Designing the unconscious
“What a designer do is to make the interaction between human beings and objects harmoniously”
This blog is dedicated to Naoto Fukasawa, Japanese designer. Affordance is a very important topic in product design and undoubtedly Naoto Fukasawa is the best designer to refer to in this matter. In this blog, my focuse is on affordance .
When people repeatedly do an action, they make an impression on the environment unconsciously. People When climb the same route, handholds on branches and pebbles that were accidentally grabbed become smoother with time. Given the circumstances, everyone benefits equally from the location of the rocks and branches in the environment. These locations unintentionally operate as nodes in the flow of activity and awareness focuses. Naoto believes design is findings those common nodes in people’s activities flouting in their daily actions without awareness.
Naoto Fukasawa, against Dunne and Raby, believes design shouldn’t be stimulating, the designer from his point of view is more of the observer than making effects on people’s behavior. He argues stimulation disrupts people’s unconscious flow of activities in people, peaceful coexistence of objects and people is best communicated "without thought."
When we open the lid of the rice cooker, we put some rice in the plant with a spoon. At that moment our hand stops for a moment, and we do not where to put the spoon. Muji rice cooker is flat on top and there is a place for a spoon to rest so the user action would be smooth with no discontinuity. Sasaki believes Naoto’s design doesn’t mean to encourage behaviors. His design offers subtle guidance that the product can be used in this way! The possibilities. How people find their own way of doing things like cracking a raw egg, or taking stairs actions that someone finds when they are confronting the environment.
Affordance first was introduced by a psychologist name Gibson.
Gibson's "affordance" was never a cognitive standard for motivating behavior,
He understands unconscious movements people have better than themselves.
Objects we use show their love best by being quiet and just being there. Naoto did an investigation on active memory, groups of people`s experience with the same object in the same environment.
Aesthetics (the beauty of relations)
Aesthetics is a beauty that is found in a relationship between things, people, and the environment. There is no singular form that is beautiful anywhere. Each situation and environment allow us to define the beauty of objects. The reason why someone thing someone is beautiful is because they recognize common experiences behavior and situations and environments.
Form(composition)
The form is a boundary line that traces relationships between things and people.
Naoto believes we need to focus more on our relationship in between. like communicating with each other than the design of an object itself. Everything that going on around an object is involved in that object’s design, people’s habits, culture, reactions, etc. The memory of feeling is what we have from everyday activities like peeling potatoes. Many designers consciously or unconsciously are inspired by childhood memories. In childhood time, our memory is very crystal clear, and every experience is new and existing. Most of our perception of the world forms in the very first years of life so I believe designers if they want to make an emotional bond to the user, they need to take care of their memories from the past. Doing meditation can help to make awake and fresh memories. those angles on the potato that the knife causes. W11K mobile phone was inspired by this simple experience.
Naoto claims there is no form that appeals to everyone and there is no such good shape function. design is about finding the right answer to the situation. Lighting in the size of 500- a page bundle of A4 can be placed anywhere in the office such as on shelves, between books, and adjustable to many items.
There are many things around us whose size is familiar to us like A4 paper. Even many objects in our workplace are determined according to their size. Use of sizes that people are more familiar with in design. A notebook is the same size as a passport which people are familiar with in their pocket or usb is the size of a cigarette.it is a tool for the designer to connect people’s physical and visual memory of objects.to make more homonymy with our surroundings.
We need to harmonize between the elements we design and the environment.
Outline
For Naoto all elements of life like history memory, and body affordance. Things we all share every day are like a puzzle that complete each other, when one piece is missing and you outline that missing piece you outline the whole puzzle, the question is how we make an environment around one of the pieces. It means that the whole environment is united.
Affordance
is an interesting word the American psychologist James Gibson founded. Interaction
The value we naturally find in the situation in the environment. Touching a chair, where the hand touch the chair is the part of affordance, the edge of the chair afford us to touch.
Affordance is something that people intuitively are aware of. A farmer knows when to harvest trees. From the infant age human beings detect and use many affordances in their environment.
“Your body is more honest than your mind” Naoto
A girl sits on wood as a bench people immediately realize it is wood.
Donald Norman explains in the book The Design of Every Thing: when Affordance is taken advantage of, the user knows what to do with a product without the need for a label or instructor. If a simple product needs instruction it means that the design has failed. He named it knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head. Jasper Morrison explains we can borrow form from other recognizable forms and places to make a product more familiar and resonate.
Active memory
The thing that you memorize without thinking. I believe in a design the user is in the center, and their needs are considered. To achieve it the designer needs to know their audiences or the users of their products, both cultural and psychological. to know the society that is supposed to use the product.
Human is at the center that’s why products shouldn’t be too outstanding that’s why his design is simple.
Fukazawa claims he is Interested to study the body . “people say I have already seen your product but they have not because my products are already in your minds, but you have not seen them.”
Simplicity is not easy. He observes people their need their body, life
The form should be following human behavior.
Instead of focusing on the external shape, focus on a person`s feeling and recognition of their body and their five senses.
Invisible presence
Together with "Personal Sky," Fukasawa created "a chair with a soul left behind," which was inspired by the concept of "individuality inside corporate identity." The project "Personal Sky" aimed to express the presence of the user in the workplace even when they have left. It is like their territory Things that people leave on their table or chair at work like their coats possibly a person's sense of presence was left behind. It could be perceived as a person’s personality. This concept was comparable to the sensation of almost being able to make out a person's form in a pair of well-worn shoes that had been worn long time and get deformed. The person's back was projected as they sat down in the chair. A visual trick that makes it appear as though an invisible person has sat down is achieved by replaying the image that is taken when someone sits in the chair. A visual trick that makes it appear as though an invisible person has sat down is achieved by replaying the image that is taken when someone sits in the chair.
Jasper Morrison’s opinion about Fukasawa
The designer’s job is to notice the unnoticeable, to enable ideas to the surface. He believes it is important to avoid pretending to make things that look new and different without considering the user’s true needs. As designers, we need to be aware of the opportunities that our surroundings present to us. to make always a connection between form and function, situation and solutions, Morrison believes with Naoto’s design there is no problem. Lack of problem”: Naoto design has eased as if the problem never existed at all! According to Marcel Duchamp, there is no solution because there are no problems, We must go deep level in human sensations. What they feel when interacting with a product. Good design always explains itself naturally with no need for explanation.
Naoto argues there is a central awareness even when we do things unconsciously. For example, the color of tea in our minds is a nice red-brown. A designer needs to consider that kind of perception.
