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CONTEXT

Design is embedded in context. Context, in very simple terms, is the sum of interactions between entities and their environment. This environment includes people (other than the designer), artefacts (everything we make and use), socio-cultural norms, rules or laws, and technological ‘scripts’24 that govern our behaviour. This is what makes understanding context complex, for the outcome of these interactions is not only difficult but perhaps impossible to anticipate.

But what is context and how does one study it? The PESCTLEEM framework25 (pronounced ‘pestleem’), is a multidimensional tool that enables the student to study and draw connections between various interdependent dimensions to stitch together a picture of a phenomenon. These factors26 are political, economic, social, cultural, scientific and technological, legal, environmental, ethical and moral. Each parameter or dimension operates in its own time and space, and often, the designer has to immerse themselves in a specific milieu to be able to make sense of what is going on.

Understanding context is thus about understanding the subtleties and nuances of these relationships, their intertwining and their fragility. Context helps the designer situate their practice in a network of relationships,27 for design is situated practice.

  1. read Lucy Suchman in Plans, Scripts, and Other Ordering Devices (Chapter 11) in Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions (2006).
  2. The original PEST or PESTLE or STEEPLE frameworks lack cultural and, more importantly, ethical and moral dimensions. An expanded framework that includes these factors not only leads to a better understanding of context but enables designers to either frame or deconstruct the intentions of their designs. The designer’s understanding of context is reflected in their design.
  3. A terse and uni-dimensional summary of these factors is as follows. Politics is about power and its asymmetrical distribution amongst individuals, communities, organisations and the state. Economics concerns itself with the production and equitable distribution of goods and services in a state or society. Social refers to a group of people bound by a common culture and identity and often, though not necessarily, by geography. Culture refers to the shared history, values, beliefs, norms, language, rituals, traditions and such things that are socially, rather than biologically, transmitted. Technology refers to the knowledge and skills needed to produce everything that we make and use. Environment refers to everything that surrounds us and enables or delimits growth. Ethics refers to an individual’s understanding of what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, while morality refers to socio-cultural norms or collective interpretations of these values. Morals and ethics guide our decisions and actions. The law constrains our actions and is “a narrative that is held by the community but told by each individual.”28
  4. read Kenneth J. Gergen in Relational Beings: Beyond Self and Community (2009).
  5. read Bruce Levinson in What is Law? (2020).