Design(ing) and the Placebo Effect—A Productive Idea

While it has offered an apparent problem for orthodox biomedicine, the idea of the placebo effect is compatible with models of perception and embodiment that inform design theory. It is also, to an extent, occult within a number of design practices that contribute to or are associated with medicine. As a concept, the placebo effect offers an example of how the discourses of medical science shape expectations for engagement with the products of design and also invokes affordances that mediate the affective and somatic potential of cultural products.