KQED's Forum Can We Really Design Our Way Out of Our Problems?
Sep 25, 2025
Maggie Graham, a cultural historian and designer and author of "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History," dives deep into the evolving nature of design. She critiques the myth that design alone can solve massive societal issues, highlighting the interplay between aesthetics, politics, and technology. Topics include the Cold War's influence on design thinking, the vital role of ethnographic user research, and the need for responsible AI integration. Graham urges participatory design for addressing structural inequalities, emphasizing design's potential beyond mere visuals.
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What 'Design' Has Come To Mean
- Design in the 20th century fused aesthetics, functionality, problem-solving, experience-making, and human-centered thinking into one loaded idea.
- Maggie Graham shows that modern 'design' now carries all these practices together and shapes cultural expectations.
Cold War Shaped Design As Problem Solving
- Cold War science funding pushed an objectivist problem-solving ethos into design discourse and linked design to cognitive models of human problem solving.
- Herbert Simon's work helped make 'design' a process to study and reproduce, merging early AI and design thinking.
Xerox PARC's Anthropology Experiment
- Xerox PARC used anthropologists and early user research to study real use-contexts, exemplified by Lucy Suchman's work observing workers with machines.
- Graham praises Suchman's pragmatic, in-company ethnography that influenced human-centered design practices.
