Designing difference in a world of sameness
We seem to live in a world of endless possibilities and variation, but if you look more carefully, most things around us have become the same. Products have become variations; storytelling for films, TV or literature follow recognisable formats. Food based on a fat-salt-sugar combination are the key to success in the food industry and there is also increasing homogeneity on the Internet. In an era that celebrates the personal and the unique, why not implement this thinking for a design as well. We are driven to sameness because it ensures continuity of experiences, it connects us and feels familiar and safe.
Caveman brain
We live in a very different world from the one we have evolved in, but our basic hardwired instincts are evolving slowly. Despite our cultural and technological progress, our tribal-era instincts are still very much a part of who we are. Everything that people see, hear, taste, feel and smell goes first to the cave dwelling area. If we are calm and take time, the information can be moved to the smart area to be used for useful thinking. But in times of stress we respond intuitively. As humans, we are good at solving problems, even though this means that our environment is becoming more repetitive and more formal. What is known is pleasant and easy, new things require thinking and time, and, evolutionarily speaking, symbol a potential danger.
Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech exhibition view. Virgil Abloh’s design philosophy is that you only need to change a design by 3% to make it fresh and original.
Social confirmation
Studying the social and physical environments that shaped human evolution, could help us better understand how to stimulate innovative thinking. For ancient humans, being accepted into the tribe was essential for survival. Fear of embarrassment, disapproval, and rejection is another human tendency that is likely rooted in this tribal need for belonging. This instinct to seek social acceptance may explain why most people make the same decisions. Social confirmation is, at least in part, programmed in the structure of the brain. A study from Current Biology suggests that the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (which is the part of the brain that is, for a big part, responsible for our behaviour) is particularly sensitive to signs of social disagreement, which may influence changes of opinion. So social confirmation has the ability to influence or strengthen someone’s opinion. Someone’s values grow when another person confirms the same preference.
The influence of AI
What will it mean when behaviours are informed by the algorithm? With the rise in algorithmic recommendations, there has been a decline in sales diversity: people are increasingly consuming the same. In, A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence, Kartik Hosanagar mentions that a third of the product choices at Amazon is driven by algorithms. Next to that, more than 80 per cent of the TV shows people watch on Netflix are discovered through their recommendation system. Due to the rise of AI in whatever we are perceiving, the level of sameness will even become higher and higher in the future. People like the familiar, the known, the nostalgic, the classics and that is fine. But diversity is important to create a landscape that will work for more than just the few. AI can predict a bestseller based on historical data but human/AI creativity is needed to stir things up and create leaps forward. The consequence of the preference for the same is that the landscape will be less diverse and the big and popular will only grow to become bigger and more popular.
Amazon brands, generated product lines next to the existing brands
Generated chairs by AI, Philipp Schmitt and Steffen Weiss
Human emotions
In the sea of sameness, the daily stream and the noise, how do you get heard? How do people connect and identify with you? Storytelling is essential in the way we shape our opinions. We can talk about something rationally, or share it with a story full of passion, excitement and wonder. Even though someone wouldn’t feel like engaging with a story about this certain topic, emotions have the ability to make people interested. This way, people take over opinions from others and we may get this shared opinion which we never would have gotten in another context. It is important to focus on authenticity, people are looking for recognition. Storytelling will be important to connect with people and make them see another perspective, something new beyond their familiar bubble.
A new landscape
As people have an interest in outliers, extremity can be a way to shake up the culture of sameness. For a diverse society and landscape, it is important to create space for the new and exciting, to test and challenge and to create things people in their wildest dreams did not know they wanted. When we get tired of the sameness, no matter how beautiful or convenient it is, that’s when the new and unknown emerges.
Banner image, Infinity Mirrored Room—Let’s Survive Forever by Yayoi Kusama.