The term parafunctionality was coined by A. Dunne in his PhD Thesis. Since I like Art as a way of human expression with almost no boundaries, it’s always interesting and exciting to work on the line that separates interaction design and arts.
Parafunctionality is a peculiar use quality that in my opinion is a step further the other ones I wrote about (pliability, fluency, social actability). I think that a design product that has not only good qualities but critical qualities as well, is a good example of how the design can address an important social and moral role in the society: making a better world.
I start thinking about the role of interaction design during the class of the TACI master in Rome. I completely agree with what Leandro Agro has been told to us: the aim of a designer is to innovate the world and in the same time try to make it better.
Another important lesson was taught to me by Paolo Rosa from Studio Azzurro. This group of people is more related to the artistic field than to the proper design. Anyway, their installations are so close to the parafunctionlity theme even if sometimes in my opinion they have not the best design choices. That’s art, dude! I was really stimulated by what Rosa said about Art (I was realy curious to heard what an artist had to said about it): it is not only expression but about a real role in the society, a concrete social function that aims to solve problems or make them evident, at least.
Just a parenthesis I can’t miss: Rosa talked with us about contemporary art. I admit I was really stunned by his words because I have been thinking that contemporary art was a peak for the human expression: every time I saw a work I was glad of not having a code to read it. The potential of contemporary art was in my opinion the evidence of a break with what artists did before (a process that began with abstractism…). Anyway, what Rosa told us was that contemporary art is just…contemporary! That means that is ephemeral and it is the expression of just today, of the present. Art, instead, has to be in the middle, between the past and the future. It has to remember you about what has gone but also show you what is going to happen. Powerful and poetic…i love it!
Parafunctionality deals with critism since it aims to make you stop, make your senses react to something that only apparentely seems to be useful. A parafunctional object has a clear function that you can understand in a while. But after that, your brain starts to work and tells your stomach that there’s something wrong…
In Lowgren’s words it is a “function used to encourage reflection on how (electronic) products condition our behaviour”. The focus is on the reflection process that parafunctional makes possible.
As we know design is about projecting “things” that can satifies needs. A HCI guy probably would tell you that is about solving problems. That’s true but interaction designers know that there is a lot more…
The prefix para is a Greek term that stands for “similar”. So, if something is parafunctional it means that it is functional, but not in the traditional way. Its function is not to solve problems but to “encourage reflection on how products affect our lives, our everyday lives”. (J.Löwgren)
Thanks to Dunne for this important theme that make Interaction Design a little more poetic! And thanks to Lowgren for telling about his ideas!
