Please identify an describe a design which you think exhibits principles of responsible design. Describe the design and how it is used. Tell us why you chose this design and to what ends the design has been developed. Also, you need to answer this following question, are there other means to achieve the same ends this design is intended to address? Further, does the design help the user address issues concerning responsible consumption?

You will have 15 minutes.

This week's blog response will address the questions concerning responsible design and ethical consumption.

Based on the reading of the ADA document and the reading of the chapter in Design for Society on Responsible design, pick and describe a design which you think exemplifies at least three principles described in the readings. If you need some specific examples to begin with, have a look throughout chapter 3, and specifically, the checklist on page 132. 

This week I want you to blog on a design which you feel has aspects which are gendered in a significant way. We discussed the example of the razor, and came up with a few examples.

What I want you do for this blog response (about 250 words) is to think of a design, describe elements exemplifying how the design is gendered, and why or why not the design must be this way.

Other questions to consider. How has the gender of the user been considered in the design? Does it narrow our definition/understanding of male or female? In other words, do you feel that this designed "perspective" on gender constrains our understanding of what it means to be male or female?

For this week, you need to describe the user/s of a particular technology. Do this by doing the following:

1. Pick and briefly describe the technology. (1 paragraph)
2. Describe "the context of use" of a particular technology. (1 paragraph)
3. What theoretical approach do you consider most revealing for an analysis of users of this technology? (1 paragraph)

Pick and choose a technology/artifact whose design (or range of design) has been significantly determined by users, beyond the user being simply considered as "consumer" of the design. Address the following issues about the technology:

• What is the technology and what are the problems it is intended to address?
• Who or what relevant social groups defined the problems the design was intended to address?
• How was the user included in the design process?
• Can you think of an example of either interpretive flexibility or design flexibility within the development of the artifact?
• How are the users defined? (self selected, politically, gendered, etc.)

All sorts of examples could fit this area, in considering the users of a design. From game controllers to shavers, bicycles to walkmans.

Blog a response to the following questions:
What are some significant ways in which technological artifacts socially constructed?
In what ways should we think about how users influence the design of an artifact?
Are users merely consumers? Or are there other significant points of intervention we can begin to consider?

Week 3: Artifacts and Politics
• Jan 26: Read Winner pdf on "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"
• Jan 28: Read Winner pdf on "Political Ergonomics"
Homework: Blog response on the readings due Thursday.

Week 4: Objects and temporality
• Feb 2: Finish Political Ergonomics reading. Show and Tell session 2 : Political Technologies
• Feb 4:.  No class. Read Chapters 1 -3 of "The Timeless Way of Building"
Homework: Blog response on the readings due Thursday.

Pick a technology or object you think exhibits political characteristics. Show us the technology and tell us the following things about it.

1. What is the social context of the technology?
2. Is the technology functionally or inherently political?
3. How do different kinds of users experience or access this technology differently?
4. What kind of relationship does this technology have with social life and society?
5. What were some choices made about the design which could have lead to different political or social arrangements?

For your blog this week, provide an example of a technology which you think is inherently political (according to Winner)

1. Why do you think the technology is inherently political?
2. Was the political effect the intention of the designer? Or, could the designer be responsible for the political effect?
3. What responsibility should the designer take in thinking about the political outcomes of their designs?