Social design as discussed in Chapter 7 of Artful Design by Ge Wang is more important than it’s ever been before with the accelerating rate of technological advancement and what news outlets like calling the “rise of social media”. Social media comes to mind first for me when thinking about social design because, well, it’s inherently social. Does this pinnacle of social design fit into how this book defines social design? In short, no. I already had my fair share of qualms with technology but given the lecture and chapter which discuss social design perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst design exercise to think about modern technology, how it fails to meet the standards of social design as outlined by this chapter, and technology that--by contrast--does exemplify social design.
First things first, social media platforms fail to meet almost every single design principle in this chapter. By the time I got to Design Principle 7.8, I realized that social media is, according to this book, by definition NOT social design. It fails to foster human connection (Principle 7.1), rearranges and deprioritizes rings of familiarity (Model 7.2), although arguably useful, strives to replace human interaction, fails to meet other values of a social tool e.g. fullness of expression, authenticity, and transparency (Principle 7.4), and is overcomplicated (Principle 7.5). A lot of modern design almost seems to intentionally go against what makes people safe and comfortable such as that strange whirring sound Teslas make, the fact that Soylent is named after a food from a sci-fi novel MADE FROM HUMANS, or don’t even get me started on the Chinese facial recognition system Skynet. It’s almost as though modern design wants to make people uncomfortable because safety and familiarity feels antiquated and utilitarianism is king. I could go on about how a lot of design seems to go against everything this book on designing artfully stands for, but I’ll refrain from writing out the five page essay in my mind. Overall the issue with a lot of design in technology is that it fails to take a humanistic approach, something emphasized throughout this book and particularly in this chapter.
How can we change this/ what design does successfully become a social tool? The first thing seems to be always keeping in mind the fact that humans neither want nor need to be replaced, simply helped and remembering the importance of interactivity (Principle 7.10). After all, the original computers were just people doing computations by hand! In the end, one of the principles that stood out to me the most was Principle 7.12: “not everything worthwhile is a problem to be solved”. I think we have a lot of technology and tools doing work and seeking solutions no one truly asked for and not everything has to be more advanced, streamlined, or efficient. It almost makes me think that we could use a break from developing technology and instead work on improving the existing ones and some things are just meant to be done the old fashioned way. I remember at one point franciscan monks were starting to take prayer request via text so people wouldn’t have to go to church, but although I’m not very religious nothing feels the same as being in a church, praying alongside others in a holy space. I like the idea that the future of computing as stated by Ben Shneiderman is about what people can do.