit complex. Interviewer 1: You said that there has been this shift in practice are you saying that the shift in practice is to focus on, the focus on concern? Hugh: On what? Interviewer 1: On concern. Hugh: Well I think, I think, the focus or concern of the designer has shifted. The focus on most of the 20 th century is on the form of the object, on the form of a physical object, or a thing that is printed, but it on mainly about what does it look like. You called it aesthetics, which is not exactly how I would describe it although I think that they re, they overlap to some extent, but. they re both you know. you might argue that there are some aspects of aesthetics that aren t strictly formal and their might be some approaches to form that aren t strictly speaking aesthetics. am I just being confusing? Interviewer 1: No, no, no. You are making us think, which is a good thing. (laughter) We are also sort of preparing what we plan to ask you next time. So, sorry if there is a little bit of a gap in us talking just cause we re paying attention. So sort of, do you how do you think the shift in thinking, when did the shift of thinking come into play in your own work? Hugh: Well. There are sort of several places so In my very earliest design classes there was a very much a kind of high modern design view sort of Ulm school view of design as problem solving. Which is to some extent a shift away from a view of design being simply about making things look good. When I was at RISD, I was a student of Tom Ockerse and Tom was one of the people involved in bringing certainly bringing into the United States the notions that semiotics is an important tool for thinking about what designers do. And so that was an influence. And then also, from that time, computers were already just beginning to play a, you could begin to see the impact that computers might have on design, that they would have some impact on design and so it started at that point either while I was in school that it started to be, you know the dematerialization was just beginning. Interviewer 1: And so one of my questions to, is sort of, why did you decide to leave the program at CU- Boulder, why did you decide that that sort of thinking about, or that way of thinking about design wasn t sort of the right fit for you? Hugh: There were several factors. One, I was just young and didn t really know what I was doing. Two, I was a little more, I thought I was a little more interested in graphic design than I was in architecture, I guess, it appeared to be an architecture

program but this is part of being naive is that I really didn t understand that it sort of didn t matter. That they were more interested in design, as an activity rather than a put together medium. But I also had a lot of naivety. I thought we spent a lot of time talking about things rather than doing things (interviewer laughter). I also thought Boulder a party school come on (laughter from everyone). You know, if I just went to a real design school where people were serious it would be much better. Interviewer 1: Was it? Hugh: Uh well yeah, I mean in some ways. You know people were very serious; they worked very hard. but than I realized that many of the faculty had gone to school at Yale and I thought, ah ha! What I am missing is you know I am getting them from the second generation. I should go to Yale. You know, (Interviewer 1: go right to the source) come Paul Rand, and have [Tom Simmons?] and Herb Simon rather directly and then the secrets will be revealed. (interviewer laughter) Interviewer 1: And do you thinking, that sort of your MFA experience at Yale was [garbled] better there, do you actually feel like you learned from the source? Hugh: Uh well I thought they would delver the secrets and they didn t reveal them if there were. Interviewer 1: What secrets were you looking for? Hugh: I think the thing of it is you know, if you sat through a crit[ique] with Paul Rand, it doesn t get more frightening (laughter from interviewer). So right, you could sit through a crit with Paul Rand, you know, what s going to be worse? Interviewer 1: And so, sort of going back to this boulder thing, you did mention that the design of the program was based on the Ulm? Hugh: No, this was at Boulder. Interviewer 1: Yea, at Boulder. Hugh: So yeah, so, the program at Boulder was called environmental design and some of the key faculty had come from Berkeley and some of the, one of the key faculty members at Berkeley was from Ulm. And so the Ulm folks had coined the phrase environmental design in the very early 60s and they didn t mean what you would think what it might mean today, as in green design or something. What they meant was um, designing one s complete environment. Not that they would have been opposed to environmental design, or green design, but that there focus was on... what Wim Crouwel, Benno Wissing, and some folks in Amsterdam called total design. So, thinking about the design of everything.

Interviewer 1: And so, do you think some of that total design work seeped into you while you were there? Hugh: Yeah oh, absolutely. So they have... Ulm was founded by Germans who had been in the German resistance who got funding from the Marshall plan, which was set up to one of the aspects of the Marshall plan was to try and change German culture so that the problems that led to the war wouldn t arise again. And so. These people were certainly socialists of that kind of they were also participating to a certain extent like everyone else after the way in a technological euphoria that was sort of going on. And they were trying to say well, how can design be more rigorous and, this is the place where designers first begin to look at semiotics. This is the place where designers begin to look at process in a very serious way. They borrowed from operations research. They borrowed from cybernetics. So, I didn t realize all that when I was a freshman but later as I became a well later on, the sort of process stuff became sort of it always stood out especially practice. And later I began to learn about the history of the design methods movement, which grows out of Ulm and is really the forbearer for what people today call design thinking. Design thinking is sort of design methods rebranded. And, then I began to learn about the history of this and how eventually it became clear how you could make this transfer from from Horst Rittel being at Ulm to Berkeley and then his teaching people who went off and became my teachers at Colorado. Interviewer 1: And so you said that design methods, that design thinking is a revamped design methods. What would you say design methods or design thinking are now? Hugh: Well, design thinking is it is largely a marketing method on behalf of principally IDEO but also you know, Bruce Nussbaum when he was at Business Week and then folks at a couple of schools, that would be at the Institute of Design and what s his name at the Rodman School I should know his name. Do you know any of these characters? Interviewer 1: I do know IDEO is Tim Brown. Interviewer 2: Nussbaum Hugh: Oh! Roger Martin at Rodman. So, these guys to some extent sort of. cooked up design thinking as a way to sell design consulting services to business and. to create a kind of unique selling proposition to their schools not to be cynical, but I really think they all of it was good and it did a service to the design community as a whole, but I think its people sort of overlook the reason that it is not in the, they re great folks and good people, but they also have their clear self interest in all of this. Bruce has gone all mad on this sort of off the bat you know, rebranding himself yet again because, because so many people have come into the design thinking world.

Interviewer 1: And so what are some of the design methods that you think are so central to your work or, your experiences as a designer? Hugh: Well, I think that the first thing, which is really what is implied by design methods, is that there is a process. And that this process involves research into understanding a context understanding an audience or stakeholders. Ideally, talking to those stakeholders directly. understanding that ultimately the process is political. And this is, where the Ulmers originally got it a little wrong, that it is not scientific. It is exactly the opposite of that; that it s political. That is that it s not about something that is objective its about something that is entirely subjective. It s about our values. What is it that we desire? What is the change we want? And that that is not something. you know an expert that a white man on a white horse can ride into the village and tell the brown people you know, how to do it. That it s about the designer s role becomes the role of the facilitator trying to trying to get agreement about what we are trying to do here. And that s, well, that s not probably going to necessarily help you. Interviewer 1: What do you see as participatory design and secondly, what is the role of user participation in your own work? Hugh: We do primary research with existing or intended audiences. So we go talk to them, interview them what some people call ethnographic research. We certainly talk to experts all the time. to understand the domains that we re working in. And them we do usability research, which is evaluative research and we spend an enormous amount of time with clients talk about well what is the goal here. So, I think those are aspects of what you are talking about. We don t bill ourselves as particularly poster children for participatory design and I m not sure... if it was Susan or anyone or who kind of put us under that category. You know if we re known for anything it is sort of modeling which is sort of a different almost methodical issue. The model is important in terms of getting consistency from all the participants. I guess that s where there would be the connection we re not we re certainly supportive and sympathetic of inclusive design processes uh but we haven t made that sort of the raison d être or you established as the business. Interviewer 1: Could you expand more what you mean by, when you say the political? Hugh: Yeah, so are you guys familiar with AIGA? So, this is one of the design professional innovations. It is where there are a series of organizations, which began as a supper club or drinking clubs for designers, but then became networking organizations and then eventually qualified educational qualified lobbying organizations. The architects have one; the industrial designers have one; the graphic designers have one. There s some there s a whole lot of interaction development as well. But, remember one thing these organizations do is hold national conferences. I remember being at one where the person who was essentially the head of the design firm for coca Cola... got up and said, you know,

how wonderful her job was and how she loved it except for all the meetings and the pesky politics that she had to deal with. What she really wanted to do was to be left alone to do her design work. And I just found that astonishing because the work of a design manager in a corporation is to go to those meeting, to negotiate what it is trying to do. To build consensus about what what are values are. And so that was a kind of complete misreading of what s actually going on. Interviewer 1: Okay, and would you say that the design manager is a role that you feel, do you feel the design manager role is what you you are? Hugh: Uh, well anyone in the design business or anybody who well you can t design anything without taking on that role because you are going to have a client. You have to there will be the education issue.