Treat consumers as learners and see society improve

Thanks to the Internet, widespread access to information is enabling people to become lifelong learners. Some will just learn practical things to support their daily lives. Some will take full advantage of the abundance of information and will be constantly searching, discovering, and learning new things. Regardless of where an individual falls within this spectrum, the need to treat people like learners has never been more relevant. 

Objects can't be just tools anymore. Services can't be merely transactional anymore. People want meaning and added value on every thing they do. Hence the need to treat products as informational artifacts and as vehicles of knowledge. 

Some might say it is impossible to turn an average object into an knowledge experience. Not true. Everything can be connected to anything. Like Jay Doblin said, "a product is frozen information". 

You can relate knowledge to the object by means if its history, its materials, its author, its creation process, its aesthetics, its cultural meaning, its components, its semiotics, its delivery model, etc. The possibilities to create a knowledge-based narrative around the product or service are virtually infinite. It is the creator's duty to pick one, develop it, and serve it embedded in its physical manifestation. 

If well done, these knowledge-amplified interactions have the potential to make society smarter. The advantage of turning daily functional objects and services into knowledge rich experiences is that people, if they have the will, can become better without any significant additional effort. 

Are designers nowadays aware enough of this possibilities? How are designers' ethics and morals influenced throughout their careers? Is there a deliberate approximation to the topic by designers or is their approach more opportunistic and accidental? Should design schools become more humanistic in their approach and widen the curriculum scope to also include Applied Philosophy?