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Uncertain futures: A Conversation with Professor Anthony Dunne

The phrase “interaction design” is used to refer to the art and science of shaping digital systems, but interaction itself is, of course, broader and more basic than a particular set of technologies. Before digital design appropriated the term, an interaction most often took the form of an exchange or conversation with another human being. And interaction design, if such a thing existed, might have meant positioning yourself in such a way as to have a particular type of conversation—making sure that you got seated next to the right person at dinner, for example.

An interview with Anthony Dunne

Anthony Dunne, chair of the design interactions program at the Royal College of Art in London, seeks to reclaim this original meaning of interaction design. The projects he creates with partner Fiona Raby generate particular types of conversations, usually about technology or an aspect of the future. Their work has caused a lot of interaction within the design community and is at the center of an increasingly influential movement known as “critical design,” which uses design as a way of asking questions. Dunne and Raby’s projects, which are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the V&A in London, are sometimes accused of being art, something that the soft-spoken 43-year-old admits he finds annoying. “If we get plonked down as artists then the dialogue stops.”

In one well-known project, Dunne and Raby designed an inflatable pillow with an LCD screen imbedded in it. The pillow responds to changes in the local radio frequency environment within a range of about 200 meters, detecting the presence of mobile phones, pagers, and even baby monitors. These changes are registered as visual patterns that drift across the screen. Of course, all the waves that are passing through the pillow are also passing through our bodies. Which raises the question: What effect are they having on us? The only clue that Dunne and Raby offer is a selection from an interview with an elderly lady who “adopted” the pillow. Far from resolving the issue, this lady says the pillow reminds her of a dead pet, “It’s sort of like my little dog I used to have except my little dog was black and brown.”

Pillow project

Dunne and Raby’s Pillow project in a home environment.

That’s a strange mistake, isn’t it? Confusing a pet and an electric pillow. Especially when the project seemed to be about pointing out the presence of invisible radio waves. Reading this, a marketing manager might be tempted to tap on the one-way mirror and shout, “Next!” But this isn’t that kind of user research. The point of the pillow, really, is to start a conversation and, in this case, what the woman wanted to talk about was not radio waves but loneliness and loss. It turns out that the way people use products depends as much on them as it does on the original intentions of the designer. A pillow can take the place of a dog, if you need it to badly enough. As Dunne and Raby wrote in their 2001 book Design Noir, “Beneath the glossy surface of official design lurks a dark and strange world driven by real human needs.”

Design noir, like film noir, implies that there isn’t always a happy ending. Much of Dunne and Raby’s work, as well as the work done in the design interactions program, explores the role that technology might play in possible futures. In a recent exhibition for children at the Science Museum, Dunne and Raby were asked to explore the implications of future energy sources. Inspired by the fact that Chinese peasants used to fertilize their fields with human sewage, and rural households would expect dinner guests to make a “contribution” before departing, the designers imagined the new customs and devices that would be required in a future that is powered by poo.

The interactions recorded in Design Noir reveal that we humans are complex and often unpredictable creatures. This, of course, should come as no surprise to anyone who reads the news, but, in the context of design, it raises interesting and very basic questions. What, for example, makes us happy?  Has the incredible abundance of technology shaped and sharpened by design made our lives better?  The answer may be no. As James Surowieki reports in an article for the MIT Technology Review we are, on average, less happy now than we were 50 years ago. The only exception to the rule is the Amish.

This surprising finding might lead one to wonder if perhaps design and technology are on the wrong track. Is the answer to our collective malaise that technology is too difficult to use? Would people really be happier if their technology was more intuitive? Do we need to upgrade our software? Or is there something broader and more basic that has to do less with interaction design, and more with interaction?

Critical design does not answer these questions, but it does provide a way for the questions to be asked.

“Faraday Chair”

Dunne and Raby’s “Faraday Chair” shields the occupant from electromagnetic radiation.

In your book Design Noir you describe many of your projects as “placebos” and I noticed that this idea also finds its way into the course. Why is the idea of a placebo important?
With classic design, the idea is generally to solve the problem or cure the ailment. If you’re getting wet, you make a shelter. Placebo projects we see more as a way of negotiating a relationship to something. It’s not solving a problem. You’re setting up a situation that facilitates a discussion. The more poetic the space—such as a discussion about invisible fields in the context of the home—the more interesting the stories. The idea of a placebo is important because it stops students thinking in terms of, “Here’s a problem, now I’m going to solve it.” We want to think about people in a complex way that isn’t neat or containable. Rather than making things easy to digest and incorporate, our interest is more about pulling back and pausing and trying to create a space of reflection. For example, if nanotechnology is on its way in its various manifestations, which of these manifestations seem acceptable and which seem scary? And why? Design can be a medium for exploration and a place for experimenting and engaging people in dialogue. We think design can provide a very concrete and down to earth language for exploring the implications of technology.

So what about this idea of designers as problem solvers?
I would never describe designers as problem solvers. I might describe them as meaning makers. In the process of any project there are loads of problems and I hope we solve them in a thoughtful and creative way. But the aim of one of our projects wouldn’t be to solve a problem.

What do you say to people who argue that your work should be labeled as art rather than design?
It’s true that the work that Fiona [Raby] and I do is sometimes described as “arty,” which kind of annoys me. To apply these labels is to say that design has these limits and if you do a certain thing you’re working outside of them. For us, it’s important to try and push and stretch design, but this activity can only happen from within. If we get plonked down as artists then the dialogue stops. Then we’re just “crazy artists.” We’re marginalized. But when you say your work is design, people have different expectations. They expect that there’s some connection to everyday life—even if it is speculative. And that expectation has the power to make design a powerful critical medium.

Let’s talk about the course you teach at the RCA. I notice you’ve changed the name from “interaction design” to “design interactions.” What’s the difference?
Interaction design has begun to solidify as a discipline and, in my view, has become quite narrow—it is increasingly associated with a particular set of technologies. When you talk to people about interaction design they tend to think of a computer screen. But I think that interaction design offers unique opportunities—such as involving people in the process of creating complex experiences—that you can separate from screens, computers and electronics. I wanted to take this idea of interaction and start to explore how it might connect to other types of technology and other areas of design. By changing the name around, we emphasize the approach rather than the technology. Also, it’s harder to say “design interactionist.” It doesn’t roll off the tongue. So our students tend to just call themselves designers.

Smoke Doll

If “Smoke Doll” by student Daniel Goddemeyer detects cigarette smoke in the air, the doll’s breathing changes and it begins to wheeze. “60-70% of breathing problems in children are caused by passively inhaling smoke from parents. The Smoke doll provides a lasting visual reminder of the effects of passive smoking on children.”

What’s the advantage in emphasizing an approach or perspective over a set of technologies?
Because this is a post-graduate course, our students are coming in with their own technical skills and interests. The first year is very structured and there are workshops on electronics and such. We also do fieldtrips—this year we went to Turkey—as well as working with companies on specific projects. There’s also a lot of collaboration with students from different programs: industrial design and engineering but also business schools and science programs. What we try to do is to match our students up with people—often engineers or scientists—who can further their interests, while, at the same time, helping them develop a critical perspective.

personality mirror 1
personality mirror 2

Personality Mirror, by Ivo Vos. “As technology progresses, drugs will be engineered to create specific personality traits, moods, or certain behavior. People can adapt their inner self as they now already change their physical appearance using make-up. The Personality Mirror is a tool helping people to keep track of their inner chemistry and engineer it to fit the situation at hand.”

Some of the student projects are obviously nonfunctioning prototypes. Do you see this as a problem?
It’s a big debate: whether you should be designing things you can make yourself or whether it’s okay to create concepts that you can’t execute. Some say prototypes are fictions. But the alternative is so limiting. If students limit themselves to technology that they can access and afford, they will always be working behind the curve on issues that have already been addressed. We want to encourage students to really push themselves and engage with concepts that maybe no one can execute, at least not yet. This is important because our students have a long career ahead of them. We don’t know what the important technology will be in the future. We want our students to be able to contribute regardless of the technology—otherwise, in twenty years, they may be pigeonholed as “that digital guy” when the interesting work is being done elsewhere.

Are there advantages to working in a possible future versus an actual present? Are there types of conversations or debates that are easier to have before an idea becomes a product?
I think this is very important. If we limit ourselves to only designing the present then the ‘future’ will just happen to us, and the one we get will be driven by technology and economics. We need to develop ways of speculating that are grounded in fact yet engage the imagination and allow us to debate different possible futures before they happen. The danger of course is that they become mere fantasies. So the challenge is how to maintain realism. Maybe it is related to the suspension of disbelief that filmmakers make use of. The social and ethical implications of technologies such as biotech and nanotech can only be explored through speculation.

Where to go from here

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