The design anthropologist’s mindset
What does it mean to be human? How can an understanding of what humans are, have been and could be, mean to a designer? How do you begin to access a more meaningful world, for you as a designer and the people you are designing for?
Taking an Anthropologist’s mindset allows us to glimpse the beauty of what it means to be human. How we as designers can create objects, interactions and services not just to meet needs, but to meaningfully grow the people who interact with our work, be they customers, colleagues or our future selves.
Stephen will take you on a whirlwind trip though the world of anthropological thinking that will change how you view the work that you do and the meaning that you create.
This discussion touches on some tips and tricks from four fields of anthropological thought: archaeology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology. It will also address some of the underlying tensions between design for business and designing for humans.
A Mini Bibliography – Design Anthropologists Mindset
- Arnold, JE, Graesch, AP, Ragazzini, E & Ochs, E 2012, Life at home in the twenty-first century: 32 families open their doors, UCLA, CIOA Press, Los Angeles.
- Bell, G 2011, The Value of Boredom, TEDx, Sydney.
- Cadell, B & Cox, S 2012, Google reader feeds – various (available on request), Google, viewed 2012,
- Clarke, AJ (ed.) 2011, Design Anthropology: Object culture in the 21st Century, Springer Wien, New York.
- Edwards, M 2012, Desonance, WordPress, viewed July 2012
- Fox, K 2004, Watching the English, Hodder, London.
- Goffman, E 1963, Behaviour in Public Places, The Free Press, New York.
- Hodder, I 2012, Archaeological Theory Today, 2nd edn., Polity Press, Cambridge.
- Horizon, B 2011, BBC Horizon: Do you see what I see? “The himba tribe”, Youtube.
- Papnek, V 1984, Design for the Real World, 2nd edn., Academy Press, Chicago.
- Parkin, R & Stone, L (eds), 2004, Kinship and Family : an anthropological reader, Blackwell Publishing, Boston.
- Popova, M 2012, Anatomy of Boredom, Brainpickings.org, viewed 26 August
- Rose, S & Caplin, S 2005, Be the coolest dad on the block, Broadway Books, New York.
- Tunstall, D 2012, Design Anthropology (Swinburne University of Technology), viewed 28 August
- Venkatesh, S 2008, Gang Leader for a Day, Penguin Press, New York.
