Reading Don Norman's post, The geography of thought, which I think went up earlier this month, made me recall a couple of posts in the same vein. Don Norman wrote briefly about The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why, Richard Nisbett's book:
… people from China, Japan, and South Korea show important differences in the way they perceive, classify, and judge objects and events from people in the United States and Western Europe. Westerners believe in the primacy of objects and logic, that is, logic as defined by early Greek scholars. Thus, if there are two contradictory statements, one must be wrong, the other right. Westerners tend to see objects and when learning a language, to learn nouns before verbs. East Asians believe in relationships and context. When there are contradictory statements, they try to understand the context and find a resolution that accepts both — think Yin and Yang. East Asians tend to see contexts and place as much importance on the background as the foreground. In learning a language they learn relationships first, which means verbs rather than nouns.
The posts I was reminded of are both by Kathy Sierra and date from April/May 2005: Difference between Japan and US and Context matters. (I see I've linked to these before. They must matter to me.) In the latter, she, too, talks about The Geography of Thought:
American design is actually Design (capital "D"), done by Designers (and done well). In Japan, design is a stronger part of the culture whether its a tiny patch of grass an old woman crafts into a beautiful garden, or a city manhole cover, or a box lunch. It infuses everything. It's studied and practiced in a hundred different ways by a much greater range of the population than occurs here. Here, in the US, Design is practiced by Designers. There, in Japan (and many other countries as well... Sweden comes to mind), design is practiced by both Designers and... designers. Regular people conducting their work or personal lives with an appreciation that most of us did not get (unless we either pursued studies of Design/Art, or were, say, raised by a designer or architect).
She links to Dan Pink's book, A Whole New Mind, and quotes this from it:
Japan, which rose from the ashes of World War II thanks to its intense emphasis on L-Directed [left-brain directed] Thinking, is now reconsidering the source of its national strength. Although Japanese students lead the world in math and science scores, many in Japan suspect that the nation's unrelenting focus on schoolbook academics might be an outdated approach. So the country is remaking its vaunted education system to foster greater creativity, artistry, and play. Little wonder. Japan's most lucrative export these days isn't autos or electronics. It's pop culture. Meanwhile, in response to the mind-melting academic pressures on Japanese youth, the Education Ministry has been pushing students to reflect on the meaning and mission of their lives, encouraging what it calls, "education of the heart."
She ends:
… be sure to read Dan's book and if you're interested in the Asian vs. Western thinking research (the studies are really fascinating!), check out The Geography of Thought. And meanwhile, I'm searching for ideas on how I can improve my own skills in Thinking In Context. I always fancied myself pretty good at that, but the fact that it took sheer force of will on the part of the Japanese Sun folks before I understood why the context questions belonged on the exam makes me question that ...
You have to read more of her post to understand the reference to the Japanese Sun folk, but I think the point is clear — as she says in summarising ('To greatly oversimplify') The Geography of Thought, 'Context plays a more fundamental role for Asians than for westerners. Asians have a more difficult time thinking of an object as completely separate from its background'.
I think I'm beginning to understand why design has come to interest me so much. When I talk about design with people, I sometimes half-sense, perhaps half-imagine, a puzzlement on their part at my interest in it. (Not so when I talk to the designers I know!) But really, design tells us so much about thinking and living — how we think and live, the contexts in which we think and live. (Design, context … consilience. Consilient thought, Wilson's 'fluency across the boundaries', and its signal role in design, in both understanding and foreseeing rich contexts of affordance and usage … Something to be thinking about.)
From Kathy Sierra's April post:
Really, we're all designers -- at least with a lowercase "d". We're all trying to create solutions. But we should all--ALL OF US--be adding design to the list of "must learn" …
