back talk
"identifying blind spots and opening new design spaces"
Is there alternative language for the purpose of critical reflection in technology design?
I find the language of the purpose of reflective design a bit odd. They say it is to identify blind spots and open up new design spaces. They talk about value sensitive design but a "blind spot" does not really feel all that value sensitive. It is simply something missed. A design process may have a very particular blind spot, but this doesn't really assign much value to that thing that gets missed. A blind spot could as easily be a set of problems or solutions missed as values missed. They seem to address when they note the limit of reflective design being "a loosely defined construct" at this point and that the strategies need more development. The 1st strategy to me seems particularly in need of further development. Defamiliarizing, encouraging ambiguity, and buiding open-ended systems, seem like just a start.
The second part of "opening up new design space" bothers me for a different reason. It seems to extend the trope of capital. Technology has its current terrain for design, but hey, over there is virgin terrain that could be opened up. Maybe I'm being nit-picky as their case studies clearly indicate more depth than these words suggest. But I think I agree with them that the project to provide language to share their strategies for reflective design is incomplete. The case studies shared a lot more than their strategies did for me.
"impoverished understanding of human behavior"
I still can't help but feel that this is not enough. If we began with such an impoverished understanding of human behavior the first task may be to enrich. Maybe that is the appropriate place for HCI to be right now. But we should acknowledge that once we get to an enriched place reflection and critical practice should move beyond diversifying the diet of HCI designers and users. Again, that hunger and desire to diversify still sounds a bit to me like that of capital finding new things and terrains to bring into its reach.
Opposing functionality, efficiency, optimaltiy, and task focus with play and emotion... it just seems like a turning away. I guess I'd also like to think more about Haraway's diffraction concept that Silvia brought up. I guess I feel like play and emotion don't (necessarily) diffract, they don't diffract in the design space of functionality, efficiency, optimality, and task focus. They simply, as the authors put it, open up new spaces.
I like the idea of "back talk" from Schoen and wonder what other disciplines have identified as strategies for reflection.