Why Google Will Never Beat Old-Fashioned Design Research

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts and co-founder of the MFA Design Criticism program.

Google is the best research tool since the invention of card catalogs. Nonetheless, I teach the "No Google! Research Class" at the School of Visual Arts MFA in Design Criticism program (a.k.a. D-Crit). It may seem unnecessarily sadistic, but watching students squirm is only a small part of the fun.
Internet search engines cannot solve all research challenges. So the purpose of this class is to teach gumshoe rather than desktop research. My goal is to encourage research projects based on personal or scholarly interests, historical artifacts or found objects. Analysis rooted in first-hand interplay is essential.

At http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/06/why-google-will-never-beat-old-fashioned-design-research/240566/

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there's something magnificent about Google's lack of design

"And yet, I think there's something magnificent about Google's lack of design. There's something defiant, almost obtuse about its reluctance to indulge in the sort of oleaginous branding and design that is now the corporate norm. We've reached a point, in the homogenized West, where good graphic design is everywhere. The battle has been won: every business knows it needs good design —you don't have to tell them anymore. It's enshrined in the business schools, established in the corporate HQs. Even small businesses understand that good design is good for business. It's a universal truth, like "customer service" and "value for money," and all the other boardroom nostrums that drive modern commerce.





But the consequence of all this feel-good business is that design has become, more often than not, a badge of mediocrity. The old Modernist dream of good design standing for rationality and human values has been flipped. Today, good design is little more than a cosmetic agent, an obscuring agent. When I see my favorite sandwich bar introduce a slick new fascia and smart window decals, a little wave of disappointment runs through me. You don't see the work of sign writers any more; it's hard to find handmade signs and ramshackle window displays. The urban environment is now over-designed. It's all too branded, too inhuman. "

O artigo do Design Observatory de onde retirei esta citação tem uns aninhos [ 03.12.06, Adrian Shaughnessy, Google and the Tyranny of Good Design] mas acho que é uma boa reflexão sobre um mundo demasiado projectado que pode afastar-nos por ser desumano. Projectar para as pessoas e não pelo "dzgn-erish" da coisa, aceitar que podemos não ter de controlar tão friamente tudo, para que exista participação e envolvimento.