Design methods are rapidly being incorporated into many sectors of the economy and reshaping the ways in which we visualize and understand science and engineering. Focusing on design work at four firms in three countries, this project studies hybrid virtual teams to identify which phases of the design process can be performed virtually and which require face-to-face interaction. In addition, it will build a prototype to aid in collaborative design activities by improving trust, building a social network, and providing visualization tools. Relying on theories from communications, information science and science and technology studies, the research team will use ethnographic observation and qualitative interviews with participants in cross-cultural design collaborations that include design professionals and under-served urban populations addressing issues of social innovation and sustainability.
Through this research, we will gain a better understanding of the degree to which culture, context and environment play a key role in the adoption and use of information and communication technologies to facilitate interaction and trust-building in virtual organizations. Understanding the issues underlying media choice and design is of theoretical and practical concern as the variety of media expands to include previously unavailable social media and as advanced features are added to existing media. A well-developed tool to improve collaboration among designers engaged in community development efforts would be of considerable value to this community. In addition, design methods would be useful to the research planning phases in multiple scientific disciplines to uncover new sets of problems, relationships and models. The interdisciplinary and international reach of this project will enhance its broader impact through significant exposure to and input from a wide variety of perspectives and cultures. The research involves undergraduate and graduate students and will result in their further training and education in interdisciplinary research.
As design reshapes the ways in which we visualize and understand science and engineering, it is vital to impart design thinking, methods and processes to faculty and students in a diverse set of disciplines across universities and research institutions. In particular, we believe that design methods would be useful to the research planning phases in other scientific disciplines in order to uncover new sets of problems, relationships and models. Specifically, this project: 1) reconceptualized theories on virtual organizations based on the collaborative experiences of designers; 2) engaged theories and concepts from communication and science and technology studies in understanding the methods, processes and tools of designers; 3) developed thick descriptions of the way in which design collaborations function as socio-technical systems based on empirical, ethnographic and qualitative research; 4) informed ongoing teaching, training and learning through the direct implementation of research findings at partner institutions. There are two kinds of significant results from this project: First, based on qualitative interviews, the project reconceptualized theories on virtual organizations using theories from science and technology studies to describe the networked and collaborative experiences of designers. Second, based on participatory observation, the project contributed to knowledge about design methods through codesign workshops that engaged different issues, communities, stakeholders and materials. The theoretical contributions of the project include a deeper and more nuanced account of what it means for designers to engage in networked and collaborative design practices. The design work that we studied is often characterized as socio-material in that it places a high emphasis on artifacts, spaces and settings for face-to-face workshops. Yet, as design work becomes more distributed and networked, it is reorganized spatially and temporally though the emergence of counterintuitive organizational forms and ecologies of practice. These complex socio-technical ecologies are useful for thinking about the nature of materiality, professional identity, place and knowledge in a networked world. For example, in one case, a small design firm is based in a city in which it has no clients or employees (an organizational form that might have been impossible in the past), instead relying on technologies and periodic collaborative events assembling experts, forms of knowledge and artifacts. In another example, a designer explains that design critique is a process of collaboration, which helps a project move forward; something that other scientific disciplines might learn from in terms of continuing to improve the peer review system. The methodological contributions of the project include a deeper understanding of the role of co-design and participatory design processes in bringing together diverse stakeholders from a variety of disciplines and sectors. Building on previous research on boundary objects, cultural probes, mediating artifacts and prototypes, this project created digital and physical artifacts that scaffold collaboration in interdisciplinary groups. These artifacts can allow groups to build on each other’s ideas and work out complex problems in a way that may be difficult if not impossible through verbal exchange. As such, there is great potential to apply the findings from this project into other scientific disciplines.
