Designing Ourselves and Our World: A Designer-Weaver's Perspective on Services

Abstract

This paper argues that design, particularly service design, plays a significant role in shaping our world by constructing and reconstructing our understanding of it. Rather than a mere means to an end, design is a tool for controlling and producing meaning. Service design plays a crucial role in this process, as it mediates interactions between people and their everyday contexts through services. Design can be seen then as a way of generating culture. By exploring a more systemic approach, service designers can better understand how services shape people's lives and address underlying narratives and discourses that frame relationships between people and their lifeworlds. The designer-weaver metaphor is introduced as a powerful image for understanding the role of the designer in shaping reality. By weaving narratives and discourses together, designers can create new realities. If a better world is to be designed, a better way of designing ourselves is needed.