Friendly design, forensic architecture, and Australia's Vietnamese garment outworkers - a podcast by ABC Radio

UX, or user experience, design has given us an era of near-frictionless design, where incredibly complex pieces of technology — like the smartphone — rarely require an instruction manual. Cliff Kuang is someone who's spent a lot of time thinking about the history and ethics of this field. He's the author of User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work & Play, and he tells Blueprint about why we should all be a lot more critical about what makes design 'friendly'.

Then it's time to meet Eyal Weizman, founder of research agency Forensic Architecture. He helms a research collective using architectural analysis, open-source investigations, digital modelling — alongside traditional investigative methods — to investigate and expose state violence, human rights violations, and urban conflicts.

Afterward, delve into an investigation of a different kind. Journalist and illustrator Emma Do and Kim Lam spent several months documenting the lives of Australia's Vietnamese garment outworkers. If you wore the likes of Country Road or Bonds in the '90s, chances are these women made your clothing in the garages and spare rooms of Australia.

From Vietnam, we're heading to Brazil, via the work of the renowned Italian-Brazilian architect, Lina Bo Bardi. Colin Bisset has the inside story of the woman who cut through the boy's club of mid-century modernism.

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