Reflecting on the Role of Designers in Society

Article Sidebar

Temes de Disseny #40 - The Role of Designers in Society: Ethical, Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
PDF (ENG + CAT + ES)

Main Article Content

Bori Fehér
Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7736-998X
Jonathan Ventura
Unit for History and Philosophy, Shenkar – Engineering. Design. Art
https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4682-8188
Ariel Guersenzvaig
Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (UVic-UCC)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6346-1512

This special issue of Temes de Disseny explores the ethical, theoretical and practical roles of designers in the 21st century, focusing on design justice, community engagement, digitalization, AI, healthcare and social justice. In today’s world, beset by multifaceted crises, these changes must trigger a reflection on the strategic direction of design practice to keep its social and economic importance in society relevant and productive. Increasingly, designers are focusing on social and ethical considerations, ensuring their processes and outcomes align with sustainability, well-being, privacy and broader societal impact. This shift has sparked a growing interest in examining the complex role of designers through various lenses. This issue of Temes de Disseny delves into these topics through original research papers, case studies and a provocation.

Keywords
Social Design, Design Ethics, Civic Engagement, Design Justice, Participatory Design, Digitalisation, Sustainability

Article Details

How to Cite
Fehér, Bori et al. “Reflecting on the Role of Designers in Society”. Temes de Disseny, no. 40, pp. 10-23, doi:10.46467/TdD40.2024.10-23.
Rights
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(c) Bori Fehér, Jonathan Ventura, Ariel Guersenzvaig, 2024

Author Biographies

Bori Fehér, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME)

Dr Bori Fehér, an associate researcher, leads the Social Design Hub at MOME Innovation Center. For more than a decade, she has been guiding practice-based research projects focusing on social, eco and humanitarian design. Her research primarily revolves around the climate crisis and its connections to social resilience, with a particular focus on disadvantaged communities and organisations in rural peripheries. Bori is currently leading the Erasmus+ Cooperational Partnership Change Agents project. As a co-founder, she serves as co-chair of the Social Design Network, an initiative born from her own ideas in 2020. Since 2014, Bori has been a visiting researcher at the Maryland Institute College of Art Center for Social Design in Baltimore, USA. She obtained her degrees in architecture and design management from MOME, where she also earned her doctorate summa cum laude. Prior to her current roles, she practiced architecture in Budapest and New York, USA. Additionally, she teaches R&D&I courses and acts as a supervisor at the MOME Doctoral School.

Jonathan Ventura, Unit for History and Philosophy, Shenkar – Engineering. Design. Art

Prof. Jonathan Ventura (PhD) is a design anthropologist, specialising in social and healthcare design, applied design research and design theory. Jonathan is currently the Director of The Unit for History and Philosophy of Art, Design and Technology at Shenkar: Engineering. Design. Art. Jonathan is also a Research Fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, London and a member of the Doctorate School at MOME University in Budapest. Jonathan is also the co-founder and co-director of the international Social Design Network (socialdesignnetwork.org) and is the head of the knowledge committee of design at the Ministry of Education in Israel. His latest book, titled Introduction to Design Theory co-authored with Michelle Gal, was published in July 2023 by Routledge. His latest article titled “Decoding Visual Culture” was published in 2024 at Visual Studies (Routledge).

Ariel Guersenzvaig, Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (UVic-UCC)

Ariel Guersenzvaig is a design and technology ethicist and a professor at ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. His work focuses on the socio-ethical effects of machine intelligence on society, and the study of professional ethics in design. His book The Goods of Design: Professional Ethics for Designers (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) was included in the 2022 Outstanding Academic Titles list published by Choice, the journal of the American Library Association. He has published over 20 articles in edited books and scientific journals such as ACM Interactions, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Big Data & Society, American Journal of Bioethics, Ethics & Information Technology and AI & Society. Before entering academia, he worked in the industry from the mid-90s to the early 2010s in the fields of user experience and service design. He holds a PhD in Design Theory from the University of Southampton and a master's degree in Ethics from the University of Birmingham. He is a member of the research ethics committee at the University of Vic-UCC, Spain.

References

Bezdek, Barbara L. 2013. “Citizen Engagement in the Shrinking City: Toward Development Justice in an Era of Growing Inequality”. St. Louis University Public Law

Review 33(1): 3-56. https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/plr/vol33/iss1/4

Bratteteig, Tone, Keld Bødker, Yvonne Dittrich, Preben Mogensen and Jesper Simonsen. 2013. “Methods: Organising principles and general guidelines for Participatory Design projects”. In Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design, edited by Jesper Simonsen and Toni Robertson. Routledge.

Buwert, Peter, and Matt Sinclair. 2024. “Thought Experiments in Design Ethics”. Temes de Disseny 40: 54-73. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.54-73

Costanza-Chock, Sasha. 2020. Design justice: community-led practices to build the worlds we need. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12255.001.0001

DiSalvo, Carl. 2012. Adversarial Design. The MIT Press.

DiSalvo, Carl. 2022. Design as Democratic Inquiry: Putting Experimental Civics into Practice.The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13372.001.0001

Finardi, Marco Andrea, Alexandra Coutsoucos and Annalinda De Rosa. 2024. “Co-designing with and for Small and Remote Communities: Reflections on Transformative Innovation, Servitisation, and Agonism”. Temes de Disseny 40: 112-135. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.112-135

Guersenzvaig, Ariel. 2021. The Goods of Design: Professional Ethics for Designers. Rowman & Littlefield.

Guersenzvaig, Ariel, and Jonathan Ventura. 2023. “Designing as self-enactment: Care and responsibility in design practice”. In Expanding the Frontiers of Design: Critical Perspectives, edited by Gabriela Goldschmidt and Ezri Tarazi, 92-111. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1201/b22630-8

Jekli, Ágnes. 2024. “Visual Communication Bridging Intercultural Barriers - Collaborative Methods Supporting the Social Inclusion of Young Refugees”. Temes de Disseny 40: 176-200. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.176-200

Jeoung-Rakova, Oxana. 2024. “Digitising the Physical: The Evolving Role of Collaboration Tools in Citizen Participatory Design Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Seoul”. Temes de Disseny 40: 136-155. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.136-155

Merter, Sevi. 2024. “Co-Learning Scenarios with the Community: Democratic Practices In and Out of the Design Studio”. Temes de Disseny 40: 74-91. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.74-91

Monna, Vanessa, and Valentina Auricchio. 2024. “Designing the in-between: Outlining the roles of the designer in the civic arena”. Temes de Disseny 40: 24-43. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.24-43

Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. Verso.

Parvin, Nassim. 2023. “Just Design: Pasts, Presents, and Future Trajectories of Technology”. Just Tech: Social Science Research Council, February 1, 2023. https://doi.org/10.35650/JT.3049.d.2023.

Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber. 1973. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”. Policy

Sciences 4(2): 155–69.

Sallés Diego, Lluís. 2024. “Design as a Political Object: The Necessary Positioning of the Designer as an Agent of Change”. Temes de Disseny 40: 44-53. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.44-53

Sangüesa, Ramon and Ariel Guersenzvaig. 2019. “AI as a Design Material: Dealing with New Agencies”. Temes de Disseny 35: 6-25. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD35.2019.6-25

Simonsen, Jesper, and Toni Robertson, eds. 2013. Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design. Routledge.

Snowden, David, and Mary Boone. 2007. “A leader's framework for decision making”. Harvard Business Review 85(11): 68.

Succini, Laura, Erik Ciravegna, Flaviano Celaschi and Veronica Pasini. 2024. “Responsible Advanced Design: Achieving Sustainability through Collaborative Processes”. Temes de Disseny 40: 92-111. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.92-111

Tromp, Nynke, and Paul Hekkert. 2019. Designing for society: Products and services for a better world. Bloomsbury.

Tromp, Nynke, and Stéphane Vial. 2022. “Five components of social design: A unified framework to support research and practice”. The Design Journal 26(2): 210-228. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2022.2088098

Vacanti, Annapaola, Francesco Burlando Alejandro Ivan Paz Ortiz and Massimo Menichinelli. 2024. “Challenges and responsibilities in the UX design of text-to-image AI models: A discussion through a comparative heuristics evaluation”. Temes de Disseny 40: 156-175. https://doi.org/10.46467/TdD40.2024.156-175

von Busch, Otto, and Karl Palmås. 2023a. The Corruption of Co-Design Political and Social Conflicts in Participatory Design Thinking. Routledge.

von Busch, Otto, and Karl Palmås. 2023b. “Design is… corrupting”. The Design Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2023.2200295