Deep Meaning Design
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Designing artifacts that generate deep personal meaning is tricky work.
Autobiographical memories (AM) or memories about our personal history are a key component of self identity. As such designs that activate AM can often generate waves of deep meaning and mental energy. Tokens, mementos, family heirlooms and retro designs are common examples. But the opportunities for cognitive design go deeper.
Some designers go further and make use so-called flash bulb memories or AM burnt deeply and in rich detail into our brains. These range from the first encounter with our true love to presidential assassinations.
However, an exciting new book on the development of AM suggests that there is far more to the story because the development of conscious self, integrated personality and AMs are all intertwined. That being the case, designs that leverage autobiographic memory should tap a mother load of meaning.
I’ve extract 8 design guidelines from the book and am going to test them out.
