Design Engineering Lab

Samantha Kang and Prof. Dong win the first Best Paper Award in Design Theory and Methodology (DTM) for Oregon State University's DEL. You can find the paper at https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2023-114613

Title: Gender-Based Social Revolutions and Their Effect on Technology Evolution: A case study of the sewing machine

Abstract: This paper applies a feminist critique of technology to develop a model for design trajectories, specifically the technology life cycle. The model aims to explain the origins of radical design changes even when scientific revolutions are absent (or distant) and radical performance improvements are inconsequential. The breast pump is introduced to illustrate how public health, social and cultural norms, federal policies, and identity influence a design trajectory. The breast pump’s delayed and limited evolution despite technology advances indicates the compounding consequences of these factors on a technology’s design trajectory. We then investigate the sewing machine (first patented in 1846) to explore this phenomenon more closely. Our research illustrates conditions under which a social norms lens might change the expected technological outcome predicted by purely economic or organizational models. By shifting the unit of analysis away from single designs to a trajectory of design cycles over time, this paper offers explanations for conditions under which designs will remain resistant to debiasing, with only minor incremental change, and the social dynamics associated with design discontinuities. Our model includes the social construct of gender norms as a socio-technological lens to examine the limitations of the traditional technology life cycle model. Finally, we discuss how our new model can update engineering design theory and pedagogy.