Audience as Co-Designer & Cultural Probes

I remember my relationship with my parents when I was in high school. When I was told to do something, I bitterly did it or did not do it at all... yet, were I to come up with the same task myself, I would do it with joy.

Analyzing this now, from my less adolescent perspective,  I see that I reacted this way for a few reasons: 

1  I knew I was capable of taking care of the task without lecture

2 The advice was coming from a direction which I could not relate to nor could relate to me 

Somehow this thought reminds me of why it is important to encourage people to solve problems themselves, rather than to flat out tell them how. 

Also, in order to touch people with impact, 

it is important that people feel understood.

This article about the HIV prevention campaign in Kenya explains that the creative team included members from their target audience in order to effect culturally appropriate aesthetics for cross-cultural communication. Research had shown that 'clear transmittance of information occurs when the encoders share the same culture as the decoder's, so the Kenyans designed their own propaganda using their own visual language that would help get their message across boldly. 

People have an innate ability to seek out similarities and evidence of understanding, 

and in that understanding they find something they can trust.

With trust comes devotion

with devotion comes action.

And after being part of social action art projects and reading articles such as these, I realize that any campaign pitching something that invokes action from the audience should actively include the audience along the way...

connecting people with

similar understandings,

similar passions,

similar issues,

and similar experiences. 

Plus, should not only art, but life be about connecting people in order to make living a little easier and less lonely anyway?