Designers have to look forward and start making products that will sit well in all our futures, but we must do this with humility. We must be mindful that as the population swells and ages, we do not have all the answers at our fingertips. We need to reach out into the world a little more, be a little more enquiring. Instead of imposing ideas upon people from our studios, we need to go into our communities and have some of those ideas imposed upon us. I believe that involving other people is probably the only way to achieve true sustainability because if people are invested in a project they will place a higher value on it. Redstrom said “People, not users, inhabit the world. A ‘user’ is something that designers create’’ Like a post-it note at a brain storming session, the term ‘users’ implies that some kind of vague background research has been undertaken. It would be of more value to be honest about the origins of a design, to acknowledge past influences, make it – and move on. Using more of a multidisciplinary approach to design can only be beneficial to the final outcome.
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