Accidental Vagrant

I am presently reading LeonardoDa Vinci written by Walter Isaacson which has reminded me once again of the long history of ‘human focused’— i.e. humanistic—inquiry reaching back to the ancient Greeks and beyond. The Renaissance period bracketing Leonardo’s lifetime was a time when humanism was rediscovered as a focus for human agency and inquiry after a long period of neglect. The most recent interest in ‘user centered’, ‘customer centered’, and ‘human centered design’ (IDEO et. al.) is just a faint echo of those earlier periods of human centered literature, art, and engineering etc. The recent emergence of interests in ‘(something) centered design’ is an opportune time to look more closely at what the intentions of such centering of design activities are. Additionally, it is a good time to think about what may be desirable additions to such centering strategies in the future. There are several frames of reference for depicting design centering activities nowadays that are of...