Designers are Translators
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Designers might think of themselves as makers, researchers, or facilitators (amongst many other things). Beyond the mode of work, the thing that designers are good at is moving between things – and translating understandings between contexts. If we think of designers as translators, we then have a better way of thinking through the choices designers have to make around their work.
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Designers are Translators
- 1. Designers are Translators Chris Marmo @kurisu
- 2. Trump and translation Source: Japan Times
- 3. “If we translated his words as they are, we would end up making ourselves sound stupid.” Kumiko Torikai
- 5. “As an interpreter, your job is to translate the words of a speaker exactly as they are, no matter how heinous and what an outrageous liar you find the speaker to be. It’s a really tough thing, not being allowed to demonstrate your own judgment about what is right and what is wrong. And that’s why I quit.” Kumiko Torikai
- 6. ethical tensions Sanitisation Accuracy Believability Reality ValuesResponsibility UnemploymentEmployment
- 10. designers do translation. designers are translators.
- 11. We interpret and communicate between contexts, communities and organisations.
- 12. designers are makers designers are facilitators designers are researchers
- 13. designers are makers designers are facilitatorsvs designers are researchers vs
- 16. designers are facilitators designers are researchers designers are makers Designers translate
- 20. Researching Making - What’s most important about what you’ve seen? - What people need to hear? - What’s the most effective way of communicating? - What ambiguity are you allowing, and why?
- 23. - Why are we communicating this here and now? - What might be lost in translation? - Where might misinterpretation happen? - How might this be used once I leave? - Am I OK with that? Making Facilitation
- 28. - What assumptions exist, and how might we tease them apart? - What is inaccurate or incomplete about our own understanding? - What about our client’s will we let shape our understanding? What shouldn’t we? - What knowledge or experience do we not have, that we might need? Facilitation Research
- 35. Translation gives us a way of thinking about the choices we make between modes of work.
- 36. Be deliberate – ask questions of yourself– so that you can communicate meaning with intent.
- 37. Translate to persuade the kinds of decisions you think are right.
- 38. Agency = Ethics
Editor's Notes
- I want to start with a story about translation, from two perspectives. The first perspective is Chikako Tsuruta’s. She is an interpretor for japanese news, and she’s pictured here talking about Trump’s first visit to Japan earlier this year. Chikako was presented with an ethical dillemma.
- Chikako was worried that if she did an accurate job of conveying what Trump really sounds like in English, people would think she was *bad at her job*.
- Kumiko Torikai - a retired translator and now professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, had this to say.
- these are not always easy choices, but they are real ones, and they matter.
- Bare with me, I’m getting there..
- What I want us to keep in mind is that we express ourselves through the choices we make.
- What I want us to keep in mind is that we express ourselves through the choices we make.
- What I want us to keep in mind is that we express ourselves through the choices we make.
- these are common ‘modes’ of design we might use. Research
- they’re often presented in opposition to one another, we have favourites, we have things we tolerate but maybe don’t like.
- In reality, we move between them over time – over a career, within a project, often in the same day
- what would happen is we focused on the movement?
- In reality, we move between them over time – over a career, within a project, often in the same day
- we go out to the world to learn about it, and it’s our job to communicate that understanding to others
- to do that communication, we’ll translate our understanding into artefacts or objects
- when making with data, we have a number of important choices to make. The choices we make – the answers to these questions – matter, and so we should *ask the questions*.
- In reality, we move between them over time – over a career, within a project, often in the same day
- facilitation can mean many things, but here I mean it as ‘building shared understandings’. We used a prototype map to workshop with a client, and to gain knowledge that we couldn’t have easily gained without out, because it *prompted* people. We discovered programs that were in train that we’d missed, and we’re able to test what parts of the story most resonated.
- facilitation is a way of building shared understanding, and we use our artefacts to help with that. We again have a number of important choices to make. [questions] As translators, the answers to these questions matter. So we should *ask the questions*.
- In reality, we move between them over time – over a career, within a project, often in the same day
- we took our new understanding back to the field, changed direction on the research to include more service providers.
- this highlights that we don’t just take understandings of the world into organisations, we take their understandings back out again, and we have no choice but to let that understanding shape our own. Here, we are capturing real stories from social workers related to the sexual health practices of refugee and migrant teenagers.
- we analysed those real storyboards for themes, and created fictionalised stories that contained those themes within them. We then decided
- As translators, the answers to these questions matter. So we should *ask the questions*.
- I know some of you have already redesigned this.
- you’ve *at least* added another arrow head, right? Its the lines that are important. It’s the lines that communicate action. I’m happy to debate where the lines move from and to, but I would like to propose that it’s the movement, the *translation*, that matters.
- Its the lines that are important. It’s the lines that communicate translation – the *doing*. I’m happy to debate where the lines move from and to, but I would like to propose that it’s *how we move*, it’s the choices we make in *translation*, that matter.
- if we think of what we do as translation, we get to explicitly work with our choices, our agency
- and if we do that, we have a basis for thinking about the ethics of our work, no matter the context
- in what you make through your work – sometimes literal representation is best, sometimes you need to mediate. Make the choice deliberately. Do that work.
- embracing intent, embracing your *agency* is vital.
- we’ve discussed how agency is ethics
- and if we do that, we have a basis for thinking about the ethics of our work, no matter the context
- ethics is political