Who designs?

[ Some thoughts on the nature and context of designers of technology and how it influences the outcomes. It is based on personal experience/observations as well as readings of Mathew E. Crawford’s ‘Shop Class as Soul Craft‘, Richard Sennett’s ‘The craftsman‘, Pankaj Sekhsaria‘s research and writings on this topic and more recently Manu Prakash‘s lectures, discussions and the idea of a frugal sciences community within his ‘Frugal Science‘ course. ]

The question is who are the designers of technological solutions? Are they the ones who are passionate about technology and would like to make new technology for the sake if it? Or are they the ones who face the problems and yearn for a solution to the problems through technology and ultimately build a stop-gap solution?

I wish i could ask every designer : Is tech an end in itself or just a means to an end?

I think it is the chronic-designers who form the bulk of people behind new technology. I am also one of them, i love to make/think tech because it is fun and engrossing. But there are some pockets where the people who face the problems are the technology developers. These first-hand responders to crisis or problems are often found in resource-constrained environments such as rural areas where the professional designers don’t dare venture due to lack of incentives (salary, quality of work environment, glamour, etc). Often known as jugaad or bricolage in different parts of the world (there may be words for this in all languages), these technologies have a different character than those designed by professionals.

The professionals are characterized by ‘working for others in return for monetary and allied incentives’. People here are the engineers, the designers, the scientists and others housed in corporate organizations, universities and also NGOs.

Characteristics:

1. These people’s lives are not as directly affected by the problems, and that is the distinguishing feature.
2. Surrounded by high resources of money, knowledge, internet, machines, software tools (simulation, etc), etc.
3. Living remote from the problem situations.
4. Often working on multiple problems unrelated to each other.
5. Working full time on technology design.
6. Highly trained in the domains.
7. Working in teams with varying expertise.

Pros

1. Remote perspective helps in isolating the problem from distracting issues arising from the context or environment of the problem.
2. High availability of resource allows for efficient problem solving, up to date with latest technologies and scientific understandings.
3. Availability of peer community world wide, thanks to the internet, helps in shortening the learning curve, sharing of experiences and brainstorming.
4. Working in a comfortable environment, with assured salaries and a mind free to give quality focus on the problem at hand – tremendously impacts the sustenance of the research interest and thus result in more chances of breakthrough.
5. Sustained research practice over the years of funding and comfortable life makes the researcher well trained in handling a multitude of problems, a versatile hand.
6. Availability of other’s expertise on hand allows for large teams to work together on isolated problems, thereby multiplying the chances of success and reducing the time required to achieve that.

However, there are problems. Often in India, politicians have a tendency to hover about problems and pick and choose those which will result in them getting voted to power. These are called in local terms – helicopter politicians. Also because they use helicopters to bypass the tough lanes and long laborious ground travels. In our discussion here, i use the same analogy. These helicopter engineers/scientists/designers and their helicopter ways of organizing and working, do bring along some problems of their own:

Cons

1. First, members of this group are not directly impacted by the problem faced. This, while being beneficial for allowing cold rationality to rule within the minds of the researchers, often misses the lived experiences and the richness (or poverty) surrounding the problem.
2. In real life, problems never exist in isolation. Multiple problems are at play at the same time – spanning social, technical, emotional, personal spaces and so on. Solving in one domain is often at the cost of the other domains. Could i share a joke here? Engineers can easily be the ones who effectively replace (solve?) 1 problem with many. Ha ha.
3. When one is remote from the problem at hand, the quantity and quality of observations round the context of the problem is very limited. This often may result in a misinterpreted problem. And this could also lead to suggesting solutions far more complicated and adversely impacting the end-user environment.
4. If one is trained in using specific tools, one tends to do all the thinking based on those tools only. This tools bias may lead to solutions ill suited or over-engineered. An example could be a part designed and made using sophisticated CNC machines, costly metal and so on, but then used in a dusty, humid, remote rural setting leading to rusting and damages. This leads to heavy maintenance and eventual dis-use of the part due to added costs and complications and breakdown times. Such is still a successful example. Another worse example could be the designer’s bias to use a certain workflow, CAD simulations for example, which hog immense time and resources while other frugal solutions remain unexplored.
5. Due to the remote location of the designers, in geography as well as in the hearts and minds, a very narrow problem is attempted to being solved. The tools used are sophisticated and require trained manpower. All this leads to solutions which may not be easily customizable by the end user to meet the always existing diversity of local situations. Or even for maintenance sake. The end-user is relegated to the dumb role of a passive consumer.
6. Problems in reality are never static and change with time and conditions and cultures. But can solutions, as designed by the helicopter designers/organizations adapt to such changes? Even if the end users have the money to fund new product development, this is an overall inefficient process.
7. Just to reiterate #5, the rigid structure of an optimized resource hungry design chain, works against change. It is not agile. What kind of impact this lethargic system may be having on human society is a worthy issue to research into.
8. When the designer/engineer/scientists are done, and the corporations move on to greener pastures, the usual maintenance requiring machinery or technology stops functioning. It lays waste. The end-user community is not as upgraded or embodied of the technology to make/modify it. The knowledgebase, being remote and inaccessible (due to different literacy, skills, funds, etc) is no longer an integral part of the local community. It is not their property.
9. Most importantly, when the designer has a limited, distant and incentive driven concern about a problem, whether the problem gets solved in reality is of no consequence to her/him. It’s real solving is not critical to the daily life or future of the designer/engineer. Just a set back probably in terms of some incentives. Going beyond professional bounds is not mandatory. Even the professional targets are limited by the profit and survival of the organization that the designer is a part of. So in summary, one works only as long as one gets profitable returns form the work. Commitment is measured against profits. Un-profitable commitment is shunned in modern consumer culture as silly and stupid.

The first-hand responder

The jugaad designer, jugaadu, as often called in India is a different beast. It makes its way through a world very different from that of the professional helicopter designer.

Characteristics

1. Lack of resources, often meaning lack of surplus capital, lack of tools, lack of workshop space, etc.
2. Lack of training in design/engineering/science. This implies it is mostly an experientially learned knowledge space and less of from books and such.
3. Sources of learning are often limited to observations of what works and frugal experimentation.
4. Surrounded by a rich set of interconnected, complicated problems.

Pros

1. Situatedness next to the problem educates the designer of the many complexities of the problem.
2. It also helps to know and strive for frugal local solutions.
3. Limited resources could also provide meaningful constraints and force generation of locally sustainable solutions.
4. Since the designer is part of the local folk, her/his interventions also become part of the local culture. This has the advantage of being passed on to other practitioners. So, thanks to the local designer, the community upgrades itself with better tools/tricks to surmount a problem.
5. Such work allows alternative modes of dignified and respected employment and entrepreneurship.
6. If the same problem is occuring across a region, it may spawn various local solutions and thus provides a diverse and active repository of solutions to choose from. Often the most effective one would eventually be selected. This is akin to the linux development world.
7. Because the designer is accessible and known through the community, customizations are possible – a great boon to the diversity of the land and its people.

Cons

1. Being right in the hot zone often could be overwhelming. Problems may affect social conditions and emotional states. Such a problem environment could dissuade or drive away potential designers from attempting solutions.
2. Lack of resources may hamper development and testing of ideas, thuse slowing down the process. A slow design process also takes its toll on motivation of the designers – a super important resource.
3. Lack of a peer group or access to experts could limit any progress.
4. Often such a work may be done by lone individuals or a small group of local friends. This size probably directly correlates to selection of simpler problems which are eventually successfully solved.
5. Solutions created are highly customized to the local problem and thus not generally replicable.
6. They require a mix of art, artisanship and engineering to get working. It could be difficult for the layman to operate the solutions, even if not make it. This mandates the need of a steep learning curve, without an instruction manual!
7. Often the solutions are fidgety, and breakdowns are common. This is because lack of resources and robust engineering knowledge force weak engineering into the solutions.
8. Solutions being hand made suffer from crudeness and lack of finish.
9. If the designer is lost or migrates, and if the valuable skills have not been passed through, the whole solutions falls flat.
10. Since the skills are based fundamentally on experience, experimentation, of the trial and error type and so on, they are hard to acquire. Sustained training is necessary for such work, equivalent to artisanal work. The embodied knowledge is almost difficult to transmit in softer forms such as through books or the internet.

Is there a mid-way?

The spectrum of designers seems so crucial to an understanding of how technology is created and disseminated. I guess all kinds of designers are necessary and have been operating since a long time. Maybe, before the industrial revolution and mass consumerism era (about 200 years), much of the world would run on artisan developed technology, where almost everyone was a maker/innovator. And maybe in the modern times we humans have segregated ourselves too much, outsourcing our basic functions of making and improving tools (as per Mathew Crawford – the human agency ) to focused subsections of humanity. All, in return for convenience and the idea of mechanistic and organizational efficiency (a great critical analysis of this aspect of us can be found in Jacques Ellul’s fantastic book – ‘The technological Society‘ ).

I came across documented evidence of the ‘mid-way’ through Pankaj Sekhsaria’s research, published as a book titled: ‘Instrumental Lives – an intimate biography of an Indian Laboratory‘. Here he discusses some cases of fund-starves Indian scientists pioneering unique frugal designs of advanced high-tech and super accuracy scientific instruments such as the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM) and so on. And they did good. More recently, a beautiful article was shared on the Frugal Sciences community which elaborated many of the issues and hopes discussed above, where scientists working in low-resource environments kind of bridge the spectrum between the professional helicopter designers and the first-responder kind of designers.

So, yes, there is the mid way! One can use the knowledge and skills and pros of both the worlds and make do for the cons. We could make wonderful technology which could make or break the critical unsolved issues found in the un-glamorous low-resource reality of our world (99% of our world?).