Abstract
Contemporary design theory and practice have long taken user need-oriented as the core principle. Need has become the ethical and practical foundation of design. It has suppressed the creativity and initiative of both users and designers in the name of functionality. Tracing the origin and evolution of need in design history, this paper points out its inadaptability to complex contemporary design scenarios and diverse demands. On this basis, it introduces the Desiring Production theory of Deleuze and Guattari, reinterprets desire as a more productive and relational life power than need, and explores the feasible path for the ethical intervention of desire in design practice. Combining connectiveness, disjunction and conjunction, it proposes the core metaphor of desire lines, pointing to a design ethical action path that transcends the need paradigm, responds to pluriverse and faces subject concerns and desire generation.
Keywords
Desiring production, User needs, Design ethics, Desire lines
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2087
Citation
Yang, Y., and Zhang, L. (2026) Desiring Production: Design as an Ethical Action, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2087
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Desiring Production: Design as an Ethical Action
Contemporary design theory and practice have long taken user need-oriented as the core principle. Need has become the ethical and practical foundation of design. It has suppressed the creativity and initiative of both users and designers in the name of functionality. Tracing the origin and evolution of need in design history, this paper points out its inadaptability to complex contemporary design scenarios and diverse demands. On this basis, it introduces the Desiring Production theory of Deleuze and Guattari, reinterprets desire as a more productive and relational life power than need, and explores the feasible path for the ethical intervention of desire in design practice. Combining connectiveness, disjunction and conjunction, it proposes the core metaphor of desire lines, pointing to a design ethical action path that transcends the need paradigm, responds to pluriverse and faces subject concerns and desire generation.