Addressing the Issue of Stigma-Free Design Through Critical Design Workshops

Abstract

Stereotypes and prejudices are a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon that can impinge on peoples' wellbeing. Moreover, the power of public stigma can make users of certain products experience discrimination, alienation, and inequality. Such experiences increase the likelihood of individuals rejecting products, services, environments, etc. altogether, often depriving them of e.g. safety, efficiency, and independence. In a worst-case scenario this can lead to a stigmatised condition that triggers further inequality and exclusion. In an increasingly complex world, it is imperative that those responsible for addressing future needs, challenges, and demands, i.e. the next generation of designers, architects, engineers, etc., are adequately equipped as regards methods and tools for battling existing stereotypes and prejudices related to social growth and development in society. Through this, they will ensure that stigma-free design is a priority when initiating, planning, and executing future projects. The purpose of this paper is to describe what happens when critical design is used to explore the stigma associated with existing products, services, environments, etc. in the context of interdisciplinary workshops, and to discuss the results so far. Furthermore, the paper examines whether and how this upside-down way of thinking about and performing design is a good contribution to the fields of design, architecture, engineering, etc. as a method of both teaching and learning about equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Exploring the Role of Shame in Design Strategies

“…The increased awareness of public shame and disclosure of new taboo domains such as mental health care, poverty and sustainability, suggests that there is a higher demand for designers to gain insights and intervene in areas where shame plays an influential role. Although the nature of shame is to avoid, conceal it or make it invisible (Büttner, 2020), making it more challenging to discover, more researchers have already made note of the current awareness on shame, and a few designers have highlighted the need for better design tools (Nilsson and Jahnke, 2018;Torkildsby and Vaes, 2019) and improved design education (Lillegård et al, 2021;Boks and Trondsen, 2021). Currently we are prototyping and testing various design tools for this purpose, such as an inspiration card deck with 64 social manifestations of shame, guilt and embarrassment, a tool based on memes, and an inverse empathy mapping tool.…”

Design With a Critical Lens Teaching Students How to Find, Rather Than Solve, Design Challenges Using Interdisciplinary Workshops

“…Using all kinds of materials, artefacts and props available from the various workshops at the university and from their private homes or shops nearby, they brought their CD examples to life by the end of Thursday. It should be noted that all the teams in WS3 ended up making full-scale models, simply because the students decided that, among other things, they would 'make an impact' or 'shock people' (to quote two of the students) during the planned exhibition [8]. On Friday, the students generated titles and graphics to complement their groups' CD example in the exhibition.…”

“…Critical and speculative design has been around since the late 1990s and it has proven to be effective as a medium for inquiry into present social, cultural, ethical, technical and economic implications of design and practice for decades [1], [2], [4]. However, our collective experience from conducting critical design workshops for more than 10 years in various higher education institutions in Europe [5][6][7][8] is that more emphasis could be put on this alternative way of thinking through design to, in short, open the minds of students. The importance of teaching students about existing stereotypes and prejudices also needs to be emphasized, given that products can be embedded with qualities and attributes, which directly cause social rejection and stigma among users and bystanderseven when nobody else is around.…”

The Emancipatory Design Manifesto: Let’s Suppose That Disability Does Not Exist

“…conducting critical design workshops -for students in the disciplines of design, architecture, heritage studies, urbanism, spatial planning, etc. -for close to 10-years [11,18,19,20,21] is, that they are most certainly up for the task. Tomorrow's designers already dream and speculate about how things could and should be -no doubt.…”