Comments on: ‘Design Must Relinquish Control’ http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/17/design-must-relinquish-control/ How do people use products, systems and environments? How can designers influence interaction? How can we design for sustainable behaviour? Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:35:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: john trenouth http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/17/design-must-relinquish-control/#comment-11343 john trenouth Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:59:19 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/?p=144#comment-11343 Of course there's something about the raw permanence of physical spaces that necessarily gives more ultimate control to its architect than an interactive product gives to its designer. While individuals are still free to interpret the meanings of the architected space as any other artifact, space necessarily exercises a basic near authoritarian control over its guests--a control books and interactive products simply cannot. I guess what I'm saying is that it seems the balance between control and freedom varies with material, and material plasticity naturally resists control. Of course there’s something about the raw permanence of physical spaces that necessarily gives more ultimate control to its architect than an interactive product gives to its designer.

While individuals are still free to interpret the meanings of the architected space as any other artifact, space necessarily exercises a basic near authoritarian control over its guests–a control books and interactive products simply cannot.

I guess what I’m saying is that it seems the balance between control and freedom varies with material, and material plasticity naturally resists control.

]]> By: Andreas http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/17/design-must-relinquish-control/#comment-11304 Andreas Fri, 20 Oct 2006 07:21:46 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/?p=144#comment-11304 A couple of webdev related discussions exemplifying this tension between control and let-go: - fixed (px) versus fluid (%) designs - the ongoing discussion about whether the user or the designer should be in control over the browser chrome (think about flash sites taking away the IE navigation buttons), scrollbars (IE specific CSS scrollbar styling - a big no-no now, but once very popular) and form elements (Safari doesn't support styling on form fields, other browsers do). - the fuzz about greasemonkey (!) A couple of webdev related discussions exemplifying this tension between control and let-go:
- fixed (px) versus fluid (%) designs
- the ongoing discussion about whether the user or the designer should be in control over the browser chrome (think about flash sites taking away the IE navigation buttons), scrollbars (IE specific CSS scrollbar styling - a big no-no now, but once very popular) and form elements (Safari doesn’t support styling on form fields, other browsers do).
- the fuzz about greasemonkey (!)

]]> By: Andrew http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/17/design-must-relinquish-control/#comment-10993 Andrew Tue, 17 Oct 2006 14:56:54 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/?p=144#comment-10993 Ellen Lupton also pointed out the similarities between user-centered design and literature's acknowledgement of the reader: http://www.designwritingresearch.org/essays/birth_of_the_user.html Ellen Lupton also pointed out the similarities between user-centered design and literature’s acknowledgement of the reader:
http://www.designwritingresearch.org/essays/birth_of_the_user.html

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