Design Anthropology

Dr. Elizabeth ‘Dori’ Tunstall presented at the Design Victoria seminar, 'The Human Side of Design – How design anthropology adds value', in August 2008.

Dori is an Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a research leader in the field of design anthropology. Here, she discusses the essence of design anthropology

Design anthropology

Designers primarily concern themselves with how to create a "successful" communication, product, or experience. But with the past 10 years of globalization, digitalization, and ever increasing design complexity, designers have come to realize that to answer the question of design "success" requires that they answer that question of how the processes and artifacts of design help define what it means to be human. This "humanness" can range from how humans control the environment through tools (homo faber); how high-heeled shoes affect natural ways of walking; to moral issues of how participation in the design process empowers marginalized communities. In this space, the practice and theory of design anthropology has emerged.

Design anthropology: What is it?

Design anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand the role of design artifacts and processes in defining what it means to be human (e.g., human nature). It is more than lists of user requirements in a design brief, which makes it different from contextual inquiry, some forms of design research, and qualitative focus groups. Design anthropology offers challenges to existing ideas about human experiences and values.

For example, I conducted a project for a large retail company in which I was expected to deliver an information architecture for the website. The method used was a standard card sorting exercise, but I also did research into how humans classify information. In addition to the information architecture, I delivered statements about the continued meaning of gender classifications. In the course of conducting the card sort, I learned that men and women continued to classify domestic products based on stereotypical gendered spaces of male equals outside/garage, and female equals inside. This was in spite of their lived gendered roles where the women where the heavy power-tool users and the men used blenders to make smoothies for the kids. My colleagues pointed out that my anthropological perspective produced insights beyond what the card-sort could deliver. The fact that the classification of consumer products lagged behind contemporary gender roles had strategic implication for how the client should and should not arrange the website site or retail spaces.

At the University of Illinois at Chicago where I teach, I train designers on anthropological theories and research methodologies. Contemporary anthropology is no longer primarily concerned with exotic peoples and dinosaurs. Anthropology is engaged with issues of the global flows of people and goods, human rights and social justice, global feminism, technology adoption, the social effects of the environmental degradation, and local sustainability practices — all issues that have become important to designers. I also work with anthropologists to learn and understand the theories and processes of designing. For their part, anthropologists are interested in learning how to better communicate their insights to wider society, a task in which design excels. While currently the practices are split, design anthropology's intentions are to create hybrid practices and practitioners. You can be a design anthropologist or an anthro-designer, but you are adept at both.

The focus of design anthropology is on connecting the process of design to the meanings and functions designed artifacts have for people. These meanings and functions often go beyond obvious attributes. For instance, one of my projects studied the tangible experience of male grooming as it relates to shampoo. Men were asked to video and photographically document their daily grooming process over seven days. The team and I watched hours of video tape of men brushing teeth, combing hair, cleaning ears, shaving, and showering (rated PG only). We learned which products the men preferred and why, doing good marketing analysis. But we also discovered that grooming and clean hair tied back to values of professionalism in ways that seemed reminiscent of pop culture "Ken" dolls and 1950s movies.

Design anthropology does not place separate emphasis on values, or design, or experience, which are the domains of philosophy, academic design research, and psychology, respectively. Rather, design anthropology focuses on the interconnecting threads among all three, requiring hybrid practices. The outcomes of design anthropology include statements providing some deeper understanding of human nature as well as designed communications, products, and experiences.

Related Links

Click here to read Dori’s full article on Adobe Think Tank.
Click here to listen to Dori +on ABC Radio National By Design (starts at 39:43min)

2 December 2008


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