In The Bubble: Designing In A Complex World
by John Thackara /
2005 / English / PDF
2.2 MB Download
We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've
lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What
value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in
his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World.These
are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our
economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no
small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily
lives.Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss
the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need
to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband
communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and
connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We
need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily
lives. Who will look after it, and how?In the Bubble is about a
world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes
a transformation that is taking place now -- not in a remote
science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the
schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging
in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do
that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed
to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of
these services involve technology -- ranging from body implants
to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting
role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services,
not things. And new principles -- above all, lightness -- inform
the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In
the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world
examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design
decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.
We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've
lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What
value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in
his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World.These
are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our
economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no
small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily
lives.Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss
the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need
to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband
communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and
connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We
need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily
lives. Who will look after it, and how?In the Bubble is about a
world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes
a transformation that is taking place now -- not in a remote
science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the
schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging
in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do
that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed
to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of
these services involve technology -- ranging from body implants
to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting
role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services,
not things. And new principles -- above all, lightness -- inform
the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In
the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world
examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design
decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.