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Ralph Ammer Follow
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I love to draw and write about art, design, and the rest. http://ralphammer.com | Munich,
Germany
Oct 11, 2016 · 5 min read

Interaction Design is dead. What now?

The digital revolution was a gold rush for curious minds. Nobody knew
what digital media actually was, only that it was about to impact our
lives profoundly. It was unknown territory waiting to be =lled with new
artforms, designs and ways to understand the world.

Then this happened:

What’s going on?

1. Interaction Design is based on technological thinking

Interaction Design emerged from a technological — digital — revolution.
So just like engineers, designers became problem solvers. In an ava-
lanche of ever-accelerating trends the main questions of the technologi-
cal designer have been: “What can we do with technology?” and “How
can we do it?”

There is not much room for open questions like: “Why should we do it?”
2. Interaction Design is restricted to pro:table
applications.
After a phase of exploration, interaction designers today mostly serve
one goal: to make money (or as they say in startup incubators: “to
change the world”). The eLort to commodify every nook and cranny of
our (private) lives has become prevalent and it ignores everything that
doesn’t =t into a business plan. The design of proAtable digital prod-
ucts and services can limit your world view to an extremely narrow
perspective.

As a result most of today’s digital products and services are driven by

consumption and the promise of comfort. Based on the problematic idea
of inAnite growth, many of them ruin our living environment, damage
our social cohesion (how come “disruptive” has become a positive
term?), dumb us down and confuse us while things around us get
“smarter”.

Hence many young creative minds don’t see digital technology and inter-
action design as a =eld for personal growth and creative development.
Digital media today seems to be made for consumers, business people
and spys, not for artists.

Moving towards Natural Design

This led me to gradually steer the Interaction Design program at the Uni-
versity of Applied Science in Munich into a diLerent direction. For now I
call this direction “Natural Design”. Biological systems are at the heart
of this design program.

It is based on three principles:

1. Design expresses our relations towards life
Take a look at all the human-made things around you! They all tell you
something about how we see the world. An unsustainably produced
cheap plastic cup tells a diLerent story than a carefully crafted piece of
pottery.

Our designs show our relations towards life and shape them.

Let’s start with the design of our relation towards ourselves. What im-
ages and objects can support our ability to be present in the moment and
maintain mental clarity in our age of super-abundant information? How
can we make ourselves smarter rather than the things around us?

When it comes to our relations towards others, what are the alterna-
tives to sel=es and judgmental like-buttons on pretentious golden smart-
phones? What kind of design fosters resonance between people?
As real as their consequences are, social constructions like money, na-
tions or “the economy” don’t really exist — we made them up to coordi-
nate our co-existence. How can our communication designs reveal how
our social constructions work and help to shape them?

At the core of a life friendly design stands our relation towards our liv-
ing environment and our own biological existence. The progress in bio-
science and sustainable design needs a more comprehensive discourse
among designers which goes beyond technological solutions or the re-
duction of our “ecological footprint”. Rules or laws are not enough, we
also need a profound life friendly philosophical discourse which mani-
fests itself in our designs.

2. We ask: Why?
The questions “What can we do with it?” and “How can we do it?” have
something in common: They can be answered in a straightforward man-
ner with results or solutions: products, services and communication tools
for example.

In the =eld of the arts on the other hand we =nd a tradition of asking
open questions and create rooms for interpretations rather than
solutions.
Many of the most interesting design projects I see students create don’t
have clear “results” but instead raise interesting questions. They intu-
itively follow a path of creation without knowing in advance why they
are doing it and where it will lead them. For instance they might explore
“boredom” or “idleness” with no clear intention of coming up with a =nal
product that solves a problem but rather a creative investigation. Let’s
embrace this kind of work on open questions, and =rmly integrate it as
“serious” design — because it is.

Designers do not just solve problems, they also discover them.

3. The joy of creation

So how do you teach design? You can’t. All you can do is provide a frame-
work in which students enjoy to discover it for themselves.

So my only advice to students is: Pick a craft and make beautiful

stuI!

Design has its roots in craft. And I consider craft to be the central cata-
lyst to achieve any knowledge in design. (The term “craft” here includes
any activity that is done well for its own sake and in which one can ac-
quire mastery.) What is truly important in any creative endeavour cannot
be conveyed with words. The talking professor in front of a class is an
amusing ritual but the essential knowledge in design is tacit. It is won
through physical interaction with the world in the pursuit of mastery.

Learning a craft does not only sharpen the students’ body and mind, it
also gives them immediate feedback and thus connects them to the
world. It provides them with a sense of agency.

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