Hasta La Ideas

Reporting by Deborah Alden

Remember the awkwardness of “the talk?” Wei Sun designed a Jenga-style game to capture that tension and unease, bringing her research—into how parents in the US talk about sex with their kids—to life. Grown adults revert to ungainly youth as they sheepishly giggle and blush, tentatively sliding blocks from the stack, which prompt them to recount tales from their own adolescence and share insights from Sun’s research.

As part of the course Transcultural Design at IIT’s Institute of Design, students like Sun (from China), are exploring how to design for cultures other than their own, something more of us are finding we do everyday. Designed to engage people in the context and stories of a particular culture, these experiential research objects help others connect and learn through participation and self reflection.

It is relatively easy for designers to work within their own culture because they innately grasp the context around any given challenge or solution But, take that problem statement to another country or within a different culture and suddenly their high-resolution understanding of a user’s needs breaks down because of miscommunications, unknown traditions and “exotic” habits.

Paul Sheetz (from the US) chose the makarapa, a South African miner’s hat customized and worn for sporting matches, to transform his research on the national concept of ubuntu, or unity. Throughout the country’s divisive history, Sheetz found that sports have provided a symbolic common ground. In assembling Sheetz’s makarapa, the wearer is exposed to diverse South African stories. While contemplating what brings community and countrymen together, participants are engaged in figuring out which traits resonate with their own story, that they want to use to customize their hat.

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