Description
In this paper, we inquire into the stances that designers take in their design activities. The setting in which we investigate this question is that of design critiques, where participants make their stances publicly available to one another. During a critique, participants use their bodies as a framework for mutual orientation and reference. Design concepts are not so much told as they are staged and performed, using multiple semiotic modalities, including gesture, speech, gaze, orientation, inscription, and artifact. In performing their design, participants adopt and shift between several identified stances, which we call inscriptional, third-person, first-person and phenomenal. During the critique, designers often mirror the stances of others, where failing to do so can lead to communication breakdown. Although analyzed in the social setting of the design critique, because these stances are made public, they can thus become internal resources that designers draw upon in design situations in which others are not present. Rather than representing epistemic states or “designerly ways of knowing,” we suggest that these stances represent “designerly ways of being.”
Keywords
Design stance, design critique, embodiment, gesture
Presentation slides
DOI
10.5703/1288284315949
Designerly Ways of Being
In this paper, we inquire into the stances that designers take in their design activities. The setting in which we investigate this question is that of design critiques, where participants make their stances publicly available to one another. During a critique, participants use their bodies as a framework for mutual orientation and reference. Design concepts are not so much told as they are staged and performed, using multiple semiotic modalities, including gesture, speech, gaze, orientation, inscription, and artifact. In performing their design, participants adopt and shift between several identified stances, which we call inscriptional, third-person, first-person and phenomenal. During the critique, designers often mirror the stances of others, where failing to do so can lead to communication breakdown. Although analyzed in the social setting of the design critique, because these stances are made public, they can thus become internal resources that designers draw upon in design situations in which others are not present. Rather than representing epistemic states or “designerly ways of knowing,” we suggest that these stances represent “designerly ways of being.”
Comments
This conference presentation was developed into a book chapter that was published in “Analyzing Design Review Conversations,” edited by Robin S. Adams and Junaid A. Siddiqui (2016, Purdue University Press), which can be found here:http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/analyzing-design-review-conversations.