Art movements typically emerge as a response to the socio-political landscape surrounding them. What we can learn from them as interaction designers varies; some translate to our practice more directly than others.
Bauhaus gave us the foundation of modern design principles. In an attempt to unify motley artistic visions and set the new standard for mass production, Bauhaus eliminated formalist principles that were deemed unnecessary to an artwork. The philosophy “Form follows function” is especially applicable to interaction design because it is grounded in usability. A simpler, more clarified version of a product can be refreshing and more accessible.
I’ve done work whose primary design principle was minimalism and for good reason. By emphasizing the function of the product, we make affordances more discoverable to users. And because designers from all over the years followed the same principles, the same functions, and the same forms, users had developed mental models that serve as a rulebook most useful in newer contexts.
But in creating the uniform, how might we retain a sense of the individual?
Surrealism may offer an answer: creative liberation. It challenges reality and dances around constraints. By exploring our subconscious and fully embracing the irrational, we can craft something playful and immersive— something so uniquely innovative and relevant to the individual, because the work is borne out of personal experience. A prominent UX approach that shares this spirit is speculative design. Like Surrealism, it is a personal assessment or interpretation of what the future— a distant and simulated space— can bring. We invite questions such as “What if?” to our design decisions and produce the unexpected. Because we are free to ask this question, we can imagine potential futures, encourage a forward-thinking mindset, and reflect meaningfully of what they mean for us.
This is indeed contrary to Bauhaus, but design is more of a balancing act than a binary. There is no absolutely wrong way to respond to our collective circumstances; in fact, what we’ve learned from these movements so far is that humans adapt. Cultures and other norms shift over time. Even our own perceptions of right or wrong are malleable, but as a whole, we all have a social responsibility.
This social responsibility is to design not only for novelty but also for impact.
Dadaism, my favorite movement, embodies this in a different way. It is perhaps the least direct in its influence to interaction design, yet its history is striking to me because it is arguably the most provoking. Born out of disillusionment with the war, it mocks the foundation of modern society whose ideals then resulted in destruction. For interaction designers, its legacy is a reminder of the value of critical thinking. It is our responsibility to advocate for inclusivity, to question assumptions embedded in technology, and to design with awareness of the ethical consequences of our work.
When we bring these learnings together, we can approach our work more holistically. From Bauhaus, to Surrealism, and to Dadaism (non-chronologically), we glean what these histories are trying to say to us through our practice. From our practice, we talk back to these histories and synthesize the current and the new.