The ingenuity of ageing: An experiment to explore the role of designers as a moral subject

Abstract

As a dialogue with the advocates of the idea of ‘design process as Things’ of which designers become facilitators and supporters for design process, we attempt to argue that designers should understand their role as a moral subject and their values in design should be revealed and discussed with design participants. Regarding the ways of deliberating values in design process, we employed Ricoeur’s ideas of utopia and ideology as the key concepts guiding the design of our experiment with a group of retired academics in China. We argue that designers could accomplish this task through a critique of ideology and of identifying utopian elements from the participants. In conclusion, we maintain that both designers should align with the critical role of designers as a moral subject so as to ensure better design ‘outcomes’ that could improve lives for our future selves.