Socio-cultural dimensions to sharpen designer's cultural eyeglasses

Conference paper (2013)
Department
Industrial Design (IDE) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2013 Van Boeijen, A.G.C.
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Published Date

05-09-2013

Reuse Rights

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Source:

E&PDE 2013: International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, Dublin, Ireland, 5-6 September 2013

Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Department

Industrial Design

Abstract

This paper answers the question, how the dimensions that have been developed by anthropologists to typify cultures, can support designers in user-centred design processes. An analysis and evaluation of the use of cultural dimensions in design projects was performed. Although many of the dimensions found in the literature appear relevant for designers, the theories ‘as is’ often lead designers astray. On the basis of this, a set of socio-cultural dimensions was compiled: hierarchy, identification, time, aim, gender, space, attitude, expression, truth and ‘the ones we do not know yet’. This set is proposed as a means to help designers to generate culture specific research questions, tune design methods to the local cultural context and to generate ideas for vision and concept development.

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