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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
"This book is a must read for all with an interest in the future of design." --Jim Spohrer, PhD, Retired Industry executive, International Society of Service Innovation Professionals "The world is in need of better design, and Kozma's book shows us how to get there." --Mark Guzdial, Director, Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering, University of Michigan Design services, products, experiences, and places that transform the world for the better Make the World a Better Place: Design with Passion, Purpose, and Values presents an insightful and hands-on discussion of design as a profoundly human activity and challenges us all to use design to transform the world for the better. The book explains how and why the design industry lost its way, and how to re-ignite the idealism that once made it a force for good. Make the World a Better Place describes a set of moral principles, based on our shared humanity, that can be used to create "good" designs: designs that reduce harm, increase well-being, advance knowledge, promote equality, address injustice, and build supportive, compassionate relationships and communities. Dr. Kozma applies philosophy, psychology, sociology, and history to the world of design, including: * Examples and case studies of designs--both good and bad * Seven principles of good design, based on the impact designs have on people * An approach to design as a "moral dialog among co-creators," in which the seven principles can be applied to intentionally improve the world * Comprehensive explorations of a person-resource-activity model that explains how technology shapes designs * Detailed analyses of the strengths and pitfalls of five design traditions, which include the scientific, technical-analytic, human-centered, aesthetic, and social movement traditions
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Table of Contents
Cover
Advanced Praise for
Make the World a Better Place
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author Bio
Preface
Who Should Read This Book
How to Read This Book
Why I Wrote It
Who Helped Me Write It
Part I: A World by Design
1 Moral Imperative
To Design Is Human
Moral Responsibility of Designers
The Designed World
How Has Design Failed Us?
Moral Decisions and Their Consequences
Your Designs Might Save Us
References
2 What Is Design?
Everyday Design
Everyday Designers
Design as a Process
Good Designs versus Good Impacts
Everyday Designs and Making the World Better
Designs Big, Small, and Not at All
References
3 Moral Foundations for Designing a Better World
The Philosophers and “The Good”
Moral Foundations for Good Design
Self and Others
References
4 Design within a System
Systems: Simple, Complex, and Complex Adaptive
The Dynamics of Complex Adaptive Human Systems
Design to Make the System Work
Elinor Ostrom and Design for the Common Good
The Appropriate Level of Complexity
References
5 Technology, Activity, and Culture
How to Think about Technology
Technology at the Micro Level: Affordances and Activity
Technology at the Macro Level: Culture and Impact
Moral Impacts of Technology and Our Designs
References
Part II: Our Design Traditions
6 The Scientific Tradition
Design Traditions
Roots of the Scientific Revolution
Characteristics of the Scientific Tradition
Case Study: Mendelian Genetics
Systemic Implications of the Scientific Tradition
Moral Implications of the Scientific Tradition
References
7 The Technical-Analytic Tradition
Roots in the Industrial Revolution
Emergence of the Technical-Analytic Tradition
Characteristics of the Technical-Analytic Tradition
Case Study: Ford versus Ferrari
Systemic Implications of the Technical-Analytic Tradition
Moral Implications of the Technological-Analytic Tradition
References
8 The Human-Centered Tradition
Roots in the Technical-Analytic Tradition
Characteristics of the Human-Centered Approach
Case Study: Alight, Kuja Kuja, and IDEO.Org
Systemic Implications of the Human-Centered Approach
Moral Implications of the Human-Centered Approach
References
9 The Aesthetic Tradition
Roots in Ancient Human Expression
Characteristics of the Aesthetic Approach
Case Study:
Starry Night
Systemic Implications of the Aesthetic Tradition
Moral Implications of the Aesthetic Tradition
References
Note
10 The Community Organization and Social Movement Tradition
Roots in Systemic Harm
Characteristics of the Social Movement Tradition
Case Study: Black Lives Matter (BLM)
Systemic Implications of the Community Organization and Social Movement Tradition
Moral Implications of the Community Organization and Social Movement Tradition
Summary of Design Traditions
References
Part III: Design with Passion, Purpose, and Values
11 Design with Passion and Purpose
Passion
Purpose
Moral Reasoning and Moral Dialog
Design as a Moral Dialog among Co-Creators
Case Study: Burning Man and Radical Inclusion
New Roles for Designers
Creating a Collaborative Culture of Moral Design
References
12 Reduce Harm and Increase Happiness
Values
Cause No Harm
Reduce Harm
Case Study: WestGate Water
Increase Happiness
Designing for Happiness
Case Study: Happy Cities
References
13 Advance Knowledge, Reasoning, and Agency
Knowledge at the Micro Level
Reasoning: What We Do with Knowledge
Agency: How Knowledge Empowers Us
Designing for Knowledge and Agency at the Micro Level
Knowledge and Institutions at the Macro Level
Learning in Communities
Case Study: High Tech High
References
14 Promote Equality and Address Injustice
Equality
Inequality by Design
Merit and Its Tyranny
Justice
Designs that Promote Equality and Address Injustice
Case Study: The City of Austin and Reimagining Public Safety
Moral Discourse to Promote Equality and Address Injustice
References
15 Build Supportive Relationships and Communities
Moral and Survival Foundations of Relationships
Relationships and Well-Being: The Micro Level
Relationships at the Community Level
Relationships at the Macro Level
Loss of Relationships and Trust
Case Study: Braver Angels
Designing for Relationships and Community
References
Part IV: Redesigning the System
16 The Economy, Government, and Design
Tragedy of the Commons
The Economy and Self-Interest
The Economy and Government Control
Government and Collective Action
Designs to Resolve the Tragedy
References
17 Where Do We Go from Here?
Which of Two Roads?
Finding a Home…or Building One
Creating a Culture of Everyday Design for a Better World
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 World GDP (
Source:
Our World in Data).
Figure 1.2 Boeing 737 MAX 8 (Photo by Andreas Zeitler, Shutterstock).
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Carnegie Mellon University Prof. Herbert Simon (Public domain, Ro...
Figure 2.2 Design.
Figure 2.3 Chef José Andrés (Photo by Lev Radin, Shutterstock)
Figure 2.4 World Central Kitchen with Ukrainian refugees (Photo by Sodel Vla...
Figure 2.5 Indiana University Prof. Elinor Ostrom (© Prolineserver 2010, Wik...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 John Locke (Line engraving by J. June after Sir G. Kneller, 1697)...
Figure 3.2 David Hume (Illustration by Istock World).
Figure 3.3 John Stuart Mill (Photo from Everett Collection).
Figure 3.4 Adam Smith (Getty Images).
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Imagine Plank St. Community Planning Meeting (Photo by Leslie Ros...
Figure 4.2 Plan for Plank St. Civic Center (Illustration by WHLC Architectur...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Person-resource-activity model.
Figure 5.2 Teenage girls using social media (Photo by SpeedKingz).
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Gregor Mendel
Figure 6.2 Punnett Square.
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Ford GT40 (Photo by EA Photography, Shutterstock).
Figure 7.2 Ferrari 365 (Photo by Dan74, Shutterstock).
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Kuja Kuja workers off to work with clients (
Source:
Alight).
Figure 8.2 A Kuja Kuja worker with a client (
Source:
Alight).
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Vincent van Gogh self-portrait (Illustration from Everett Collect...
Figure 9.2
Café Terrace at Night
(Illustration from Vovalis).
Figure 9.3
Starry Night
(Photo by Bumble Dee).
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Patrisse Cullors, one of the Black Lives Matters Founnders (Phot...
Figure 10.2 BLM protest (Photo by Aspects and Angels, Shutterstock).
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 Michael Sandel (
Source:
Wikimedia Commons).
Figure 11.2 The Man and the crew that built the base (Photo by Vanessa Frank...
Figure 11.3 Burners on the playa at dusk (Photo by Vanessa Franking).
Figure 11.4 Burners and art on the playa at (Photo by Vanessa Franking, scul...
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 WestGate congregants collecting recyclables (
Source:
WestGate Ch...
Figure 12.2 Villagers with a new well (
Source:
WestGate Church).
Figure 12.3 Happy Cities Modular Housing Set Up for Aboriginal Day Ceremony ...
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1 Factory model of education (Photo contributor LiliGraphie).
Figure 13.2 High Tech High students designing a project (
Source:
High Tech H...
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 John Rawls (
Source:
Wikimedia Commons).
Figure 14.2 Protests in Austin (
Source:
IMAGN).
Figure 14.3 Austin City meeting among citizens and police (
Source:
IMAGN).
Chapter 15
Figure 15.1 Braver Angels Red-Blue Workshop (
Source:
Braver Angels).
Figure 15.2 Braver Angels Red-Blue Workshop (
Source:
Braver Angels).
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressing a rally (Photo by Yoichi Y...
Guide
Cover Page
Advanced Praise for Make the World a Better Place
Title Page
Copyright
Make the World a Better PlaceDesign with Passion, Purpose, and Values
Dedication
Author Bio
Preface
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Advanced Praise for Make the World a Better Place
The world is facing multiple crises. But what can we do? Make the World a Better Place helps answer that question. Kozma’s deep analyses, coupled with case studies of groups already at work, makes this an essential book for everyone: citizens, designers, and most importantly, decision-makers in business and government.
Don Norman, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor and founder of the Design Lab, Emeritus
University of California, San Diego
Author of Design for a Better World
Has design lost its moral compass? Kozma's Make the World a Better Place comes at important time in human history as unintended consequences of design are causing harm and benefits at scale. This book is a must read for all with an interest in the future of design.
Jim Spohrer, Ph.D.
Apple and IBM retired executive
Board of Directors, International Society of Service Innovation Professionals
Dr. Kozma shares decades of his experience designing and studying designs for the audacious goal of making our lives and world better. He offers concrete principles and processes to help us design better and to think critically about the designs in our lives. The book is fun to read with informative case studies that demonstrate the myriad ways design impacts us all. The world is in need of better design, and Kozma's book shows us how to get there.
Mark Guzdial, Ph.D.
Director, Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences,
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
College of Engineering
University of Michigan
I have come to see that, at one level, democracy is a design problem—from the writing of a constitution to the structure of a Town Hall meeting to the layout of a ballot. But today's crisis of democracy runs deep and turns on the function of society itself. To address this larger societal problem, Kozma expands the scope of Design in this comprehensive and compelling book. Here, broad theory and detailed application inform each other, pointing the way toward a society in which individuals and communities can flourish and the ideals of democratic governance may come to fruition.
Robert Cavalier, Ph.D.
Director, Program for Deliberative Democracy
Emeritus Teaching Professor of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University
Following on Don Norman's landmark books (Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design), Kozma's Make the World a Better Place crystallizes, in accessible prose, with plenty of detail, where the field of designing “everyday things” needs to be going. Kozma's book is a GPS for HCI.
Elliot Soloway, Ph.D.
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering
University of Michigan
This book is true to its title in helping the reader understand at the deepest level how each of us can make the world a better place. It neither preaches nor simplifies the task, but rather presents through captivating real-world examples of design successes and failures across multiple fields the moral imperative of designing well. Reading the manuscript has taught me that we are all in some way designers, and it has enhanced my work as a law professor and foundation executive.
Jay Folberg, J.D.
Professor and Dean Emeritus
School of Law
University of San Francisco
Founding Executive Director, The JAMS Foundation
I highly recommend Bob Kozma's new book Make the World a Better Place: Design with Passion, Purpose, and Values. This book is an important—and timely—addition to that of other pioneers in many fields who have been promoting the importance of students' learning design thinking/doing in K–16 (and graduate school) education. But more than this, it deals with issues that are often not emphasized—values, ethics, and connecting passion with purpose. This book will be invaluable to learners and designers of all ages and backgrounds in collaborating together to deal with solving complex, sometimes called "wicked," problems and issues requiring transdisciplinary, systems thinking, on a global scale—and critical to our survival and continued growth.
Ted M. Kahn, Ph.D.
CEO and Chief Futurist and Learning Architect
DesignWorlds for Learning and
DesignWorlds for College and Careers
As a society, we have the means to design our way out of wicked problems. Good design can reduce harm, increase happiness, and improve equity and shared prosperity. This knowledge is powerful. It can fill us with optimism. Kozma gets to the very root of design's relationship to culture and the real human consequences that flow from the design process. The book is a must read for those interested in design for the greater good.
Robert Ferry
Registered Architect LEED AP
Co-founder, Land Art Generator Initiative
With his meticulous research, multifaceted thinking, and marvelous prose, Robert Kozma takes us on a quite memorable journey to make the world a better place.
Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D.
Professor of Instructional Systems Technology
Indiana University
Make the World a Better Place
Design with Passion, Purpose, and Values
Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D.Emeritus Principal ScientistSRI InternationalMenlo Park, CaliforniaUS
Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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So, let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with.
Amanda GormanNational Youth Poet LaureateThe Hill We Climb2021 Presidential Inauguration
To Dad
We call them the Greatest Generation
not because they made the most money
but because they sacrificed the most
for the greatest good.
Author Bio
Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D.Emeritus Principal Scientist,SRI International
Robert Kozma is a retired professor, research scientist, and international consultant living with his wife in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. He was a professor at the School of Education and a research scientist at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan as well as a center director and principal scientist at the Center for Technology and Learning at SRI International in Silicon Valley. During his research career, he wrote extensively on media theory, the design and evaluation of educational technology systems, technology in science education and technology policy in support of educational reform. He and his research teams also designed advanced multimedia systems, primarily in the area of science learning.
His work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, The World Bank, and UNESCO among other organizations. His academic research was published in Review of Educational Research, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Cognition and Instruction, Learning and Instruction, Educational Technology Research and Development, Journal of Research on Computers in Education, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Chemistry Education, Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, and Computers and Composition among other journals and chapters in numerous edited books.
He consulted internationally, having visited more than 80 countries. His consultation focused on technology policies in support of educational reform that fostered economic and social development, preparing students for the knowledge economy and information society. His clients included ministries of education and other government and nongovernment agencies in Singapore, Norway, Jordan, Egypt, Thailand, and Chile among other countries; multinational organizations, such as UNESCO, OECD, and the World Bank; and high-tech companies, including Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco.
Preface
Who Should Read This Book
Well, first of all, if in your design work, you are primarily focused on making tons of money and retiring to a beach villa, this book may not be for you. There are ways to make tons of money in design and there are books to help you do that. But that's not the point of this book. This book is for people who want to make the world a better place. Design can help you do that as well. Indeed, I contend, it is the best way to do it.
This book does not focus on a narrow audience. Whether you are an engineer or a teacher, a musician, hobbyist, or homemaker, you are capable of designing. We are all everyday designers and all of us can help design a better world. Here are some specific groups of people who might find this book interesting:
Professional designers and design students
There are, of course, professional books in specific areas of design, such as engineering, architecture, interior design, product design, user experience design, graphic design, and so on. They detail how design should be conducted in each field. This book does not intend to replace those books. Rather, it provides an insight into the more general issues, particularly social and moral issues that are often not addressed in those more technical, area-specific books. If you are a professional designer, this book will help you to think about your personal actions, as a designer, and those of your employer and clients in a larger context and how the contribution your work might make toward creating a better world. It may help you adjust your career path or select projects or an employer who can help you make the world a better place. If you are a professor in a design field, you may find this book an important supplement to your traditional textbooks.
Other professionals
Lawyers, doctors, teachers, legislators, and other professionals rarely think of themselves as designers. Yet the main focus of your work is to create artifacts—legal briefs, medical treatments, lesson plans, legislation—intended to make changes or improvements for your clients, patients, students, and so on. As with professional designers, the book will help you to think about your work in the larger context, and help you focus your professional goals and the outcome of your actions, particularly as they might make the world a better place.
Corporate, investment, and foundation officers
Perhaps you are an officer or director of a corporation that is engaged in developing products or services. If so, you probably have many designers on your staff or you hire design firms. This book may help you think about your products and services in a larger context and, perhaps, rethink your business model, not to only create profitable products and services, but to improve society and the health of the planet. If you are an investment officer, this may help you focus on the social responsibilities of companies in which you invest. You may also come to include in your portfolio social-innovation startups that may not have the potential for large return on investments but may make significant contributions to social well-being, if they only had access to needed capital. If you are a foundation officer, read this book with an eye for reviewing your funding portfolio so as to create resources for design projects, big and small, global and local, that address the crucial problems that we face today. Of course, you are probably already doing this, but consider including in your qualifications not only universities, R&D institutes, and large nonprofits, but also small community groups and individual designers with great design ideas to improve their communities and the world.
Consumers of designs
Daily, all of us purchase and use products, take advantage of services, and are impacted by policies that elected representatives enact. These products, services, and policies are designs. This book is meant to give you a very different perspective on these everyday things. It will help you understand the thinking that went into them—or should have gone into them. And it will help you be a more critical, demanding consumer. It will help you decide to buy or not to buy certain products or services. It will help you demand better designed products, with more positive social impact, less impact on our environment, or less use of limited resources. It encourages you to engage in the political process so that public policies benefit the greater good, rather than narrow special interests.
Everyone else who wants to make the world a better place
Hopefully, this is all of us. It could be you. We all face challenges that affect our world, from climate change, plastics filling our oceans, and homelessness to arranging our work environment and putting a healthy meal on the table. These are all designs. We can all benefit from thinking more deeply about design; we can all benefit from your involvement in the design process. You could be a student deciding on a career, or be mid-career looking to change focus, or at the end of your career searching for purpose in retirement. If your passion is directed toward creating a better world, this book is for you. It is designed to give you a different way of thinking about the world and your role in it. And when it comes down to it, YOU are the product of your own design; you set your purpose in life and act on it to achieve your goals. You can choose to make the world a better place.
How to Read This Book
I, like most authors, hope you find value in every chapter, section, and word of this book. On the other hand, I'm reasonable enough to know that within the diverse audience I'm addressing, there are likely to be some chapters you find compelling while others will be irrelevant. Here is a layout that might help you read this book more selectively.
I highly recommend that everyone read Part I, Chapters 1–5, on design and the moral urgency for designing a better world. Part II, Chapters 6–10, presents five design traditions: Scientific, Technical-Analytic, Human-Centered, Aesthetic, and Community Organizing and Social Movements. Each chapter presents the history of the tradition, describes its characteristics, gives a case study, and explores the sociocultural and moral implications of the tradition. You can read these chapters as a set, of course, or read them selectively, depending on your profession or interest, or skip them altogether.
I recommend that everyone read Chapter 11, “Design with Passion and Purpose,” that leads off Part III, “Design with Passion, Purpose, and Values.” The other chapters in Part III drill down into specific values: Chapter 12, “Reduce Harm and Increase Happiness”; Chapter 13,“Advance Knowledge, Reasoning, and Agency”; Chapter 14. “Promote Equality and Address Injustice”; and Chapter 15, “Build Positive, Supportive Relationships and Community.”
With Part IV, “Redesigning the System,” I turn to larger themes. You may want read Chapter 16, “The Economy, Government, and Design,” to help you understand the larger context that both influences and is influenced by design. Finally, I highly recommend that you read the last chapter, “Where Do We Go from Here?” This chapter helps you think about how to structure you career and life to design a better world and help create a culture of design.
Why I Wrote It
I bring a certain personal background to this book that has influenced me and informed my writing task. I was born in 1946, post-WWII USA, coincidentally the same year that the ENIAC was born, the first general purpose computer. I was the oldest of five boys in a working-class family that, over a couple decades, entered the middle class. I was raised in the suburbs of boom-town Detroit, the engine of America's 20th-century manufacturing capacity. As a middle school student, I attended a predominantly Black school in our more-or-less integrated suburban town, and I attended a Catholic high school. I was in high school when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and when President John F. Kennedy, at his inauguration, said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” During my senior year in high school, President Kennedy was assassinated.
In my late teens, I worked on the assembly line at Ford Motor Company in the summers to pay the rather reasonable tuition of the University of Michigan, a high-quality, public post-secondary institution. At Michigan, I started my studies in aeronautical engineering but as the U.S. space program wound down and the Vietnam War ramped up, I transferred to political science and got a B.A. in that field. When I was in college, there was much social turmoil related to the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. During my senior year, Dr. King ascended to the mountain top. The next day, he was assassinated. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. One of his quotes I found particularly inspirational is, “Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.”
I got married at 21 as a college senior. Fresh out of the university with a degree in political science, I wondered what to do with my life. I applied to the Peace Corps, Vista (a domestic version of the Peace Corps), and the Teacher Corps. I was accepted into the Detroit Teacher Intern Program, a project between Detroit Public Schools and Oakland University to take B.A. generalists and turn them into teachers. I received my M.A. in Education while teaching at inner-city grade schools in Detroit for four years. During two of those years, I taught in an experimental program that emphasized mastery learning and gave teachers both accountability and professional autonomy in achieving it.
While I was teaching, and my wife and I were starting a family, I also got a Ph.D. in Educational Technology at Wayne State University, a public, urban institution in Detroit. Upon completion, I returned to Ann Arbor as a research associate for two years at a small, private social science R&D company. For 20 years subsequently, I was a research scientist and professor at the University of Michigan, where I conducted research on the impact of technology on education, and taught graduate courses in technology and design. This was at a time when the personal computer was sweeping the country's educational system and beginning to make its mark on other parts of society. In 1984, I started a small software company to design educational software for the new Macintosh computer. And during 1989–90, I took a sabbatical and was a Dana Fellow for Educational Computing in the Humanities at the Center for Design of Educational Computing at Carnegie Mellon University and took courses from Nobel Laurette Herbert Simon.
In 1994, as the World Wide Web was exploding and Detroit's auto industry was imploding, I moved to Silicon Valley to head up a research center at SRI International, one of the nation's most renowned high-tech R&D institutes. Shortly after, I met and married my current wife and soulmate, Shari Malone. My charge at SRI was to develop and evaluate applications of advanced technology to improve education. During my career, I had many research grants and wrote more than 90 academic journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. Topics were on how software designs can improve the understanding of complex concepts in chemistry and improve the process of written composition, on the evaluation online learning, and on technology policy and education reform.
In 2002, I left SRI to consult with multinational organizations, the high-tech industry, and ministries of education on technology-based educational reform policies and programs that support economic and social development. My international clients included the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco as well many ministries of education and governmental agencies in Singapore, Norway, Chile, Jordan, Egypt, India, Thailand, and other countries. In total, I visited more than 70 countries, in both the developed and developing world, to explore how technology could be used to advance educational reform and innovation. Shari and I also volunteered in rural African villages to help villagers explore how basic technologies might improve their access to education and markets for their farm produce.
In the course of my work, I have examined some of the best—and worst—uses of technological designs. I was inspired to write this book by the amazing designs that I've seen, as well as the awesome power of the technologies that have enabled them. I was compelled to speak by some of the terrible designs, both trivial and significant, that have been imposed on us—sometimes out of carelessness and sometimes out of malice—and the increasingly awesome implications that such designs have, not only on the quality of our lives but on the survival of our species.
Above all, I am motivated by my late father, who told me when I was a young man, “whatever you do, leave the world in a better place than you found it.” My father was very much of the old school, where principles and values mattered. He was a card-carrying member of the Greatest Generation. It is to his memory that I dedicate this book as well as to my wife, Sharon Malone; my kids, Sean Kozma and Nicole Kozma Tieche; my son-in-law, David Tieche; and my grandkids, Justus and Jaelle Tieche, for they are the ones closest to me who will be affected most by the designs we create. I also dedicate it to my younger brother, Brian, whose premature passing caused me to reconsider priorities in my retirement and decide to write this book. And finally, as I sit here writing, at times sequestered in place by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020–2022, I dedicate this book to the world's medical researchers and healthcare workers. They are the ones who designed the cures and vaccines for this scourge and who are on the front line, putting their lives at risk to save others. They are, indeed, making the world a better place in the face of this catastrophe and sometimes, sadly, in the face of abuse and personal threats. I also dedicate it to our essential workers—farmers, truck drivers, store clerks, and others who we had to count on to get us through this pandemic and who, too often, we take for granted.
Who Helped Me Write It
I would like to acknowledge the help and support of my wife and soulmate, Shari, who encouraged me to follow my passion, who tolerated our regular separations while I was “in my bubble,” who critiqued numerous early drafts, and who gave me valuable feedback. I am particularly indebted to Scott Paris for his thorough reading and invaluable comments on all the chapters and to my daughter, Nicole, who proofread and commented on each. I would like to express my deep gratitude to those who have read and commented on early drafts of various chapters: Alec Bash, Julius and Barbara Cassani, Robert Cavalier, Robert Cliff, Chris Dede, Ola Erstad, Paul Fagin, Robert Ferry, Jay Folberg, Mark Guzdial, Ted Kahn, Gary Kozma, Kurt Kozma, Nancy Law, Elizabeth Monoian, Tetyana Nanayeva, Freya Pruitt, Thomas Reeves, Larry Sutter, Tim Unwin, Don Weil, Jane Weil, Tracy Williams, and Andy Zucker. And I would like to thank my men's dinner group for 15 years of stimulating conversation and fellowship that lead up to this book.
I want to thank a number of people who helped me get photographic images for the book: Rex Cabaniss, Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, Vanessa Franking, Sandra Garcia Giraldo, Madeleine Hebert, Ciaran O'Connor, Dan Perkins, Tricia Prewitt, Leslie Rose, and Brent Spirnak.
A special thanks goes to the editorial team at Wiley: Todd Green, Judy Howarth, and Kelly Gomez, and to copy editing, initially by Traci Tieche, and by Barbara Long.
Finally, I dedicate this book to you, dear reader. For this book is not just a series of personal reflections, observations, and recommendations on design, it is a challenge to you. Design is sometimes thought of as a rarified domain restricted to specialists, such as engineers, computer programmers, architects, industrial designers, graphic designers, and fashion designers. But because, as I contend, design is a fundamentally-human activity, I would like you to consider how we are all designers and capable of designing a better world.
The major challenge to the human race—and to you, personally—is to develop and harness this human capacity, and the tools, materials, and technologies at our disposal, to address the myriad problems facing us, individually and collectively, in the 21st century. These problems play out in small, local ways and in grand, global ways. And they will require the contributions of all of us to solve them. I am asking you to follow my father's advice and design a world that is better than that which you found.
Part IA World by Design
1Moral Imperative
If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.
Rep. John Lewis
U.S. Congressman
When I was a young man and my father told me to leave the world a better place than I found it, it appealed to me as a nice sentiment. Now, his advice strikes me as a moral imperative.
The world is screaming to be made better. We look around: tragedy and misery abound.
Foreign states hack the infrastructure of governments and their economies.1 Deep fakes, bots, trolls, and fake news are capitalizing on our political and cultural divisions.2,3,4 Malware monitors our computer activity and steals our passwords.5 And ransomware captures our computers and holds our companies, records, projects, finances, and health hostage.6 Our preferences are sold to advertisers, our privacy lost.7
Our excesses are overloading our trash dumps, fouling our oceans, and polluting our rivers and air.8 Each year, U.S. municipalities dispose of approximately 250 million tons of solid waste left over from our consumption.9 The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” of plastic waste is estimated to be at least 79,000 tons of stuff that doesn't make it into the dumps, but instead floats inside an area of 617,000 square miles, an area more than twice the size of the state of Texas.10
In the U.S., more than 33 million people, including five million children, are going hungry, according to the US Department of Agriculture.11 12.8% of Americans live in poverty.12 Throughout the world, 183 million people in 47 countries are on the edge of hunger, with 135 million more suffering from malnutrition.13 The World Bank reports that in 2020, after nearly a quarter of a century of steady global declines in extreme poverty, poverty reduction had its worst setback in decades.14 The report estimates that as many as 115 million more people have been pushed into extreme poverty during the COVID pandemic. This is a level of poverty that economist Jeffrey Sachs calls “poverty that kills.”15
As I write this in January 2023, the world has experienced 6.7 million deaths due to COVID-19.16 1.1 million COVID deaths have occurred in the United States and over 100 million Americans have been infected. At it at its worst, 10 million jobs in the United States were lost due to the pandemic.17 And each day, 800 small business were closing for good.18 Globally, the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs were lost with $3.7 trillion in lost income.19
In 2021, due to the pandemic, drug overdoses, and the rise in diseases, life expectancy in the United States dropped to 76.1 years from a peak of 78.8 years in 2019 and is the lowest life expectancy among countries with large economies.20,21 Americans can now expect to live only as long as they could back in 1996. This continues a trend since 2016 that represents the longest consecutive decline in lifespan since World War I.22 Addictive drugs have taken hundreds of thousands of lives.23 In 2017, the U.S. suicide rate was 33% higher than in 1999 and was the highest rate since World War II.24 One in three Americans know someone who has committed suicide,25 the same number who know someone who has died from drug addiction.26 In 2020, aggravated assaults and gun assaults rose significantly in the United States, and homicide rates were 30% higher than in 2019, an historic increase.27
In 2021, 3,597 children in the U.S. died by gunfire and guns are now the leading cause of deaths for children ages 1–18 and more die from gunfire than from auto accidents, cancer, or drug overdoses.28
Human-generated greenhouse gasses have resulted in melting glaciers, rising ocean levels, extreme weather events, and lost species.29 From 2010 to 2019, the world saw nearly twice as many days (14 days per year) above 122°F as in the previous three decades.30 The United Nations' panel of climate scientists (IPCC) warned that based on the most recent action plans submitted by 191 countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on track to warm by more than 2.7°C by the end of the century, far above what scientist and world leaders have agreed is the acceptable upper limit of global warming.31
But climate change is not some far-off prediction; it is happening now and extreme weather is having devastating effects. In 2018, a raging forest fire in my home state of California destroyed the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and the population of the town fell by 92%.32 Since 2000, the annual average of 7 million acres burned is more than double the annual acreage burned in the 1990s.33 In February of 2021, Texas and other southern states experienced a severe cold snap that killed 58 people, knocked out power for millions, and froze pipes that burst and flooded homes.34 In July 2021, a heat wave killed hundreds of people in western U.S. states as temperatures reached all-time highs.35 And in September 2022, Hurricane Ian hit the coast of southwestern Florida, causing $60 billion in insured loses36 and at least 114 deaths.37 The latest IPCC report concluded that things will get much worse unless systemic transitions and transformational changes are made to safeguard human well-being.38
Much of the misery we see is human-made. Even the impact of natural disasters, such as extreme weather and COVID-19, are caused or worsened by human behavior and policies. The world we live in today—for good and bad, better and worse—is the result of our own doing, the consequence of our own personal, corporate, and governmental actions.
Is this the world we want?
In many ways we got ourselves into this mess. And in any case, we can get ourselves out of it—we must. There is hope. We can change things. It’s in our nature. But Nelson Mandela reminds us, “As long as poverty, injustice, and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”39 And as Dr. King would say, “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”40.
To Design Is Human
I contend that the characteristic that makes our species distinctively human—that which defines us and leaves our mark on the world—is not our exceptional intelligence, our language, or our use of tools, but humankind's ability to use these powerful resources in combination to create objects, processes, policies, institutions, and environments that go beyond the current condition in which we find ourselves to fashion a world that does not yet exist. That is, what defines human beings is our ability to plan, to create, to solve problems, and in so doing, to aspire to a different world. What is distinctively human is our ability to design. If other species are evolutionarily tuned to blend in, run, or hunt, we are evolutionarily tuned to design. It is through our designs that we will have a better world, that we will survive…or if we fail at it, perhaps not.
Design is the organizing concept that we explore in this book. We will see how it is that we've designed the world we live in, for good and bad. And we will see that by thinking of design as the everyday way that we all cope with and change our world, we can design not just to make new things, new services, and new experiences but to make the world a better place.
The prospect that our world will get more unequal, more hot, more contentious, more complex, and more challenging, means that our response—our designs—will need to meet those challenges. More and more people will need to take on the role of designer, in one way or another. And this role need not only include professional designers and specialized design teams and companies, but encompass everyday people, neighborhoods, and communities, as these complex challenges playout differently in local situations. Do we need product designers, software developers, engineers, architects, and urban planners? Most certainly. But also, teachers, healthcare providers, social workers, lawyers, managers, legislators, social influencers, and retirees. Church congregations and social clubs, men’s groups and women’s groups, fraternities and sororities, block clubs, and book clubs. Working together in twos, tens, and hundreds, we can improve our neighborhood, our city, our country, our world.
By participating in designs, we all have a moral obligation. Each of us, in our own way, has an obligation to see that designs make the world a better place by funding, creating, supporting, implementing, purchasing and using designs that improve not only our own condition, but also the condition of our fellow humans, our community, our country, and the world.
In this book, you will see some appalling designs that create harm and destroy people’s lives, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes through casual disregard, and too often, through greed and malice. You will also see designs that solve problems, save lives, and bring great joy. This book will lay a foundation for telling the differences between them. It will provide you with analyses, ideas, and moral principles that have practical implications for real design situations and for making the world better.
I hope this book convinces you of the urgency of our situation and inspires you to act. The designed world surrounds us, defines us, and challenges us. The future of the world and the human race may very well depend on our ability to develop the creative, innovative, and moral capacities of each of our citizens so that our future designs will meet the challenges of the increasingly complex and critical problems we face. It is your passion, purpose, and values, coupled with your creative ideas and efforts, and those of many others can help get us from where we are today to where we ought to be. We do now and will forevermore live in a designed world. And it is imperative that we—all of us—design it better.
Moral Responsibility of Designers
Designs can be good or bad. And I firmly believe that designers have a special moral role in making the world a better place. I'm convinced that, in light of the immense challenges we face, it is the passion, purpose, and moral values of designers that will make a difference in the world.
But, a voice from the sidelines says that it is none of your business. In his book The Philosophy of Design, professor Glenn Parsons claims:
One might agree that Design has the potential to reshape society in profound ways, but still maintain that this is not really the Designer's concern. The Designer, it might be said, should not concern herself with these larger problems, or try to engage in “comprehensive designing.” Rather, she should merely “stick to the brief.” These larger issues are the proper concern, not of Designers, but of someone else—perhaps the companies who decide which sorts of designs to commission or put into production, or perhaps the politicians whose job it is to regulate the use of certain products.41
He goes on to say:
It is true, of course, that Designers, like other professionals, are significantly constrained by the economic system in which they work—they are not free to reshape the world at their whim, but must satisfy their corporate masters.
By denying designers the right or obligation to participate in the moral aspects of their designs, Parsons assigns that right to those with the monetary resources needed to hire others—their “corporate masters.” Corporations, politicians, and regulators have moral responsibilities, of course. However, one must ask, why would the possession of money give those that have it a special moral status that allows them to, in effect, set the moral agenda for society and shape it in the way they see fit? And why should designers assume that politicians and regulators have all the moral bases covered?
Unfortunately, the motives of business owners and investors—those with the resources to hire people—are too often driven by the bottom line rather than a desire to make the world a better place. Too often the bottom line favors design ideas that make money in the short term, but degrade the overall quality of our society and world. And too often, politicians are beholden to special interests and regulating agencies are headed by people from the industries they regulate. So, why should we put our well-being and our lives exclusively in the hands of corporations and regulators? We have moral rights, responsibilities, and obligations, too. All of us are moral agents.
Neither designers nor anyone else give up their moral agency merely because they are employees or subject to being fired. Professional designers do not give up their humanity along with giving their labor, when hired. We are responsible for our own behavior. And as professionals, we owe an employer or our client not just our labor, skill, and expertise but our professional advice, including advice on the ethics or morality of a design, if the project implies it.
However, I do agree with Parsons on at least one thing: designs have the potential to reshape society in profound ways. Designers are in a unique position—maybe even more so than pastors, rabbis, mullahs, and philosophers—to shape our moral behavior. In his book What Things Do, philosophy professor Peter-Paul Verbeek, contends that the way we perceive and act in the world is mediated by designs and interacting with designs shapes our behavior.42 Designs are created with certain functions, or affordances, that enable users to act in the world in ways that are easier or more efficient, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of these actions. Or they make certain behaviors possible that users couldn't do otherwise. Hammers are designed to be pounded, cars to be driven, cigarettes to be smoked, guns to be shot; so, with these artifacts, we pound, drive, smoke, and shoot.
In these ways, Verbeek contends, designs “materialize morality”43 With the creation of designs, designers are often building in features and capabilities that, with their use and impact, have moral implications. It is in this way that designers have a special moral responsibility. They must think not only about the features they invent and intensions of their designs—what they would like to happen—but think about the moral impact, the consequences of their use.
The Designed World
Humans have been designing since the beginning. But human invention has grown exponentially and it has only been in the last 200 years that humans have come to be enveloped in the designed world, with all its desired benefits … and unintended consequences.
The Industrial Revolution was a major turning point in human history. It started with refinements of steam-powered engines in Great Britain in the mid-18th century that made them useful initially in the production of textiles. By the late 18th and early 19th century, the revolution was fully developed in Great Britain and established in the United States. Steam engines were particularly important in the growth of the United States, where they powered locomotives and river boats, facilitating movement across the huge land mass and river networks as the new nation expanded.
In 1844, a new power source, electricity, proved its practical use with the invention of the telegraph, introducing what some call the Second Industrial Revolution.44 By 1866, a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic between Europe and the United States.45 Ten years later, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison invented the first practical electric light bulb in 1878.46 With the widespread generation and transmission of electricity, electric lightbulbs replaced the use of candles and gas lights. The potential of this Second Industrial Revolution was fully realized with the invention of the AC electric motor by Nikola Tesla in 1887.
In 1946, the year I was born, the first electronic general-purpose computer, ENIAC, was also born and it launched the Third Industrial Revolution. It filled a 50-foot room and weighed 30 tons.47 At the time, Thomas Watson, the President of IBM, thought the worldwide market for computers was five, at the most.48 The early internet was established in 1969 and the World Wide Web in 1989.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which builds on the computer revolution, consists of three technological megatrends—physical, digital, and biological—that are impacting our economy, businesses, governments, society, and individuals.49 These trends are the result of an explosion of digital devices and their interconnectivity, including the internet of things (IoT), sensors, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), biotechnologies, neuro-technologies, artificial intelligence and robotics, and blockchains.
These revolutions have had a dramatic impact on our world and our everyday lives. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most humans survived off the land. Objects were made by hand in cottages or small shops. Most people lived a relatively simple life, rarely traveling far from their home or place of birth. Since then, there has hardly been an aspect of daily life these revolutions have not touched, often in ways not anticipated.
While Watson believed that the world would only need five computers, 349 million personal computers were sold around the world in 2021 alone.50 There are now 15 billion mobile devices in the world51 and approximately 5 billion of the world's 7.7 billion people have accessed the internet.52 The world's internet users make approximately 3.5 billion Google searches of the World Wide Web every day,53 2.45 billion users are active Facebook members,54 $4.2 trillion worth of online purchases were made in 2020,55 and 293 billion emails were sent and received every day in 2019.56
To give you a sense of how fast things have changed, my grandparents were born in an era of horse and buggy; they raised my parents in the age of the automobile; and before they died, my grandparents saw Neil Armstrong take “one small step.” In the span of a single lifetime, humankind moved from a form of transportation that they had used for 4,000 years to one that landed them on the moon.
The best of times
During the last 200 years, we came to live in a fully designed world, from the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, the food we eat, and the cars we drive to the “natural” world that surrounds us—the grass in our yard and 51% of U.S. land mass that are crops and pastures.57 But has all this made the world better?
Despite my bleak assessment, so far, the answer is a qualified “yes.”
The design of new machines, products, and processes have become a principle driver of our economy, and since the 19th century, have created a vast amount of economic wealth, as shown in a chart of gains in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) (see Figure 1.1).
These revolutions also unlocked a different way of thinking about the world. We've come to think that if there is a problem, if there is a need, a new invention or a new idea can take care of it. Prior to the Industrial Revolution and its intellectual cousins, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the world was pretty much taken for granted as it was. Change was incremental and came slowly. Since the Industrial Revolution, change is the norm, and the faster, the better.
Take, for example, the biological and health sciences. Plagues have wreaked havoc on the world throughout history.58 And as late as 1900, the three leading causes of death were pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea and enteritis, which caused one third of all deaths while 30% of all deaths occurred among children aged less than 5 years.59 It was less than 100 years ago, in 1928, that the antibacterial properties of penicillin were discovered and the drug was applied to treat a range of illnesses, including diarrhea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, meningitis, syphilis, and gonorrhea. A vaccine was discovered for tuberculosis in 1921, for polio in 1955, and for measles in 1968. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1977. And, the cocktail of drugs to treat human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) was designed in 1997. In late 2019, the world was hit by COVID-19. In response, the pharmaceutical industry, with government encouragement and support, designed the first approved vaccine within 7 months. Within 9 months, 11 vaccines had been approved for use around the world.60
Figure 1.1 World GDP (Source: Our World in Data).
In his book Enlightenment Now, Harvard professor Steven Pinker documents a wide range of positive social impacts of these developments.61 For instance, from 1990 to 2017, child mortality across the world dropped from 9.3% to 3.9%. During that same period, deaths around the world due to diarrhea dropped from 1.7 million to 580,000. The share of the earth's children under 5 years old who suffer from malnutrition dropped from 25% in 1990 to 13.5% in 2017.62 The number of people in the world living in extreme poverty dropped from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 730 million in 2015.63
