Identifying A Standpoint And Support

With the recent globalisation and synchronisation of our modern consumer world, people often become much less aware of their actions in a world where one design feature often means the same thing in any context. In this project, I shall look into the everyday design of our modern world from the viewpoint of “affordances” and how they are perceived by users.

I will argue that this acceptance for reuse of the same techniques for our everyday lifestyle is causing the pubic to spiral into a life devoid of any real, thoughtful interaction with their surroundings. We are no longer truly experiencing and learning through trial and error, rather being told that there is only one way to do things.

I shall evaluate this with consideration for the theme of design and the social – what designers can learn from sociologists and anthropologists. With reference to “The Design of Everyday Things,” written by cognitive scientist Donald Norman, I shall demonstrate the simplicity of design in our lives and relate it back to an anthropological view into the inner workings of our day-to-day mindset. I believe that only through a sociological study can we truly understand the depths of influence which everyday design has had on modern society.

Works Cited

Norman, D. (1998). The Design of Everyday Things. Cambridge: The MIT Press.