Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II

TLDR

The paper aims to reconceptualize design expertise and activity as materially and discursively constituted practices. It draws on anthropology and science and technology studies, introducing the concepts of design‑as‑practice and designs‑in‑practice to analyze design as a situated, multi‑actor, material process. The approach reveals design as a local, multi‑actor accomplishment shaped by objects, de‑centers the designer, and replaces disembodied design thinking with a situated, contingent practice.

Abstract

ABSTRACTABSTRACTThis paper uses resources from anthropology and science and technology studies to propose understanding design expertise and activity as constituted materially and discursively in practice. Introducing a pair of concepts—design-as-practice and designs-in-practice—as an analytical device for discussing design solves a number of problems facing researchers working in design studies. First, it helps researchers see design as a situated, local accomplishment involving diverse and multiple actors. Second, it acknowledges the roles of objects in constituting practices. Third, it de-centers the designer as the main agent in designing. This approach moves away from a disembodied, ahistorical design thinking to a situated, contingent set of practices carried by professional designers and those who engage with designs, which recognizes the materiality of designed things and the material and discursive practices through which they come to matter.KEYWORDS: design thinkingpracticesdesignersinnovationorganization design