Design Practice - Conscious Design

This week looks at the overall thought and trends in conscious design.

Digital transformation is a key factor facing contemporary business as companies are compelled to develop and implement new strategies and models in the competitive marketplace.   In the race to develop, existing adeptness, structures and culture have to be analysed and evaluated to apply new technologies, processes and culture (Saarikko et al., 2020: 825).

 In the post covid era it could be proposed that culture has driven attention on well-being, interaction, hybrid working and community experience (Olewiler, 2022) through the collective experience. A report by Punchcutt (2022) suggests four key themes that drive conscious experience design in the post pandemic era.

  1. Personal Innovation
  2. Insightful Intelligence
  3. Natural Immersion
  4. Communal Systems

Personal innovation according to the report, reflects on essentialism, a philosophy that shapes our long standing beliefs of group perception.  The pandemic has altered the way some of society view their circumstance and therefore their focus has shifted into what is of utmost importance.  This has the effect of filtering consumer attention and purchase habits through placement of time, energy and money.  In this scenario the designer would focus on simplicity, quality and value to attract market attention to the conscious consumer.  Personal innovation has witnessed the  need to fulfil personal passions, to foster entrepreneurial spirit and become virtual creators to enable more control and to be less passive about circumstance.  Designers can embrace this by designing products and services that empower the self, such as on demand access to services, diagnostic testing, health maintenance and access to support groups.

The pandemic has altered peoples perception of what is most important in life.  This has been reflected through consumer attention and purchase habits.  The commodities of time, energy and money prevail along with core values that fulfil personal passions.  The designer needs to know the focus and emotive reason for purchase.

Insightful intelligence – is the trend of artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more humanised and emotionally intelligent to seamlessly blend into everyday life, thus forming a digital partnership.  As emotion AI or affective computing matures and the symbiotic relationship with humans grow there will be a need for greater transparency within applications.  Trust will be the tenet of insightful intelligence and how a company uses the data from AI applications.  Designers will need to be transparent in product and data use in order for this relationship to flourish for consumers to be aware of their legal and moral rights.

AI is becoming more integrated and accepted into everyday life.  There are still issues of trust with AI applications, which means that developers need to be aware of algorithm development to produce unbiased and trust based design.

Natural Immersion – this is the convergence of digital and physical reality.  The metaverse will increase with less technological barriers providing improved interaction being more spatial, sensory and seamless.  This has been showcased at event venues and creative art installations especially in luxury, beauty and fashion brands (view link: Inaugural Metaverse Beauty Week coming to Decentraland, Roblox and Spatial | Marketing Dive).  Immersive technologies that provide multidimensional and multisensory transcend familiar realities proving an in between state that deliver new and exciting possibilities in design and marketing.  Opportunities are trending in retail, entertainment, travel and healthcare markets to design seamless liminal experiences.

We can view the convergence of digital reality in marketing and advertising, Nike use this duality in some of their advertising, an example of which can be viewed here:  Nike – Augmented Reality Flagship store experience – YouTube.  

Communal systems – this refers to the building communities in a fairer, more democratic way.  The advent of blockchain technology will shift the internet from read, read-write to read, write and own.  Virtual possessions will drive new economies that will be fairer especially for those in the creative industries.  For example, Facebook own the content on their platform but on blockchain, creators will own their creative outputs leading to less corporate control.  Conscious design has tremendous potential for product growth, promotion and for the designers themselves.

The advent of the internet with each new era is gradually allowing more democracy and a fairer environment for communities.   Blockchain will allow creators to have  digital authenticity over their work allowing better recognition and reduce plagarism.

The report has indicated that conscious designers should be aware of the need for collective self-empowerment, building AI trust and transparency, seamless immersive experiences, collaboration and virtual communities and fairer business practices that support ownership.

References

Oelwiler, K., (2022) From Surviving to Thriving: 4 Trends Driving Conscious Experience Design.  Available at: From Surviving to Thriving: 4 Trends Driving Conscious Experience Design :: UXmatters.  Accessed: 31.10.2023.

Punchcutt, (2022) 2022 The Next Level of Conscious Design Future View Trend Report.  Available at: FutureView 2022 (punchcut.com). Accessed 31.10.2023.

Saarikko et al., (2020) Digital Transformation: Five Recommendations for the Digitally Conscious Firm.  Business Horizons, Vol 63, (6), pp. 825-839.