Design for decentralisation
talk – 35 min | Feb 8 – 11:50
How to design products and services when you’re no longer bound to usual structures of power?
How do you design a online payment interface when the bank and its requirements are no longer necessary? This talk explores the impact of decentralising technologies, such as blockchain, on the practice of designers and the profound shift in the design field resulting from the adoption of these technologies. These questions will be approached from a new angle through an anthropological journey in the modes of organisation of the first human societies until the exploration of their modes of exchange. The challenge here is to understand what “decentralisation” actually means and identify impacts on our societies to adjust the way designers work for its users. Finally, by showing the economic and political effects of this kind of technology we will explore how the designer must realign on a much richer and more demanding experience proposition.
About the speaker
Gauthier Roussilhe
Gauthier is a designer and writer researching about ethics and complexity. After co-running a design agency for 4 years, he traveled all over Europe to meet designers and researchers to understand how one can formulate its own ethics, especially a designer. The result of the research was the interactive documentary ‘Ethics for Design”. He’s now based in London where he’s studying and doing research around decentralised services and public policies design.
