Hi Murli, As it happens, I'm writing a book chapter on this topic at the moment, so I took interest when I saw this thread. The main point of the chapter will be to point out that designers (and by extension tech firms) do far too little thinking about the sociological and political impact of the technologies they build, and that they should not be afraid to specifically design technologies to encourage certain positive cultural ideals. The examples I'm specifically mentioning will be democracy, education, charity, etc.
There are two points I'll try to make succinctly here: 1) Developing nations do need assistance from richer nations 2) That assistance would be better spent on solving underlying problems, than on short-term band-aids When I was doing research into the design of products for travelers/tourists I read papers by authors indicating that local cultures were being "ruined" by groups of travelers from foreign cultures who were changing the places they visited. While there is some truth to the point that travelers cause change, it is also a fact that cultures are always changing by their very nature. There is no "pure" culture, and the very emergence of culture is due to millions of people "messing around". Cell phones have been rapidly introduced into many third world countries. They chose to adopt them because they are useful, but that surely has been a case of developed nations changing the culture of undeveloped nations. Should the "bearer of gifts" as you mention not build or distribute this technology simply because they come from a technologically advanced society? Is the undeveloped nation worse-off for the gift? Dvorak has made a somewhat similar argument to yours ( http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/09/1845224&from=rss) where he claims that he'd prefer to spend his charity money on rice instead of the OLPC. This seems extremely short-sighted. His rice will feed a small number of people for a short time, but they still will lack proper education and opportunity, and hence will require continued support. While I don't think the OLPC is a silver-bullet, it certainly is a step towards attempting to improve the education and opportunities of disadvantaged children, which is the source of the larger problem in the first place. So the OLPC will probably have it's cultural hiccups, but at least it is a step in the right direction. I have no idea how much participatory design, or action research, or contextual design, (or similar methodology) they used while creating the OLPC, but it is possible that it's not as culturally imperialistic as you seem to think. I personally think that we have a duty as leading creators of new technologies with worldwide impact to think more about instilling values in our products that would make the world better off. Our technologies could teach people for free, enable free-speech, enable efficient collaboration, or facilitate secure voting. All of these technologies that would greatly benefit the world, will probably be created by highly-educated technologists in developed countries, and will certainly change the cultures of the societies they are used in. My main point is that we should design products to specifically to cause/enable these changes, and that we shouldn't be afraid to take the first step. If we continue to avoid initiating changes such as this, undeveloped countries will still be undeveloped for a long time in the future. When we see an admirable project such as OLPC I think we should do more to support the experiment and see where it goes. Thanks for the thoughtful discussion, Jeff ________________________________________________________________________________ Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail: axup <at> userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com "Designers mine the raw bits of tomorrow. They shape them for the present day." - Bruce Sterling ________________________________________________________________________________ On Dec 13, 2007 9:29 AM, Murli Nagasundaram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:15:32, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > The tool itself is "great" (arguably), but it doesn't necessarily > > fit the entire eco-system. > > > Dave, this is exactly the sort of thing I worry about. > > be sure to include those you are designing for, and turn the design > > process into "designing with". > > > Precisely. And I understand this is difficult. It requires an enormous > amount of patience on both sides, and especially, perhaps, on the part of > the Bearer of Gifts [BoG]. Also, the willingness on the part of BoG to > eliminate the one thing she believed was the coolest aspect of her Gift > because the Giftee had no use for it. A lot of the time, a big part of > BoG's ego is wrapped up in her design, because she came up with some > really > cool ideas that were incorporated in the design. And when these begin to > be > eliminated, her sense of ownership begins to ebb, and along with it, her > desire to pursue the project. This is when she realizes that she was more > interested in Designing And Building Cool Things than in Trying to Address > Somebody's Problem. When the Cool Thing is not used the way she hoped it > would, she feels a sense of betrayal. > > This sort of issue comes up not only in design, but in any kind of > collaboration across cultures, such as when musicians from different > cultural paradigms collaborate. Most the time -- in my experience and > opinion -- their collaborative efforts never quite rise above a level of > mediocre mish-mash. There is little that is of lasting value. <I don't > intend to start a flame war with this last extension of my thesis, BTW!> > > At Motorola Enterprise Mobility we have made "designing with" the > > core premise behind our design process using field research and field > > validation processes of design research at many iterative steps in the > > total design process so that we engage those we are designing for, so > > instead we are designing with. > > > That's great. Could you share some stories, some examples, Dave. It's > good > to hear war stories, about things that have worked and things that > haven't. > > Thanks and regards, > > murli > ________________________________________________________________ > *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* > February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA > Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! 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