Greetings, everyone. In today's presentation, we will talk about the impact of design. So as we know, design is an activity that is performed all over the world in all sorts of domains. We have product designers creating products, architects creating buildings, landscape architects creating gardens, interior designers creating interior spaces, graphic designers creating visual systems. So there is a whole range of design that is happening all around us. What exactly is the impact of that design work? We can classify that impact into three sections or three categories. We can talk about the social impacts of design, the environmental impacts of design, and the economic impacts of design. One other thing to keep in mind is while designers want to do the best that they can in the world, very often we have this problem of unintended consequences. So, some impacts of design are extremely positive, they're beneficial from a social, environmental, and economic perspective, but in some cases, the impacts of design are negative and they do cause some damage on other people, on the planet, on everything around us. So let's talk about some of the positive impacts of design in this presentation. One of the key things that design does and that designers focus on is addressing people's needs. Can we design products, services, systems, buildings, etc, that address specific needs that people have, and in that process, make their everyday lives easier. So, that's one really important thing that a design does. And we can think of it in this way. People have physiological needs. For example, if you want to sit in a chair, you need the chair to be a certain height, a certain shape, a certain width. How does a product or a system relate to the human body? We have certain physiques, we are, say, five foot tall or seven foot tall, and those physiological needs are met by byproducts, and therefore designers address those specific physiological needs. We also have cognitive needs, right? We process the information in a certain way. If you're working on a computer, some of the icons on the computer, some of the operating systems on the computer, we need to understand how those systems work, and so designing for people's cognitive needs, designing to make sure that people can actually understand what's on those screens is a part of addressing cognitive needs. People also have emotional needs, the things that we design around, us our houses in which we live, the products that we use, have a connection to us, they become important parts of our lives. So how do we design so that people get the best emotional connection to the products that we design? That's important thing as well. And finally our cultural needs. Each culture, each specific social group has its own set of needs, it has its own set of systems, values, belief systems, etc. And one of the things that design does is it addresses those cultural needs that people have. So if you look at these four needs, physiological, cognitive, emotional, and cultural, design does a good job of addressing these needs that people have. We can think of the products around us as classified into two main sections, right? One is the products of work, so what you see here in this image, you see a laptop computer, you see a pair of glasses, you see a pen, you see a camera, so this could be the set of products that someone uses to do their everyday work. So design addresses these professional needs that people have in the workplace, but it also addresses our needs in leisure. So, the design of the skateboard, the design of shoes, the design of clothing, the design of the landscape in which the skateboarding is happening, all of that is also designed and it's designed for leisure. So design addresses people's needs in a professional way, for work, but also for leisure, for play, and for fun. Another thing that design does, another positive impact is it humanizes technology. Let's talk about this phrase a little bit. So people often don't really care about technology per se, they don't really care about what technology is, they do care about what technology does for them, right? So I don't really care about digital technology, but I do care about the fact that it provides me a smartphone or a laptop computer that I can use, right? So that's really important to think about. We are in a digital world, we are surrounded by a whole range of digital technologies. Again the key thing is not what those technologies are, but what they do for us. And what design does, is it serves as a mediator between the two. So there's a world of technology. We as designers convert those technologies into products and systems, and those products and systems, like cameras, like cell phones, like laptop computers, like iPods and music players, that technology gets translated into usable devices, and that's what design does. It converts technologies into things that humans can use for work and for play. Another impact is solving problems. Design actually has been defined as something that solves problems, design is a problem-solving activity. What kind of problems? Well, you can think of problems like the kinds of problems that someone would face after they turn 65, 70, 75 years old. You might have to take a lot more medications, you might have to check your blood pressure all the time. So design plays a role in designing these devices that people can use to make it easier for them to maintain good health, to keep track of their health, to monitor their health. Take an example of something like oral hygiene, right, we all need to make sure that our mouths are clean, that our teeth are clean. There could be something as simple as a generic toothbrush, but if you look into the market, you will find a whole range of toothbrushes, like you see here, a whole range of colors. What would color do? Well, color would help identify brushes, which one is Mom's brush, which one is Johnny's brush, which one is Dad's brush, so you could identify whose brush it is. In some cases, the color on the bristles also helps you tell whether the brush has been used too long or not long enough. It also helps differentiate products in the marketplace. So just a simple thing of color can add lots of meaning to a product. If you also look at the shapes of the these toothbrushes, very often they've been designed to make them more easier to hold, more ergonomic, safer, etc. So, by design, you can change products and make them a lot better for people to use and to address specific needs. As we start adding more technology to such things as the toothbrush, you can see here in this case a motorized or electric toothbrush. But there's a whole range of other accessories, additions, things that go along with the toothbrush that make the process a lot easier, incorporates technology, safer, and good for people overall. Other things like travel, right? When we travel we have a whole range of needs. And airline travel of course is not the best, it tends to be fairly uncomfortable, especially on long journeys. But airlines and companies have tried to create an environment where you have some entertainment, you have refreshments, and they've tried to make it an environment where it's easy for people to travel. Some more impacts, one other thing that design does, is design plays a big role in beautifying the world. We all want the world to be a beautiful place, we want to incorporate aesthetics into everything that we do, we want people to have good aesthetic experiences. So we want cities to be beautiful, and this means designing good buildings, designing good street systems, designing cafés and restaurants and shops and interior spaces that are pleasurable for people. So one of design's big role is to make the world a beautiful place, and that's what it does. We can apply the same principle to rural environments or non-urban environments as well. How do we create buildings, landscapes, etc, that are one with nature, that incorporate nature into it? So, design does play a big role in making sure that our rural and our urban environments are beautiful, accessible, and wonderful for people. Design also plays a big role in making the world a safer place. If you look at our cars today, our cars have been designed with a whole range of safety features into them, for example, the airbag. Of course, there are some aspects of the airbag that can make it dangerous as well, but in general, the airbag which inflates when you're in an accident protects the driver and the passenger from bodily harm. Other things like the body of the chair, the chassis of the vehicle, all of those things have been designed to keep in mind that we make this moving vehicle a safe environment for people who are driving and who are traveling in it. Just as the car has been made safer for the people who drive it, and people who travel in it, we need to make sure that our roads on which people walk are safe as well. So things like our traffic systems, our traffic lights, have been designed so that it becomes safer for people to travel and to ride their bicycles as well. What you see here in this case, the cross on the building actually is what's called an earthquake bolt, and this is from a building that had suffered some earthquake damage. What architects and designers have done is they've created these systems like earthquake bolts that actually bolt the building together, and in case there's another earthquake, the building will still continue to stand. This is especially useful in case of historic buildings, traditional buildings, old buildings that might have been damaged by an earthquake before that don't have structural reinforcements that would protect in case of a new earthquake. And therefore, these add-ons or these bolts have been adapted into the buildings to make them much safer in case there should be another earthquake. Another positive impact of design is that it can play a very big role in improving our environment or minimizing the environmental damage that has been caused so far. As we all know, the Earth is only one planet, we as a human species have only one planet to live on, and we need to make sure that we can do everything that we can as designers, as citizens, as people who live on this planet, to protect the beautiful environment in which we live. We see in this case a forest, a fantastic old-growth forest that has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. What we need to do by design and which very often good sustainable products do, is that they minimize impacts on the environment, which includes the plants and animals that survive on the planet with us. So the humans are only one of millions of species that live on this planet, we have to make sure that we take care of all those species as well. So good design, one of the positive impacts of good design is that it can protect the environment in which we live. Design also participates in the process of continuous innovation. We face problems around us all the time, we are surrounded by problems. One of the things that design does is it comes up with solutions to those problems. So, as designers operate, as designers come up with new ideas for landscapes, buildings, products, graphics, etc, they're continuously solving new problems. So, we get into the situation where we are constantly surrounded by new innovations, we are constantly surrounded by solutions to the problems that we face today, and that's another really important thing that design does in terms of a positive impact on our world. So, what we've talked about today, is we've talked about the fact that design can have positive and negative impacts, but there's a series of very positive impacts that design can have on our planet. That's what we talked about today. Thank you.
