Max von Elverfeldt Designer

Standardization of grief

During my interviews and as a result of my cultural probes, it turned out that there must be a social agreement on how long one is allowed to grief and (more interesting) how long one hast to grief. Most interviewees had serious problems to describe this unspoken but complex ruleset of mourning even though they heavily suffered from misjudgement and inexperiences.

The fictional DIN-Norm of mourning defines this frame strictly. Thus it allows to measure and categorize the quantity of mourning and gives a clear feedback whether an acceptable frame is about to be left.