Humane Design is More than Ethical High Ground

Cyber Salon's meeting last week on 'Towards Humane Design' at the ICA promised to explore the issues and tensions that designers face 'when working to a commercial brief as well as maintaining social responsibility'. UN's own Nico Macdonald was in the chair and raised many questions about human-centred design as a starting point for discussion.

But, despite interesting contributions from speakers including Ken Garland, who wrote the original 'First Things First' design manifesto; Teal Triggs of Kingston University, who represented the educator's perspective; and Luke Nicholson of Ethical Media, there was a lack of debate about what 'humane' design might be.

The audience, mostly drawn from the University of Westminster design students, was more interested in the ethical dimension, specifically in getting jobs that did not compromise their political beliefs. What constituted ethics – or indeed, whose ethics? - was not raised either, with the result that the potential for a discussion about the meaning of design in society was lost.

It was also depressingly familiar to find no interest among them in the idea of designing with use in mind. "Art" was frequently substituted for "design" and the impression left was that the commercial imperative of designing for a particular user group was unattractive while the social imperative was overlooked.

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