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Can design change the world?
Design won’t make the world a better place unless we make it happen
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1. Design Evocatio
When Roman generals aimed to conquer a new city, they had plenty of technological tools and tactics, but one of the most interesting ones is a spiritual technique that rarely gets discussed: Evocatio.
Evocatio was a ritual in which the invading Roman army would adopt and worship the Gods of the people they were invading and ask them to abandon them, deprive them of protection. If the Romans were victorious (and when were they not), they would adopt these Gods and become part of their pantheon. It seems to have been common for new Gods to be introduced into the pantheon and become fashionable, taking over roman society.
To summarize Jesse James Garret’s now-legendary FastCo article UX practitioners at a certain point in time were hoping that UX would become a user-centered method of inquiry and insight that would drive product and value development. Since the practice is centered around people, they hoped it would generate a degree of respect, compassion, and humility towards people making the business interests they served better citizens. Between that time and now, something happened. Design got a bit lost, it became a sort of “theater,” and those values went out the window.