Ten years ago, Twitter and Facebook were still in their infancy and the latest model iPhone was the second-generation 3G. Designers’ decisions in the past decade have shaped our politics, our health and the way we communicate. “Over the last ten years, design’s remit has been growing and it’s becoming an increasingly elastic and ineffable discipline,” says Justin McGuirk, chief curator at London’s Design Museum. “Design used to be associated with the form of objects, but it’s now more associated with the behaviour of objects and, by extension, human behaviour.”
To mark WIRED’s tenth anniversary, McGuirk selects ten of the designs that have defined the past ten years, and which he believes will have a lasting impact – for better or worse.
Today, he says, design can work on a planetary scale, such as in interfaces that are used by a global population. “That’s a huge amount of power, but it should come with a huge level of responsibility,” he says. “Design is very good at delivering convenience, but convenience is an absolute disaster for the planet. We’re at a tipping point, and I hope the next decade will see designers solving the problems they created.”
The hashtag
“The hashtag has become a new mode of thinking. It was only in 1998 that the International Telecommunications Union made hash signs a chosen standard on every single phone. Smartphones and social media mean it can now turn a word into a meme, a marketing device, a tool for gathering information and a way to galvanise millions of people.”
Amazon Echo
“It’s moved the computer interface away from the keyboard to the voice. To be interacting online, you used to have to be at a keyboard; now you can be shopping, giving commands and searching all the time. But to do its job properly, it needs to be listening to us all the time, which shifts the privacy paradigm. It’s a hugely scary prospect, but an act of genius.”
The non-plastic water bottle
“The disposable plastic water bottle is an ingenious way to market mineral water. It’s also a catastrophic solution to a non-problem. In the UK, we dispose of 2.5 million bottles every minute. There are plastic microfibres in plankton 10 kilometres deep in the ocean, which will take generations to clear. Carrying around non-disposable water bottles to fill up at fountains and taps is a small but positive step.”
iPhone EarPods
“Apple has said it’s the most mass-produced technological product ever. It has permanently changed the urban landscape and everybody now walks or runs or cycles or works in an open plan office inhabiting their own personal sound bubble. We’re monitored everywhere, so headphones are becoming the new walls – they’re how we create our sense of privacy.”
The Oculus Rift VR Headset
“We all have avatars – virtual versions of ourselves. Virtual reality literalises that and puts us in a genuine 3D space. For game playing and world building it’s an incredible tool, but there are two ways to take it to its logical conclusion – one is The Matrix, where we live in VR, and the other is it’s just a total fad.”
MakerBot 3D printer
“3D printing is still mainly a tool for prototyping, but it’s a symbol of maker culture – this sense that people can be empowered not just to consume but also create. The potential of decentralised distributed manufacturing is that we no longer ship things, we just download the design file. That will have huge ramifications for so many industries.”
Urban bikeshare schemes
“It’s an emblem of a new culture where we don’t need to own our own things. That’s such a huge leap from the consumer society that I grew up in. If we stop fetishising things, that frees people’s minds from the grind of acquisition. It’s an important shift in behaviour.”
Flyknit trainers
“The innovation that’s going into making trainers lighter and faster to manufacture is incredible. The Flyknit doesn’t create structure by layering pieces of leather on top of each other; it weaves the structure into the textile. Then you need a worker in Vietnam to sew on the incredibly technical sole, which is a problem, but I’m sure they will figure a way to remove the worker entirely.”
Fitbit
“Silicon Valley’s global data obsession means a culture of quantification. As consumers, we have become obsessed with data about ourselves even when it’s not interesting. One hundred years ago, the idea that you could count your steps on a walk would have had people openly laughing at you. It can be incredibly useful if you’re an athlete, but otherwise 10,000 steps is an absurd abstraction that’s fuelling a culture of narcissism.”
Tesla electric car
“We need to make a comprehensive shift from fossil fuels, and Tesla is helping seduce car buyers away from petrol. Tesla design isn’t particularly interesting, but the way that the company built a loyal market that puts down a deposit and forgives the inability to meet demand is. The future is electric public transport. If Tesla were making electric buses, I could get behind it more.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
