Temporal Design: Rethinking time in design

Abstract

From critiques of acceleration, to efforts to frame present actions within more extended futures, designers have been increasingly concerned with how perceptions of time influence practices and how these perceptions can be influenced by design. In this paper, we argue that perspectives of time in design are highly influenced by dominant narratives that describe time as uniform, external to practices, and in a state of continuous acceleration. We propose Temporal Design as a shift from pace, direction, and subjective experience towards looking at time as emerging out of relations between cultural, social, economic and political forces. We argue that this pluralist perspective helps to demystify problematic experiences, potentially enabling more inclusive ways of understanding time.