tetrad of
PRAXIS

PRACTICE

The non-ad influences the practice of design, i.e. it traverses disciplinary boundaries. To engage in practice is to engage in a dialogue with design. This dialogue is a two way process: what we design shapes us, and we shape the design. Hence it matters that the practice is earnest and consistent.

SOCIAL

As a corollary to the non-ad, the designer realises that knowledge is co-constructed. This requires humility and the ability to work in diverse teams, with others. Most importantly, the designer has to understand that as an activity and a process, design is directed at all living entities and not just human beings. This process of engagement requires considerable care, not sympathy or empathy. To care implies an unconditional commitment to the welfare and well-being of others.

SENSITIVITY

I prefer and use the term sensitivity over empathy. Empathy cannot be summoned to task for the sake of an assignment or under the pretext of studying users in their habitat. Empathy by the roadside, on show by part-time empathizers, is unlikely to yield any insights. Empathy is. It is embedded in our day-to-day social interactions, in our responses to anything and everything – living or not – that needs our attention and care. It is this ethics of care10 that the student needs to practise in their everyday life, and it will hopefully percolate into their designs.

SENSIBILITY

Design is thoughtful. It just makes sense. It does not feel out of place, i.e. it is appropriate in its setting. In order to arrive at that which makes sense, the designer needs to engage in sense-making11. Sense-making helps the student navigate ambiguous and uncertain situations. It is this remarkable ability to make sense of the world, understand the pattern and deploy it back into our world that perhaps distinguishes us from all other species. It is through this sense-making, intention, will and agency that we shape the environment. This shaping has to make sense as the consequences of shaping the world without sensitivity and sensibility pervade the environment and even permeate our consciousness.

  1. read Nel Noddings in Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (2013).
  2. read Brenda Dervin and Charles M. Naumer in Sense-Making (Chapter 2) in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (2009).