“Google Maps is devised as a crutch to help us navigate the world in an easier way, but by extension the same technology prevents us from understanding the world in a holistic way, or thinking critically about the route that we should take, or even from the route that might be most enjoyable.” ChoicesFraming Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“One of the ways that designers can challenge themselves to think about their work differently is to look outside of design to ways that other disciplines research, evaluate, and interpret their work.” DesignDesigners Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“Designers need to understand various perspectives that exist in the world—and to be able to speak many different “languages” in order to translate these ideas in meaningful ways.” LanguageArchitectureDesignersArchitects Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“For designers to understand their work as part of a dialogue influences the design output in much more nuanced ways, and relieves the designer from the burden of needing to control every aspect of the experience.” ExperienceNuanceDesigners Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“Much as participatory design and placemaking was a reaction to the lack of citizen involvement in the planning process, the history of incremental city design was a reaction to the utopian master plan that dictated whole scale redevelopment in favor of an incremental approach that gradually affected the status quo. As a theory of policymaking, incrementalism was first introduced by Charles Lindblom in the 1950s.” DesignUrban DesignIncrementalism Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“Design does not, and cannot, operate on philosophy and theory alone. Without the connection between the design concept, the artifact, and the user, design does not exist.” PhilosophyDesignUsers Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“One simple thing that we might do in the research process is a simple renaming of the user as a reader or interpreter, which emphasizes the interpretive nature of design interactions.” ReaderArchitectureUsers Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“What the map offers is a critical use of elements like scale, orientation, organization, and framing to help us make meaning of abstract data, but also persuade us of a certain truth.” TruthMapping Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“A similar argument can be made about the form that the interface takes—with little pictures of folders and pages and trash cans. Those analogies are based in physical forms and so we associate the simplicity of the physical folder with that of the digital one. At best, we have faith in the interface that it is an accurate simplification of a more complex system behind it, and at worse, we don’t even recognize the complexity at all.” ComplexityInterface Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice
“The paradox of impact is that while design shapes the world in profound ways, it is also being shaped by the world. Design as a process necessarily interfaces with many other systems to shape and redefine the world and our human experience within it. Designers and design in general is, however, uniquely situated to be critical mediators between the various entities, forces, and agendas that are constantly at work in developing the future that we collectively and individually want.” DesignArchitectureMediator Book:Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice Source: Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice