design as sensemaking - an autoethnography on the early phases of product development
DESCRIPTION
Sensemaking view of design processTRANSCRIPT
Ilkka Kettunen
Design as sensemaking
An autoethnography on the early phases of product development
Jussi Timonen
• How do designers make sense of the design process?
• How do designers create opportunities for other stakeholders to participate in the creative process?
Design process
individual - centered
collaborative
reflectiverational
design hero bricoleur
participatory, situated,…dominant tehcno-rational
7 properties of sensemaking (Weick 1995, 17)
1. Grounded in identity construction2. Retrospective3. Enactive of sensible environments4. Social5. Ongoing6. Focused on and by extracted cues7. Driven by plausability rather than accurancy
Analytic autoetnograpy (Anderson 2006)
Researcher is:
1. a full member in the research group.2. visible as such a member in published texts.3. committed to developing theoretical
understandings of boarder social phenomena.
Context
• EDUFIX ltd. (pseudonym)• Furniture manufacturing (fictious)• 300 empoyees, 400 M€ sales, 70% exported• R&D venture: intelligent learning environment• Informants: designers, managers, researchers,
engineers…
Data
• Diary• Videos of design group + management board
meetings• 1600 sketchs, …
Story
• Autoetnography narrative, 60 pages.• Duration 10 months• Designing 16 product concepts• Starting from the first meeting with the
management board• Ending up handing over the concepts for detail
design• Plot: enthusiasm, frustration, success…
Analysis / Interpretation
1st order analysis: the story – what happened?
2nd order analysis: presenting the story in a theoretical perspective – what does all this mean?
Design sensemaking practices
So what?
• Identity construction: identities define the product.
• Plausablity: engage positive illusion.
• Idea of enactmenet (Schön 1983): there is no ”clean slate”.
Ilkka Kettunen
www.aatepaja.fi