Design with Intent | Do artifacts have politics?

Thoughts on the ‘fun theory’

By Dan Lockton ⋅ November 3, 2009 ⋅ 5 comments

The ‘Piano Staircase’ from Volkswagen’s thefuntheory.com
The Fun Theory (Rolighetsteorin), a competition / campaign / initiative from Volkswagen Sweden – created by DDB Stockholm – has been getting a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks from both design-related people and other commentators with an interest in influencing behaviour: it presents a series of [...]

‘Smart meters’: some thoughts from a design point of view

By Dan Lockton ⋅ June 18, 2009 ⋅ 9 comments

Here’s my (rather verbose) response to the three most design-related questions in DECC’s smart meter consultation that I mentioned earlier today. Please do get involved in the discussion that Jamie Young’s started on the Design & Behaviour group and on his blog at the RSA.
Q12 Do you agree with the Government’s position that a [...]

Two events next week

By Dan Lockton ⋅ May 20, 2009 ⋅ 4 comments

Next Wednesday evening, 27th May, I’ll be giving a presentation about Design with Intent at SkillSwap Brighton’s ‘Skillswap Goes Behavioural’ alongside Ben Maxwell from Onzo (pioneers of some of the most interesting home energy behaviour change design work going on at present). I hope I’ll be able to give a thought-provoking talk with plenty of [...]

What is demand, really?

By Dan Lockton ⋅ May 13, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

In a lot of the debate and discussion about energy, future electricity generation and metering, improved efficiency and influencing consumer behaviour – at least from an engineering perspective – the term “demand” is used, in conjunction with “supply”, to represent the energy required to be supplied to consumers, much as in conventional “supply and demand” [...]

Anti-teenager “pink lights to show up acne”

By Dan Lockton ⋅ March 26, 2009 ⋅ 48 comments

In a similar vein to the Mosquito, intentionally shallow steps (and, superficially at least–though not really–blue lighting in toilets, which Raph d’Amico dissects well here), we now have residents’ associations installing pink lighting to highlight teenagers’ acne and so drive them away from an area:
Residents of a Nottinghamshire housing estate have installed pink lights which [...]

Eight design patterns for errorproofing

By Dan Lockton ⋅ February 27, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments

Go straight to the patterns
One view of influencing user behaviour – what I’ve called the ‘errorproofing lens’ – treats a user’s interaction with a system as a set of defined target behaviour routes which the designer wants the user to follow, with deviations from those routes being treated as ‘errors’. Design can help avoid the [...]

The Hacker’s Amendment

By Dan Lockton ⋅ February 17, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments

Congress shall pass no law limiting the rights of persons to manipulate, operate, or otherwise utilize as they see fit any of their possessions or effects, nor the sale or trade of tools to be used for such purposes.
From Artraze commenting on this Slashdot story about the levels of DRM in Windows 7.
I think it [...]

Designed environments as learning systems

By Dan Lockton ⋅ February 11, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments

How much of designing an environment is consciously about influencing how people use it? And how much of that influence is down to users learning what the environment affords them, and acting accordingly?
The first question’s central what this blog’s been about over the last four years (with ‘products’, ’systems’, ‘interfaces’ and so on variously standing [...]

What’s the deal with angled steps?

By Dan Lockton ⋅ January 15, 2009 ⋅ 7 comments

It’s a simple question, really, to any readers with experience in urban planning and specifying architectural features: what is the reasoning behind positioning steps at an angle such as this set (left and below) leading down to the Queen’s Walk near London Bridge station?
Obviously one reason is to connect two walkways that are offset [...]

Stuff that matters: Unpicking the pyramid

By Dan Lockton ⋅ January 14, 2009 ⋅ 5 comments

Most things are unnecessary. Most products, most consumption, most politics, most writing, most research, most jobs, most beliefs even, just aren’t useful, for some scope of ‘useful’.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to point this out, but most of our civilisation seems to rely on the idea that “someone else will sort it out”, [...]

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Do artifacts have politics?