avg
C H A P T E R T H R E E:
P E R S U A S I O N A N D C O M M U N I C AT I O N Persuasion within the organizationdelphine
squeezeDesign consultancies face difficult challenges if they wish to
be considered as top-tier partners for the process of end-to-end product development. It is no longer enough simply to be creative. Product-design consultancies need to be able to com-municate their creativity easily inside of a large organization, which requires a unique t of communication and facilitation skills. Creativity needs to be obviously and visibly linked to business value and technological feasibility, and the story of the design needs to be easily communicated to individuals who may not be familiar with discussing subjective topics like behavior, aesthetics, or appropriateness. Although product designers have long viewed themlves as storytellers, the focus of the narrative now must extend beyond the physical object to an interface, a brand, and ultimately the internal socialization process to drive connsus toward a given solution. Designers can no longer count on being prent to ll their design solutions to skeptical clients or audiences— instead, various “Ur Experience” managers will likely evangelize the design inside of the corporation by themlves, and they need enough communicative ammunition to become designers-by-proxy.
Persuasion outside of the organization
Design can be thought of as a form of communication not
only within the organizational confines but also in a much broader n: as a form of communication into society and
with humanity. This does not imply that combining shapes into forms is like combining letters into words. Instead, a designer associates and embeds existing words into his design, which then becomes a proxy for the designer himlf. This view of design language is the view of designer as large-scale persuader and characterizes design communication as rhetoric. This is discusd at length by Richard Buchanan in his “Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice.”22 Buchanan explains that all forms of design encompass some aspect of argument. The are defined either by the individual designer’s world view or design philosophy or by the overarching social world of design (which could be thought of as corporate policy or branding). As technology becomes more influentialif从句
in pushing product innovation, successful design rhetoric—or persuasive language—becomes immenly important.
A product not only speaks but in fact attempts to convince—a designer makes an argument that comes alive
each time a person considers her creation. Buchanan argues
that designers cannot help but persuade and that technol-
ogy is often ud as smoke and mirrors to inrt an empty dialogue. But instead of relying on the coolness of technology, form, material, and function can be successfully combined
22 Buchanan, Richard, “Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and
Demonstration in Design Practice,” in Design Discour: History, Theory,
Criticism. Ed. Victor Margolin. The University of Chicago Press, 1989. p. create a cohesive argument. A pursuit of argument can be viewed as an attempt to shape someone’s attitude. Design is
to communicate, and this communication is not a monologue.
It is a dialogue of persuasion, argument, and learning.
Rhetorical argument implies a n of purpo: “Indeed, design is an art of communication on two levels: It attempts
to persuade audiences not only that a given design is uful,
but also that the designer’s premis or attitudes and values regarding practical life or the proper role of technology are important, as well.”23A designer may develop the next generation of cell phones, dealing with the physical form of the telephone, the material and manufacturing choices, as well as the software interface that a ur encounters to perform calls. This designer’s communication can be viewed on veral levels. On a highly superficial level, it is possible to discuss the implications of using brushed aluminum and long, slender lines to illustrate a n of futurism and references to technology in architecture. A deeper analysis might consider the usability of the phone—has the designer created a well-structured dialogue so the ur
and object can communicate efficiently and effectively? Finally, it is possible to consider the argument the designer
has made by choosing to design cellular communication at
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all. She may be—implicitly, obviously—making a statement concerning the benefits technology has awarded society with rapid communication across geographical boundaries. Or the commentary may be considered more trivial: The designer
may be simply stating that she Prefers to Make Cool Things.
23 Ibid.
As another example of design rhetoric and argument, reflect on the form of a music-playing device. Specifically, picture a portable audio tape player. What does it look like?
Most will envision a similar—and archetypical—image of a square device with a clear panel in it. It is easy to picture the small spools upon which the tape twists, and this imagery allows an easy conceptualization of how the object functions. The cogni-tive accessibility of the device’s functionality makes it predict-able. In addition to simply picturing the item, most people—how-ever technical—can form some sort of mental model of how the
device is flat and roughly the size of the compact disc. Arguing that form follows function leaves little room for the individual aesthetics of brand (the color of the plastic or the placement of the buttons), but the general arche-typical form resonates easily with the audience. A CD player is a CD player.
Now consider an MP3 player. What does it look like? A more difficult question may be: What should it look like? In this ca, the pliability of digital technology affords huge leniency with regard to form, material, size, color, and weight. The designer is not constrained to follow a mechanically driven function and must instead make decisions bad on external characteristics. An MP3 player can look like anything at all: It can be a square white box with radiud corners and a round click wheel in the middle, or it can be shaped like a carrot. The importance of persuasion—of convincing an audience that the MP3 player is
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Designed artifacts identify an underlying culture
Designers Shelley Evenson and John Rheinfrank24 established, through years of designing products and systems at consultan-cies like Scient, the Doblin Group, and Fitch, a theory of visual and functional product language. Like Buchanan, Evenson and Rheinfrank considered language as the strong connector be-tween artifacts and people and discusd how design languages become a
connector for how people experience products, rvices, and systems in the world around them. People do not simply u product form language—they live with it. Product form language is the basis for how people generate and interpret their surroundings. This has great implications for the design of mass-produced items. The items do more than simply provide a function or some form of functional utility. When viewed under the gui of language, the products become the fabric of society and allow people to express themlves, to communicate with others, and to shape their environment in unique ways.
Evenson and Rheinfrank were referring to the physical form, material, and visual style of an artifact. Digital products are generally more complicated than their analog equivalents, and so their physical and visual form alone may not be
enough to offer a clear indication of u. It is difficult for
people to rationally consider and analyze a personal video recorder becau the form language of the recorder is often
24 The late John Rheinfrank can also be credited with the definition of Interaction
Design as accepted in this text. He was a principal at Doblin Group, an Executive
Vice President at Fitch, and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Illinois
Institute of Technology, and the Kellogg School of Management. He also began
the publication Interactions, offered by the ACM, which is still the only notable
publication discussing topics of Interaction Design without resorting to the more
mundane and pragmatic view of Interface Design, GUI Design, or Web Design. THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SOCIALIZATION
In many ways, the role of design in a corporation has
shifted dramatically from one of craftsmanship—making artifacts—to one of facilitation—or driving an agenda. Designers find themlves operating in a space between
project manager and connsus driver—and that’s not a particularly creative or invigorating place to be. For tho
who end up in this role, the following may offer guidance to rekindle the creative embers that are beginning to burn out.
What you choo to socialize is as important as to whom you socialize it with—have an opinion of the work itlf. Within a large corporation, anyone engaged in design, or UX, will quickly become the shepherd not only for communicating the work
that has been designed but also to ensure that the work is at
a certain caliber. This is a role of critique and criticism, and
even if the work is produced by an outside vendor, agency,
or partner, the groups require constructive criticism of the work itlf and not simply of the correspondence of the work
to some vague business requirements or technical constraints. Instead of positioning yourlf as the intermediary between a production team of designers and internal constituents, which is the common and unfortunate role of the UX manager, consider how you can actually add creative value to the artifacts that
are being socialized—either by adding to them directly or by pursuing a creative vision that is both aesthetic and conceptual.
Your role is not only to drive process and method but also
to offer material experti. The material, in the ca of most digital products, is bits and bytes. Do you have enough of a fundamental knowledge of how bits and bytes work as to appropriately add material experti? If not, how can you
illusion fieldgain this confidence? This deep knowledge of the substance
of digital tools and devices will reposition someone from a position of connsus generation to one of persuasion: You
can argue for a particular idea, offering suggestions on how something could best be accomplished or how the material could be appropriately shaped to achieve an intended goal.
arbitrary—perhaps inspired by older, analog recorders or the whim of the designer. Form no longer has to follow or even
relate to function, and so a designer has a new opportunity to relate a form to both emotional and social qualities instead.
This view is formally grounded in the study of miotics. Semiotics is, literally, the study of signs. A sign need not be
a printed object, but instead can include the theoretical understanding of the process of signification. By signifying something (or signing as a verb), humans can communicate meaning, and a sign itlf is thought to carry some form of meaning. The sign (either physical or conceptual) us various codes to help communicate the meaning and values embed-
ded within it. A sign can be a visual element—like a street sign—but can also be the way one us his body language or
the sound pattern of words ud to communicate to another.25 Ferdinand de Saussure is generally considered the founder
of the miotic movement. He considered language as a scientific and independent notion that could be parated from elements of culture or comprehension. Saussure believed that words are embedded with mantic meaning and therefore stand for other things—the word chair (in any human, spoken language) is deeply associated with the idea of sitting and the idea of the object that we sit on. The rules that make up the system become universally
25 “A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and
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a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a sound, for a sound is something
physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his ns. This sound pattern may be called a ‘material’ element only in that it is the reprentation of our nsory impressions. The sound pattern
may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic
sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept.” (Saussure,
Ferdinand de, Cour in General Linguistics (trans. Roy Harris). London: Duckworth.) more important than the application of the rules—that is, the no-tion of chairness exists whether or not we are using, considering, or speaking about a chair. One can consider and theorize on the nature of signs independent of particular usages or examples.26 If designed artifacts (such as objects like chairs or even complicated computer interfaces) follow Saussure’s view of mi-otics—and are thought of as signs rather than as simple physical and static elements of function—one can start to understand that the process of signification is deeply related to Interaction Design and the process of
behavioral understanding in experi-ences. This might include the name of the object (often arbi-trary—what does DVD player really mean?), the body movements necessary to manipulate the object (the sunken, pressable nature of buttons or the round and turnable style of a dial) or the proper way to consider an object (“I am a rious piece of consumer electronics. Do not play with me.”). A sign, by definition, should be fairly universal and easy to understand. One should not require training to comprehend the message being communicated (in fact, miotics frequently implies that urs can’t help but be af-fected by the process of signification—it happens automatically).
26 As if this isn’t complicated enough, many notable contributors to the field of linguistics
have subquently critiqued this rigid notion that the structure of language can
iken
be parated from its u; contextualizing language ems to change meaning, assigmatel
was pointed out by Valentin Voloshinov (Voloshinov, Valentin, Marxism and the
Philosophy of Language (trans. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik). Seminar Press, 1973).
Voloshinov felt that the “sign is part of organized social interchange and cannot exist, as such, outside it.” Voloshinov theorized that the meaning of a sign is not as related
to other signs but instead to the way it is ud—to the actual context of u.
