Design Process

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Provocative design for unprovocative designers: Strategies for triggering personal dilemmas 

Deger Ozkaramanli, Pieter Desmet

University of Liverpool, TU Delft

d.ozkaramanli@liverpool.ac.uk

Keywords: design with dilemmas; provocative design; design strategy; conflicting concerns

Abstract

Traditional design approaches stimulate the creation of products that make daily interactions more efficient, comfortable, and pleasant. In contrast, provocative design approaches, such as critical design, have a different focus: they aim to challenge the status quo through products that expose assumptions and stimulate discussion. In this paper, we argue that intentionally triggering personal dilemmas is a novel design approach that may be a means to enabling self-reflection. In line with this, this paper proposes three design strategies for triggering dilemmas. These strategies are explained through existing designs and supported by design ideas created using them. Our findings indicate that triggering dilemmas is a counter- intuitive design intention, which can be supported by exercises that facilitate perspective taking and stalling moral judgment. We conclude with a discussion on the overlap between triggering dilemmas and other provocative design fields. 

This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

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Cite this paper: Ozkaramanli, D., Desmet, P. (2016). Provocative design for unprovocative designers: Strategies for triggering personal dilemmas. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016.

This paper will be presented at DRS2016, find it in the conference programme


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