RE: Book Review: Undesigning the Bath

I'm reading through this, and I'm looking for something - just one
example - of what the book commits to as being better than how they're
designed today. 

 

Excerpt:

"...product's design so that its function and use are crystal clear and
immediately understood. ...This goal may be fine for utilitarian
applications like automobile interiors, video cameras, and computer
keyboards, but such values mean little when applied to the bath, a
rangy, complex, and only partially functional entity. Convenient,
efficient, and straightforward design solutions can, in fact, be
impediments to the superior bath."



So, I'd be interested in hearing an explicit example of a way in which
baths are to be designed with different principles than we do everything
else. Is 'poetry' one example? What does that mean?

 

( And before you say: 'read the book, it's a complex subject', I say: I
need a 'hook' that would get me to pick it up at all.)

 

Dave

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Rettig [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 12:07 PM
To: [email protected];
[email protected]
Subject: [AIGAExperienceDesign] Book Review: Undesigning the Bath

 

Hello,
[Please forgive the cross-posting -- I'm not sure of the overlap between
the two groups' membership, but I am sure of the overlap in their
interests.]

I recently re-read "Undesigning the Bath," by Leonard Koren
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1880656248/), and would
like to recommend it to any who are interested in design for human
experience, who have been following recent conversations across the
field about aesthetics and emotion.

"Undesigning the Bath" is an articulate argument that there is an
"inverse relationship between designer mentality and the creation of
superior baths," followed by some suggestions for the sort of mentality
that is likely to do better. It has three chapters: Subjective qualities
of superior baths, Why designers
don't make great baths, Alternative bath-making metaphors.

Here is a little summary of each chapter.

SUBJECTIVE QUALITIES OF SUPERIOR BATHS
"Bathing, from an undesign point of view, is a comprehensive aesthetic
experience concerned primarily with non-objective, unquantifiable, and
unique sensations. In other words, the bathing experience is
fundamentally subjective, and the more supportive of specific subjective
qualities, the better the bath."
Among those qualities: pleasure, safety, thermal stimulation,
cleanliness/purity, timelessness, sacredness. Each gets a short
definition, some get longer discussion. "Safety: Bathing is best enjoyed
in a place where you feel safe enough to put aside your social roles,
relax your body armor, and open your psyche
to the moment."

WHY DESIGNERS DON'T MAKE GREAT BATHS
I won't list all the author's arguments here. But I will say that when I
started this chapter I was thinking, "he's going to be talking about
those *other* designers, not me; I'm already on his side, I already get
what he's talking about." But he managed to humble me early and often.
Much of the chapter is
aimed at architects (the author is himself an architect), but applies to
most of us. If it doesn't apply to you, I'd love to see some of your
work. A few headings, a few quotes...

The reductive tendencies of industrial design: "designers... tend to
reduce their output to simplistic, easy-to-grasp, iconographically
impressive, mnemonically effective quantities."

"User friendly, another reductive industrial design notion, has to do
with the aesthetics of clarity, accessibility, and ease of use.
Beautiful is designed as simple, ugly as difficult. In product
semantics, a variant of user friendly, familiar physical analogies and
cultural standards are incorporated into a
product's design so that its function and use are crystal clear and
immediately understood. ...This goal may be fine for utilitarian
applications like automobile interiors, video cameras, and computer
keyboards, but such values mean little when applied to the bath, a
rangy, complex, and only partially
functional entity. Convenient, efficient, and straightforward design
solutions can, in fact, be impediments to the superior bath."

[As someone who works most often on "utilitarian applications," and who
practices ethnographic methods as part of every project, I'd argue that
they are also more "rangy, complex, and only partially functional" than
many might expect. That's why every project is full of surprises!]

So far I've singled out parts of the argument that relate most to the
people I imagine read this list. But the author ranges wider. Other
headings: architectural worldview, rhetorical imperatives, veiled
misanthropy [!! if it wasn't for users...].

ALTERNATIVE BATH-MAKING METAPHORS
This is harder to summarize effectively, since the impact of the chapter
depends on having read the rest of the book and having seen the
photographs. More fragments, to give you the drift: "Undesign frames of
reference: The only real prerequisite for superior bath making is a
genuine love and enjoyment of
bathing." "...defines any prescribed methodological system."

"*Discovery* means that, in one way or another, the bath is 'found' or
'revealed' to the bath maker. ...Hunting for mushrooms while
simultaneously enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of a fine autumn
day -- especially as practiced by the novice -- offers a good analogy."

"*Making Nature* really means letting nature happen, since NATURE, THE
ULTIMATE MASTER OF INTERACTIVE COMPLEXITY [emphasis mine], is organized
along principles too inscrutable for us to make from scratch." As an
aside, this resonates with a quietly growing conversation among
designers of all stripes having to
do with the importance of nature, not as a metaphor, but as our best
teacher, source of solutions, and guide toward quality. Check out
Christopher Alexander's new series, The Nature of Order, and go have a
nice surfing session around the topic of bioinformatics.

"*Poetry* is a shorthand way of choosing intuitive insight over rational
methodology." I hate to quote that here, since it seems like a
stereotypical description of what many of us object to about
designer-centered design and the terrible work foisted on society by
designers "tapping into their inner vision."
But in the context of the book -- it's talking about *baths* for cack's
sake -- it's not out of place.

Of course, the problem of creating the setting for a great bathing
experience is much different than what most of us on these lists face in
projects. Say, designing a phone or a remote control or a website or a
piece of medical software. For such things the number of design goals
that ARE objective, that CAN be
measured, is much greater than for a bath. I'm already a believer in the
importance of accounting for subjective qualities in any project, but
this book is a good reminder of how "accounting for subjective
qualities" doesn't easily fit into methods, into typical project
practices. I always value reminders to
stay in touch with warm messy beautiful humanity through every project.
And as a sort of cherry on top, this book definitely raises the bar for
bath-taking.

It's a short book with large print and alluring black and white
photographs. A lovely and loving, endearing rant of a book.

Cheers to you all,
Marc

................................
Marc Rettig
[email protected]
www.marcrettig.com



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PURPOSE OF THE LIST:  The objective of AIGA Experience Design is to build an interdisciplinary community of professionals who design for a world in which experiences are increasingly digital and connected. This list has been established as a forum for the exchange of information among community members.

TO VIEW ARCHIVED MESSAGES: visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AIGAExperienceDesign

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