This position paper presents Municipan, a design artifact created by students as part of a design research project. The authors argue that the prevailing human-centered design approach, which is primarily focused on efficiency and convenience, leads to deskilling, technological dependency, and the progression of the climate crisis.
The authors challenge the students to envision an alternative persona, one that is willing to invest time and effort and learn new skills. Municipan, a pan that can only cook a few portions at a time, is the result of this design experiment. The authors suggest that integrating this approach into design education can act as a "nucleus" to bring forth design professionals inclined to create technologies that have the potential to gradually transform society towards post-growth living.
The authors provide examples of such technologies, such as navigation systems that reduce routing assistance, robot vacuum cleaners that only work when the sun is shining, and heating systems that slowly lower indoor temperatures to widen the comfort zone. These designs are based on the assumption that people are willing to learn and invest time, in contrast to the prevailing focus on efficiency and convenience.
The authors believe that design students who have used this alternative persona in their studies are more likely to incorporate post-growth concepts in their future designs, potentially decreasing technological dependence and reducing the resource intensity of everyday life.
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arxiv.org
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