Design and the Social Sciences: Making Connections

ISBN-13: 9780415273763 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 256 str.

Jorge Frascara

Opis

The social sciences have a distinctive contribution to make to the understanding and handling of design issues, both in product and systems design and in the design of the built environment. The role of cognitive psychology, particularly ergonomics, to the design process has traditionally been well appreciated. Because it provides important insights into the way people cognitively process information, it is a powerful tool for the design of usable products, buildings and systems. This book also explores the disciplines of social psychology, sociology and anthropology, which provide techniques for investigating the relationships between people and design, in assessing the role that products and the built environment play in peoples lives and in setting product requirements based on this understanding.

This book explains how social psychology, sociology, and anthropology can provide valuable techniques for investigating the relationship between people and design. Written not only by designers and applied theorists, but also by specialists working at the front line in the consumer product industries, the book discusses the existing realities and the benefits that an interdisciplinary approach could bring to research, practice, and education. It also identifies and defines possible directions for interdisciplinary work connecting design and the social sciences. Design and the Social Sciences provides methods that will result in products that are functional and ergonomically sound.

Spis treści

Preface. Acknowledgements. From User-Centred to Participatory Design Approaches. Human Factors for Pleasure Seekers. Communications Artifacts: The Design of Objects and the Object of Design. People-Centred Design: Complexities and Uncertainties. Social Sciences and Design Innovation. Design Language: Confluence of Behavioural, Social and Cultural Factors. Design Moves: Approximating a Desired Future with Users. Emotion and Urban Experience: Implications for Design. An Interdisciplinary Approach in the Development of Design Knowledge and its Application: The Case of Wayfinding Research and Design. Preventing Drug Interactions in Older Adults: A Collaborative Study. Fieldnotes from 'Home': Anthropology and Design on Exhibition. Research and Design Collaboration: A Case Study. The Technical and the Social in Engineering Education. Making Connections: Design and the Social Sciences. Appearance, Form, and the Retrieval of Prior Knowledge. The Influence of Affect on Cognitive Processes. Gendered Spaces of Domesticity. Social Science as a Design Profession: New Visions and Relationships. Two Weddings and Still no Funeral: Sociology, Design and the Interprofessional Project. The Working Groups. Conclusions: Design and the Social Sciences, a Reconnaissance. Notes on Contributors. Index.

O autorze

Jorge Frascara