Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman, Thoughtful Interaction Design Chapter 1

The chapter was interesting to me as I had no prior knowledge of interaction design and what it entails. Initially, the word “design” seemed more focused on the outer appearances rather than the interior. We are currently exposed to one aspect of design (i.e. aesthetics) more than the others stated in this reading, e.g. “fashion design”, “designer bags”, “designer sandwiches” and these evokes a sense of prestige and beauty. It was very insightful to know that plenty of thought is required behind designing and this makes me more conscious about what I notice in my surroundings (and become a bit more critical). Traits like being open, sensitive, flexible and mindful would come useful to a designer. It also took a while to accept the broadness of the term material (people labelled as material?). I enjoyed how the authors focused more on the attitude rather than a strict methodology when it comes to the design process, and this comes as a relief as I have always wondered about the rights and wrongs. They state that “every design process is unique”.

With this shift in perspectives of the term “design” and also a clearer picture of what it is, it makes me ponder:

• if the incessant need to “make the world a better place” will result in a negative or positive effect
• can design be non-purposeful (without all the profound and deeper ideology, political reasoning, etc)
• are all the definitions of terms (e.g. material, design, knowledge construction, etc) common across all books/ papers/ articles?