A presentation with audio that gives a practical way for designers to study culture.

1. Researching culture
A practical how-to for designers
Dr. Sam Ladner
Copernicus Consulting
Be sure to download the accompanying audio!

2. Overview
• Geertz’s theory on culture
• What is culture?
– Values
– Behaviours
– Symbols
• Crestwood Heights
• Designing doors
– The moral implications of design

3. “Believing, with Max Weber, that man (sic) is an
animal suspended in webs of significance that he
himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs.”
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 5

4. A twitch
A wink
A parodied wink

5. “Analysis, then, is sorting out the structures of
signification.”
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 9

6. A twitch is a brute thing. It has no meaning because its
creator has no intentionality in meaning.

7. “...culture consists of socially established
structures of meaning in terms of which people do
such things as signal conspiracies...”
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books., p. 13

8. What is culture?
Values
Behaviours
Symbols

9. Why study culture in design?

10. Value orientation model
Adapted from Kluckhohn, F. R. (1953). Dominant and variant value orientations. Personality in Nature, Society and Culture. . J. a. K.
Murrayh, F.R. New York, Knopf: 346.

11. Examples of value orientations

12. Types of behaviours
• Universals
• Specialities
• Alternatives
• Peculiarities
Adapted from Linton, R. 1936. The Study of Man. New York: Appleton-Century Co.

13. Universals

14. Specialities

15. Alternatives

16. Peculiarities

17. Symbols: more than “brute
things”

18. Symbols: more than “brute
things”
“This transformation from
‘brute things’ to social objects is
performed mainly by the language
that gives reality a social
existence.”

19. Emic versus etic
Verstehen

20. Crestwood Heights: cohering
metaphors
House as property House as stage
House as home House as nursery

21. Case study: doors
Values shape design choices
Design choices create symbols
Design choices shape behaviours

22. Designed to guide
visitors inside.

23. Designed to tell people
the rules.

24. Who uses this door?

25. Designed to be behind
a second door.

26. Designed to not even
be a door at all.

27. Designed to be
glorious.

28. Who uses this door?

29. Who uses this door?
Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-a-s/5531154544/

30. What are the moral
implications of designing a
self-closing door?

31. The assignment:
study door design as a way of
understanding cultural values
http://copernicusconsulting.net/culture-
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