Culture

Abstract

Besides expertise in social psychology, expertise in culture may contribute towards the aim of good design as rational design. Culture involves the kinds of expectations that people in a given social group have about appropriate thinking and behavior. There are at least three ways that knowledge of culture might relate to good design. The first is that good design is universal, implying that culture is of little relevance to good design. This view is associated with modernism, on which a single, modern and industrial way of life was viewed as a universal good. Thus, good design should reflect this lifestyle. The second relation is that good design is contextual, that is, that good design means adapting designs to the various expectations that people in different cultures may have. An obvious example would be a software agent that users can address in their own language, rather than having to interact in a single language, such as English. The third relation is that good design accommodates innovation, at least within limits. Industrial designer Raymond Loewy recommended this view. He argued that good designs challenge people’s expectations but without going so far as to alienate them from those designs. He called this idea the MAYA principle.