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  • Published: 29 October 2024
  • ISBN: 9780262553322
  • Imprint: MIT Press Academic
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $69.99

We Are Not Users

Dialogues, Diversity, and Design




A call to reclaim and rethink the field of designing as a liberal art where diverse voices come together to shape the material world.

A call to reclaim and rethink the field of designing as a liberal art where diverse voices come together to shape the material world.

We live in a material world of designed artifacts, both digital and analog. We think of ourselves as users; the platforms, devices, or objects provide a service that we can use. But is this really the case? We Are Not Users argues that people cannot be reduced to the entity called “user”; we are not homogenous but diverse. That buzz of dissonance that we hear reflects the difficulty of condensing our diversity into “one size fits all.” This book proposes that a new understanding of design could resolve that dissonance, and issues a call to reclaim and rethink the field of designing as a liberal art where diverse voices come together to shape the material world. The authors envision designing as a dialogue, simultaneously about the individual and the social—an act enriched by diversity of both disciplines and perspectives.

The book presents the building blocks of a language that can conceive designing in all its richness, with relevance for both theory and practice. It introduces a theoretical model, terminology, examples, and a framework for bringing together the social, cultural, and political aspects of designing. It will be essential reading for design theorists and for designers in areas ranging from architecture to software design and policymaking.

  • Published: 29 October 2024
  • ISBN: 9780262553322
  • Imprint: MIT Press Academic
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $69.99

Praise for We Are Not Users

“In the rigor-relevance debate on how scientific methods can contribute to design of real systems, the actual designing action is more often too complex to even grab in a systematic way. We Are Not Users is a game changer. With the creative and thoughtful way that the authors weave models, design, arts, and engineering, this book is the start of a richer discussion of designing as a verb instead of a rational process. Keeping in mind the increasing interdependencies between systems, society, and the city fabric, this book is much needed to help us address grand societal challenges.”
—Sebastiaan Meijer, Vice-Dean and Professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

“'Stronger, faster, smoother, better, safer, simpler'—this book explores the joys and trials of designing and indeed tackles the design of designing. Whether we are dealing with a product, service, or some other form of enterprise or societal structure, this book provides both context to, and also the interrelationships involved in, designing. This important book provides a perspective on 20th-century design movements, but importantly helps frame designing as an unfolding story for the 21st-century.”
—Peter Childs, Professor and Founding Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London

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