thank you yes so so thank you for coming
and so yeah and and locked and I work at
Carnegie Mellon and I’m gonna talk to
you about design and the importance of
imaginaries um you can probably hear
from my accent that I’m not from
Pittsburgh um you know eventually I’m
sure I’ll get there but um yeah so I
moved to Pittsburgh a couple years ago
from from London I used to work at the
Royal College of Art ISM as was
mentioned earlier um and at Carnegie
Mellon I started this thing called the
imaginaries lab which is is a you know
it’s not really a lab yet but it’s a
kind of emerging thing it’s it’s
basically a group of a group of us a
group of grad students and undergrads
and a dog and we’re looking at we’re
looking at kind of the Olivia questions
I suppose what we what we do is kind of
look at sorry um kind of questions like
how do people understand local
government or if you could hear
electricity would that change how you
understand it would you understand it
differently or can you use model
landscapes to explore how you think
about your own life or could we even
create new metaphors to help us kind of
understand complex ideas differently and
so what all those are related to is
they’re kind of using design as a way of
understanding how people understand with
that if that makes sense or helping
people understand things in new ways and
really it’s not just using design it’s
really using design methods so it’s
using the sort of the ways that
designers who are working on products or
services or designing software um might
use to do research with people but it’s
applying them in in other ways it’s
applying them to try to find out things
about society about how people think
about you know about kind of other
issues it’s also using the methods to
help people imagine new ways of living
as well like how could things be
different and so what our imaginaries I
mean it’s a you know it’s a term that is
is is really from sociology and what it
kind of refers to is is the sort of the
the ways that we as a society the
different ways that we imagine
particular concepts that are often quite
intangible
difficult to put a finger on so so if I
asked you to close your eyes now right
just um and I’ll probably forget to ask
you to open them again so you know beef
be you know take some initiative and
close your eyes for a second and and
think about what what do you imagine
when I say to you like America
what is your imaginary of America do you
visualize something is it are you seeing
images of things is it I don’t know I
don’t know what they might be is it a
flag is it a Statue of Liberty is it
groups of people is it cities is it
countryside is it like deserts is it
kind of you know is it the coast I think
it could be it could be lots of things
of different people it might be
something quite amorphous it might be
Washington DC it might be a president a
president um not necessarily the
president it might be you know it might
be a number of different number of
different things I obviously there’s no
right or wrong answer but the way that
the thing that comes to mind reflects
some degree of kind of social conception
that has been you know that in some way
probably affects how you act or how you
approach things you know who the people
in your vision are they like you are
they you know are they from the same
background as you are they people
completely different like do you are you
part of that imaginary or is it
something else
okay so so apart from so we looked at
America there but obviously there’s no
right or wrong answer it’s just using it
as an example what about something like
artificial intelligence that what comes
to mind with that you know if you were
going by the sorts of images that are
used in like most news stories what
comes to mind with our traditional
artificial intelligence the imaginary is
probably some sort of I don’t know
Android robot it’s probably silver it’s
got blue LEDs all over it or something
you know with this sort of vacant
expression now the extent which those
kinds of visions affect the way that
that we approach these subjects like
it’s important right that it has effects
um you know there are lots of different
ways that could be imagined but the sort
of societal imaginary is all the mental
models or the mental images that we that
we have end up affecting the way we
approach ideas they affect whether we’re
positive or negative towards them in
very simple terms but they also affect
probably how we think about whether
we’re part of it are we included what is
the default you know what are the ways
we think about things and I think some
of this touches a bit on on some of the
things that that’s a
said said just now in fact in terms of
kind of noticing the negative space or
noticing things that are not present in
your imagined ideas and you know perhaps
questioning well why are they not there
or you know should they be there or
could they be there so I don’t want to
go into into too much detail of the
background of it from a sociology point
of view but there’s this basic idea
which is in suits from the 1920s from a
from a book in the 1920s that
essentially if people define situations
as real they’re real in their
consequences you know if you act as if
something if you define something as if
you know you believe this to be the
truth you often act in accordance with
that model and in the sense that can
kind of create that as the truth you
know if everyone acts as if something is
true in some ways the consequences are
the same as if it as if it weren’t as if
it were true or real so in terms of
rethink which is the kind of theme of
this of this TEDx event today I guess I
suppose I’m interested in this talk in
in kind of giving you an idea of some
ways of like tools to help us rethink
you know other ways that can help us
rethink differently and imaginaries are
one of those or one of those kind of
tools or parts of it because often when
we think about it these kind of big
ideas of how we might explain them we
you know looking at things like the
narratives we use or the stories we tell
ourselves or the ways we explain kind of
cause and effect in in in particular
ways and the you know in the metaphors
that we use and we’ll come back to that
in a minute you know can be very
important but also the kind of myths and
folk series that we might have as a
society for explaining things now it
might be that you know in in general
these are kind of complicated abstract
things that we that we develop these
four are things that we can’t easily
point to but we know they exist but
actually they’re quite you know the
potentially quite complex or abstract
and you know in a technology sense it’s
often things like AI or you know
automation or algorithmic
decision-making or your own personal
data privacy particularly relation to
kind of social media and Facebook and
what people might do with that and like
the internet in general we will have
imaginaries of these and the effect they
affect the way that decisions are made
they affect the way that you personally
do things but they also affect the way
that resemble policy is made you know
how does government approach this how
does you know how what gets funded what
things are ignored what who’s included
and who isn’t um but we should probably
think more broad
leading that as well you know what are
our imaginaries of like health or you
know particularly climate change all
resources in the world or you know
social equity the law the government you
know their economies there’s been quite
a lot of research on people’s
imaginaries of different sorts of
economy how do they think they work how
do people you know and how does that
affect what people do and in general
kind of quality of life so why why am i
interested in this so I came at this as
a designer right I was a I was a product
designer I used to design things like
work on things like folding bikes and
kind of motors for driving wheelchairs
and Li and these kind of things but as a
as a designer I became more interested I
guess in the wider scope of things like
the power that design has actually to
affect the way people do things in
society the affect how it affects the
way we live our lives that wasn’t always
the Caesaria acknowledged like all of
these things have consequences
whatever’s design so and so I went back
and and and became a researcher um I
went to to hear Brunel University in
London which is as the dystopian as it
looks no it’s not really it’s really but
this is the sort of sort of idea that
inspired me and I didn’t find this quote
until later but it’s this idea that in a
sense this is from anne marie willis
user design researcher and more design
academic the idea that we design our
world while our world acts back on us
and designs us and she’s kind of
paraphrasing quite a famous quote by
Winston Churchill there about
architecture but it’s it’s the the idea
that like you know we design things but
actually the stuff that is design ends
up designing our lives to some extent we
may not always realize that the ways in
which that does it so you know it’s
something very basic like like people
queuing there people lining up like you
know they don’t have to there were
social effects there were social norms
around it but to some extent the simple
design of just you know that kind of
rope thing which doesn’t actually
prevent you climbing through it but
there’s enough it’s wrapped up in the
norms that we that we experience but
it’s a silly example it’s a trivial
thing but I mean even the way you know
you came and sat and face the front not
many of you moved the chairs around
there was there’s a kind of you know
it’s like design in everyday life that
affects the way we do things now this
area of design all this sort of approach
is sometimes called behavioral design
design for behavior change in the last
and in the last few years it’s become
quite a big quite a big kind of popular
topic um when I was doing research on
this um you know it’s sort of is I mean
I guess it’s become popular through the
kind of things like fitness tracking and
you know things to try to get you to
slow down or you know when you’re
driving or you know things that try to
get us to save energy or use less energy
you know even here in you know right
outside in in the street here in Oakland
like you know you get a green wave of
traffic lights if you drive below the
speed limit right so there’s these kind
of behavioral design examples in
everyday life um there’s also things
like you know even that right bits of
broken glass in in the you know in the
top of the wall is a kind of behavioral
design example right isn’t it’s to try
to get you not to climb over the wall so
it’s a big field and when I was doing
research on that I suppose I realized
that it’s it’s almost like the
intersection of lots of these other
areas with design so different eras of
psychology sociology you know a lot of
kind of behavioral economics and
decision science and so on all
intersecting with with designs it’s a
very interdisciplinary way of looking at
things which is not always easy but so
what I did in terms of research with
this is I is I brought together groups
of designers from different backgrounds
and different expertise to try to almost
involve them in thinking about how do
they think about people’s behavior like
how does that enter into their workers
as designers and we ended up um or ended
up producing this design with intent
toolkit which is basically a card deck
of ways that people’s behavior is
influenced through design or people’s
actions and it’s free to download if you
know if you’re interested but it’s kind
of brings together lots of ideas in in
one place and it’s been used by quite a
lot of people have been different
translations in different you know in
different countries companies have used
it for their own purposes and adapted it
but you can use it either to design
something or you can use it as a way of
critiquing the ways in which our own
behavior is perhaps manipulated by
design and in everyday life you know you
can kind of see it in it use it either
way and but in terms of applying this
what I ended up doing was a lot of the
projects where it was applied were
around things like energy use and
sustainability we’re actually changing
people’s behavior or trying to
influency you know it’s a big topic I
can we get people to use ice energy can
we get people to act in a more
sustainable way and so I worked on a
series of projects with things like the
the British government and a European
European project with a series of houses
across Europe where we were trying to
investigate these different angles on
this like people’s behavior and energy
use and how the design of the technology
affects it um and one of the ways we did
this really often involve going and
spending time with people in the context
in which they were using energy so we
went and visited people at home in
people’s offices we’d spend time with
them and say you know show me how you
use this let take me through the steps
of you using the heating system or
cooking something and and you know and
also looking at the ways they got
information how do they make decisions
about energy use how do they kind of you
know how does how do they think about
energy frankly and often you know it was
looking at the kind of devices they had
available to understand it whether it
seemed like some kind of metering app
were like monitoring system or you know
the sorts of meters that are available
the sorts of monitors and displays that
are available and which are mostly grey
LCD screens and not all of them but
quite a lot of them and so we did things
like get people to take us through their
days you know explain how they’re using
energy and different in different ways
at different times and for what sort of
activities and talk us through their
thought process that they did it and one
of the things that became that came out
from this is that actually people’s
mental models and they sort of mental
imagery of this of this thing they’re
actually really important in how they
make decisions about it because no one
is trying to use energy at all they’re
trying to do something else they’re
trying to keep the house clean or you
know make the house comfortable or make
a meal or keep their family happy or you
know wash their clothes so they you know
because that’s what we do in society you
know they try to comply with something
they’re not trying to use energy at all
right um and so we this is this idea
that like Energy’s invisibility is
actually really important in this in
it’s a key issue in people’s
understanding is that this thing is
invisible and so it’s difficult to
understand it and so you can only really
understand it through other things
through numbers in lots of ways so one
of the things we did we started out as
an icebreaker exercise in fact but
actually became quite a big bit of
research
itself was to ask people actually okay
draw for us what do you think energy
looks like right it’s it’s an abstract
thing but what comes to mind and so we
got in this particular example here we
got we got about a hundred people at the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London to
to draw for us what they think energy
looks like and there’s you know
obviously there’s no right or wrong
answer there are different
representations but there’s there isn’t
the right way to look at it because it’s
an abstract concept but we started to
see that the sort of metaphors that
people used were actually quite
important to their understanding of it
and that maybe is obvious in in general
but it’s an interesting it’s an
interesting way of think so some of the
things people came up with you know this
person visualized energy is kind of
raised coming out of someone’s face for
someone else it’s more you know it’s the
new nuclear fusion equation in the Sun
someone else it’s kind of you know it’s
something they come and go somewhere it
perhaps goes on forever but it’s got a
kind of chaos to it perhaps for some
people it was more like a kind of
personal thing or maybe it’s like an
aura there are various other types of
chaos fire kind of chaos vortex type
chaos sort of lightning type approaches
and other types of kind of you know Sun
type some type ends you don’t they said
I mean there’s a whole selection of
these and that should we put them
together in with some analysis in it in
a book that’s a free download if you’re
interested that’s kind of tries to
analyze some of these and see like what
implications might be for people
designing stuff around interfaces or
ways of explaining things but in general
like you know there are other ways of
understanding energy so we started to
try to look at some of these and to try
to explore them in different ways
because because often you know you see
in terms of numbers on a on a meter or
on a bill um but what if you could do
something like what if you could hear it
for example and this was something
suggested by one of the householders we
worked you know I can’t lay here how
much energy how much electricity is
being used by things so this project
power cord was a kind of sauna fied home
energy monitor that they monitored
different appliances and them and turned
it in this case and you’ll hear this
this prototype now I’m actually used
it’s not a cig be pleasant in the way
you’re hearing it there but the idea is
you know that might be a is that a
useful metaphor maybe it’s not but it’s
an interesting other way of getting in
another way of understanding what’s
going on and so what we’ve done with
that is you’ve taken that project
further and it should be installed in
May in a Carnegie Mellon in that
building Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall
and you should be able to walk through
the building and here it won’t be
birdsong well it won’t be like that
it’ll be nicer than that and whatever
sound it is um you’ll be able to hear
the electricity that’s being used by the
building in real-time basically or or a
summary of what’s happened over the past
few days and actually you know whether
that changes people and people’s
understanding I don’t know but that’s
part of what we’re trying to find out
does it lead to a different kind of
awareness of the patterns and this is
something we’ve been working on as well
with this is is actually um almost like
making vibrations from it in a way that
could be tangible could be something
that we use light reflected off of
something like that and like a slab me
figure as it’s sometimes called aura or
cymatics um it’s a lots of different
different things and I just I guess just
to finish I just wanted to show you a
couple of other um other approaches not
to do with energy so things like mental
landscapes idea was was you know can you
almost like get people to extract ideas
they have in their head and use
landscape metaphors like hills and
valleys and rocky patches bridges
weather and so on as a way of kind of as
a way of externalizing how you think
about something so the students here
were visualizing their like sort of
career path as in this case the sort of
river with like they’re on a boat
heading toward some Rapids and they’ve
got to make a decision about where to go
and so the so there’s you know you can
use these kind of methods as ways of
wants like externalizing your
imaginaries um we’ve got this a final
thing we have this project Civic visions
which is in Pittsburgh which is looking
at how do people visualize or imagine
local government and how might they
imagine it differently and the the thing
coming neck
from that project is basically this
thing where you’ll be able to talk to
fire hydrants and about how you imagine
the future of Pittsburgh and how you the
future of engagement if you like with
them with with the city through talking
to fire hydrants which will listen to
you you know it’s talking to them in the
abstract so okay so just to finish and
there’s this another project coming is
this idea around new metaphors which is
sort of about creating new metaphors for
things that are difficult to explain and
so if you’re interested in that there’s
a there’s a free download of a kind of
toolkit a new metaphors calm that has
that has some of these things brought
together um so yeah to summarize so
these are all kind of tools to help us
rethink I mean that’s that’s the point
that’s the point of these and I think
the you know my question would be could
new imaginaries help us kind of change
the behavior of the systems were in
rather than our behavior being changed
by design maybe we can help change the
behavior of the systems that we’re in so
yeah i’m using design to understand how
people understand and helping people
understand in new ways and helping
people imagine new ways of living so
yeah I’d ask you what are your
imaginaries like think about them think
about when you think about when you
notice them when do you do when you
don’t notice them and maybe kind of
think about are they you know what
effects that they have on your on your
actions thank you [Applause]
and so yeah and and locked and I work at
Carnegie Mellon and I’m gonna talk to
you about design and the importance of
imaginaries um you can probably hear
from my accent that I’m not from
Pittsburgh um you know eventually I’m
sure I’ll get there but um yeah so I
moved to Pittsburgh a couple years ago
from from London I used to work at the
Royal College of Art ISM as was
mentioned earlier um and at Carnegie
Mellon I started this thing called the
imaginaries lab which is is a you know
it’s not really a lab yet but it’s a
kind of emerging thing it’s it’s
basically a group of a group of us a
group of grad students and undergrads
and a dog and we’re looking at we’re
looking at kind of the Olivia questions
I suppose what we what we do is kind of
look at sorry um kind of questions like
how do people understand local
government or if you could hear
electricity would that change how you
understand it would you understand it
differently or can you use model
landscapes to explore how you think
about your own life or could we even
create new metaphors to help us kind of
understand complex ideas differently and
so what all those are related to is
they’re kind of using design as a way of
understanding how people understand with
that if that makes sense or helping
people understand things in new ways and
really it’s not just using design it’s
really using design methods so it’s
using the sort of the ways that
designers who are working on products or
services or designing software um might
use to do research with people but it’s
applying them in in other ways it’s
applying them to try to find out things
about society about how people think
about you know about kind of other
issues it’s also using the methods to
help people imagine new ways of living
as well like how could things be
different and so what our imaginaries I
mean it’s a you know it’s a term that is
is is really from sociology and what it
kind of refers to is is the sort of the
the ways that we as a society the
different ways that we imagine
particular concepts that are often quite
intangible
difficult to put a finger on so so if I
asked you to close your eyes now right
just um and I’ll probably forget to ask
you to open them again so you know beef
be you know take some initiative and
close your eyes for a second and and
think about what what do you imagine
when I say to you like America
what is your imaginary of America do you
visualize something is it are you seeing
images of things is it I don’t know I
don’t know what they might be is it a
flag is it a Statue of Liberty is it
groups of people is it cities is it
countryside is it like deserts is it
kind of you know is it the coast I think
it could be it could be lots of things
of different people it might be
something quite amorphous it might be
Washington DC it might be a president a
president um not necessarily the
president it might be you know it might
be a number of different number of
different things I obviously there’s no
right or wrong answer but the way that
the thing that comes to mind reflects
some degree of kind of social conception
that has been you know that in some way
probably affects how you act or how you
approach things you know who the people
in your vision are they like you are
they you know are they from the same
background as you are they people
completely different like do you are you
part of that imaginary or is it
something else
okay so so apart from so we looked at
America there but obviously there’s no
right or wrong answer it’s just using it
as an example what about something like
artificial intelligence that what comes
to mind with that you know if you were
going by the sorts of images that are
used in like most news stories what
comes to mind with our traditional
artificial intelligence the imaginary is
probably some sort of I don’t know
Android robot it’s probably silver it’s
got blue LEDs all over it or something
you know with this sort of vacant
expression now the extent which those
kinds of visions affect the way that
that we approach these subjects like
it’s important right that it has effects
um you know there are lots of different
ways that could be imagined but the sort
of societal imaginary is all the mental
models or the mental images that we that
we have end up affecting the way we
approach ideas they affect whether we’re
positive or negative towards them in
very simple terms but they also affect
probably how we think about whether
we’re part of it are we included what is
the default you know what are the ways
we think about things and I think some
of this touches a bit on on some of the
things that that’s a
said said just now in fact in terms of
kind of noticing the negative space or
noticing things that are not present in
your imagined ideas and you know perhaps
questioning well why are they not there
or you know should they be there or
could they be there so I don’t want to
go into into too much detail of the
background of it from a sociology point
of view but there’s this basic idea
which is in suits from the 1920s from a
from a book in the 1920s that
essentially if people define situations
as real they’re real in their
consequences you know if you act as if
something if you define something as if
you know you believe this to be the
truth you often act in accordance with
that model and in the sense that can
kind of create that as the truth you
know if everyone acts as if something is
true in some ways the consequences are
the same as if it as if it weren’t as if
it were true or real so in terms of
rethink which is the kind of theme of
this of this TEDx event today I guess I
suppose I’m interested in this talk in
in kind of giving you an idea of some
ways of like tools to help us rethink
you know other ways that can help us
rethink differently and imaginaries are
one of those or one of those kind of
tools or parts of it because often when
we think about it these kind of big
ideas of how we might explain them we
you know looking at things like the
narratives we use or the stories we tell
ourselves or the ways we explain kind of
cause and effect in in in particular
ways and the you know in the metaphors
that we use and we’ll come back to that
in a minute you know can be very
important but also the kind of myths and
folk series that we might have as a
society for explaining things now it
might be that you know in in general
these are kind of complicated abstract
things that we that we develop these
four are things that we can’t easily
point to but we know they exist but
actually they’re quite you know the
potentially quite complex or abstract
and you know in a technology sense it’s
often things like AI or you know
automation or algorithmic
decision-making or your own personal
data privacy particularly relation to
kind of social media and Facebook and
what people might do with that and like
the internet in general we will have
imaginaries of these and the effect they
affect the way that decisions are made
they affect the way that you personally
do things but they also affect the way
that resemble policy is made you know
how does government approach this how
does you know how what gets funded what
things are ignored what who’s included
and who isn’t um but we should probably
think more broad
leading that as well you know what are
our imaginaries of like health or you
know particularly climate change all
resources in the world or you know
social equity the law the government you
know their economies there’s been quite
a lot of research on people’s
imaginaries of different sorts of
economy how do they think they work how
do people you know and how does that
affect what people do and in general
kind of quality of life so why why am i
interested in this so I came at this as
a designer right I was a I was a product
designer I used to design things like
work on things like folding bikes and
kind of motors for driving wheelchairs
and Li and these kind of things but as a
as a designer I became more interested I
guess in the wider scope of things like
the power that design has actually to
affect the way people do things in
society the affect how it affects the
way we live our lives that wasn’t always
the Caesaria acknowledged like all of
these things have consequences
whatever’s design so and so I went back
and and and became a researcher um I
went to to hear Brunel University in
London which is as the dystopian as it
looks no it’s not really it’s really but
this is the sort of sort of idea that
inspired me and I didn’t find this quote
until later but it’s this idea that in a
sense this is from anne marie willis
user design researcher and more design
academic the idea that we design our
world while our world acts back on us
and designs us and she’s kind of
paraphrasing quite a famous quote by
Winston Churchill there about
architecture but it’s it’s the the idea
that like you know we design things but
actually the stuff that is design ends
up designing our lives to some extent we
may not always realize that the ways in
which that does it so you know it’s
something very basic like like people
queuing there people lining up like you
know they don’t have to there were
social effects there were social norms
around it but to some extent the simple
design of just you know that kind of
rope thing which doesn’t actually
prevent you climbing through it but
there’s enough it’s wrapped up in the
norms that we that we experience but
it’s a silly example it’s a trivial
thing but I mean even the way you know
you came and sat and face the front not
many of you moved the chairs around
there was there’s a kind of you know
it’s like design in everyday life that
affects the way we do things now this
area of design all this sort of approach
is sometimes called behavioral design
design for behavior change in the last
and in the last few years it’s become
quite a big quite a big kind of popular
topic um when I was doing research on
this um you know it’s sort of is I mean
I guess it’s become popular through the
kind of things like fitness tracking and
you know things to try to get you to
slow down or you know when you’re
driving or you know things that try to
get us to save energy or use less energy
you know even here in you know right
outside in in the street here in Oakland
like you know you get a green wave of
traffic lights if you drive below the
speed limit right so there’s these kind
of behavioral design examples in
everyday life um there’s also things
like you know even that right bits of
broken glass in in the you know in the
top of the wall is a kind of behavioral
design example right isn’t it’s to try
to get you not to climb over the wall so
it’s a big field and when I was doing
research on that I suppose I realized
that it’s it’s almost like the
intersection of lots of these other
areas with design so different eras of
psychology sociology you know a lot of
kind of behavioral economics and
decision science and so on all
intersecting with with designs it’s a
very interdisciplinary way of looking at
things which is not always easy but so
what I did in terms of research with
this is I is I brought together groups
of designers from different backgrounds
and different expertise to try to almost
involve them in thinking about how do
they think about people’s behavior like
how does that enter into their workers
as designers and we ended up um or ended
up producing this design with intent
toolkit which is basically a card deck
of ways that people’s behavior is
influenced through design or people’s
actions and it’s free to download if you
know if you’re interested but it’s kind
of brings together lots of ideas in in
one place and it’s been used by quite a
lot of people have been different
translations in different you know in
different countries companies have used
it for their own purposes and adapted it
but you can use it either to design
something or you can use it as a way of
critiquing the ways in which our own
behavior is perhaps manipulated by
design and in everyday life you know you
can kind of see it in it use it either
way and but in terms of applying this
what I ended up doing was a lot of the
projects where it was applied were
around things like energy use and
sustainability we’re actually changing
people’s behavior or trying to
influency you know it’s a big topic I
can we get people to use ice energy can
we get people to act in a more
sustainable way and so I worked on a
series of projects with things like the
the British government and a European
European project with a series of houses
across Europe where we were trying to
investigate these different angles on
this like people’s behavior and energy
use and how the design of the technology
affects it um and one of the ways we did
this really often involve going and
spending time with people in the context
in which they were using energy so we
went and visited people at home in
people’s offices we’d spend time with
them and say you know show me how you
use this let take me through the steps
of you using the heating system or
cooking something and and you know and
also looking at the ways they got
information how do they make decisions
about energy use how do they kind of you
know how does how do they think about
energy frankly and often you know it was
looking at the kind of devices they had
available to understand it whether it
seemed like some kind of metering app
were like monitoring system or you know
the sorts of meters that are available
the sorts of monitors and displays that
are available and which are mostly grey
LCD screens and not all of them but
quite a lot of them and so we did things
like get people to take us through their
days you know explain how they’re using
energy and different in different ways
at different times and for what sort of
activities and talk us through their
thought process that they did it and one
of the things that became that came out
from this is that actually people’s
mental models and they sort of mental
imagery of this of this thing they’re
actually really important in how they
make decisions about it because no one
is trying to use energy at all they’re
trying to do something else they’re
trying to keep the house clean or you
know make the house comfortable or make
a meal or keep their family happy or you
know wash their clothes so they you know
because that’s what we do in society you
know they try to comply with something
they’re not trying to use energy at all
right um and so we this is this idea
that like Energy’s invisibility is
actually really important in this in
it’s a key issue in people’s
understanding is that this thing is
invisible and so it’s difficult to
understand it and so you can only really
understand it through other things
through numbers in lots of ways so one
of the things we did we started out as
an icebreaker exercise in fact but
actually became quite a big bit of
research
itself was to ask people actually okay
draw for us what do you think energy
looks like right it’s it’s an abstract
thing but what comes to mind and so we
got in this particular example here we
got we got about a hundred people at the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London to
to draw for us what they think energy
looks like and there’s you know
obviously there’s no right or wrong
answer there are different
representations but there’s there isn’t
the right way to look at it because it’s
an abstract concept but we started to
see that the sort of metaphors that
people used were actually quite
important to their understanding of it
and that maybe is obvious in in general
but it’s an interesting it’s an
interesting way of think so some of the
things people came up with you know this
person visualized energy is kind of
raised coming out of someone’s face for
someone else it’s more you know it’s the
new nuclear fusion equation in the Sun
someone else it’s kind of you know it’s
something they come and go somewhere it
perhaps goes on forever but it’s got a
kind of chaos to it perhaps for some
people it was more like a kind of
personal thing or maybe it’s like an
aura there are various other types of
chaos fire kind of chaos vortex type
chaos sort of lightning type approaches
and other types of kind of you know Sun
type some type ends you don’t they said
I mean there’s a whole selection of
these and that should we put them
together in with some analysis in it in
a book that’s a free download if you’re
interested that’s kind of tries to
analyze some of these and see like what
implications might be for people
designing stuff around interfaces or
ways of explaining things but in general
like you know there are other ways of
understanding energy so we started to
try to look at some of these and to try
to explore them in different ways
because because often you know you see
in terms of numbers on a on a meter or
on a bill um but what if you could do
something like what if you could hear it
for example and this was something
suggested by one of the householders we
worked you know I can’t lay here how
much energy how much electricity is
being used by things so this project
power cord was a kind of sauna fied home
energy monitor that they monitored
different appliances and them and turned
it in this case and you’ll hear this
this prototype now I’m actually used
it’s not a cig be pleasant in the way
you’re hearing it there but the idea is
you know that might be a is that a
useful metaphor maybe it’s not but it’s
an interesting other way of getting in
another way of understanding what’s
going on and so what we’ve done with
that is you’ve taken that project
further and it should be installed in
May in a Carnegie Mellon in that
building Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall
and you should be able to walk through
the building and here it won’t be
birdsong well it won’t be like that
it’ll be nicer than that and whatever
sound it is um you’ll be able to hear
the electricity that’s being used by the
building in real-time basically or or a
summary of what’s happened over the past
few days and actually you know whether
that changes people and people’s
understanding I don’t know but that’s
part of what we’re trying to find out
does it lead to a different kind of
awareness of the patterns and this is
something we’ve been working on as well
with this is is actually um almost like
making vibrations from it in a way that
could be tangible could be something
that we use light reflected off of
something like that and like a slab me
figure as it’s sometimes called aura or
cymatics um it’s a lots of different
different things and I just I guess just
to finish I just wanted to show you a
couple of other um other approaches not
to do with energy so things like mental
landscapes idea was was you know can you
almost like get people to extract ideas
they have in their head and use
landscape metaphors like hills and
valleys and rocky patches bridges
weather and so on as a way of kind of as
a way of externalizing how you think
about something so the students here
were visualizing their like sort of
career path as in this case the sort of
river with like they’re on a boat
heading toward some Rapids and they’ve
got to make a decision about where to go
and so the so there’s you know you can
use these kind of methods as ways of
wants like externalizing your
imaginaries um we’ve got this a final
thing we have this project Civic visions
which is in Pittsburgh which is looking
at how do people visualize or imagine
local government and how might they
imagine it differently and the the thing
coming neck
from that project is basically this
thing where you’ll be able to talk to
fire hydrants and about how you imagine
the future of Pittsburgh and how you the
future of engagement if you like with
them with with the city through talking
to fire hydrants which will listen to
you you know it’s talking to them in the
abstract so okay so just to finish and
there’s this another project coming is
this idea around new metaphors which is
sort of about creating new metaphors for
things that are difficult to explain and
so if you’re interested in that there’s
a there’s a free download of a kind of
toolkit a new metaphors calm that has
that has some of these things brought
together um so yeah to summarize so
these are all kind of tools to help us
rethink I mean that’s that’s the point
that’s the point of these and I think
the you know my question would be could
new imaginaries help us kind of change
the behavior of the systems were in
rather than our behavior being changed
by design maybe we can help change the
behavior of the systems that we’re in so
yeah i’m using design to understand how
people understand and helping people
understand in new ways and helping
people imagine new ways of living so
yeah I’d ask you what are your
imaginaries like think about them think
about when you think about when you
notice them when do you do when you
don’t notice them and maybe kind of
think about are they you know what
effects that they have on your on your
actions thank you [Applause]
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