Principle 8.21: Aesthetics as emancipation!

Over the past few years I've experienced many different flavors of design, aesthetics and human-computer interaction. At Stanford, there's a lot of different philosophies on design. The D School prides itself in empathy and needfinding, and teaches processes that optimize for gathering information from populations of interest groups. My HCI classes like the 147 series build on this, and discuss what role computers could (and maybe not enough of should) play in our lives, discussing the hotter topics like ubicomp, AR and AI. Design classes, such as some of the ME series, focus more on technique and visual thinking, developing artistic and prototyping techniques.

Rarely is "aesthetics" as a standalone, worthwhile concept mentioned. It's up to you to develop and imbue your own art style and design sense into the work you do. Sure, we're taught color theory and the importance of white space -- but mainly for why, psychologically, they can optimize an itnerface.

In fact, the treatment of art and aesthetics into interfaces and design at Stanford feels like the commodification of aesthetics -- fitting for a school that seems to regularly produce startups that commodify anything that can be possibly commidified. In HCI, "Human design" has nothing to do with the designer or the human, but with data, strategy and optimization. Needfinding and empathy are tools strapping entrepreneurs use to capitalize on the issues of vulnerable communities to solve in the form of yet another app. We use "design patterns" and bootstrapping to expedite the "aesthetic" process. What results is a million apps that look exactly the same. But these products aren't just banal and boring -- they lack humanity, making them feel devoid of the empathy and understanding they intend to have -- even if their practicality and functionality is well-intentioned.

The radicality of Artful Design is incredibly simple -- design first and foremost for humanization -- not as a feature, or an aesthetic skin, but as a guiding principle. But indeed is it radical -- designing for emotion, delight and sublimity is incredibly liberating. It allows the designer to make design a form of self-expression.

But the implications of this idea go way beyond making pretty things -- the future of our wellbeing as a society depends on artful design. As the world progresses into a more technological state, it continues to lose much of its sense of humanity -- which has brought down our ethical senses and mental healths. Artful design makes ethicality an end in itself. Our society, in its politcal, capitalistic, state, needs more ethics as an end-of-itself, more than ever.