Submitted by Leah, Issac, Pei-Wei, and Arjana
Nelson & Stolterman in the Design Way (2012) has several underpinnings from Wenger’s Communities of Practice (CoP). One element both authors discussed is reification, the making something real, bringing something into being, or making something concrete. While Nelson & Stolterman did not explicitly use the terminology of reification, they discuss how “It is design will and design intention, guided by design judgement, that transform the abstractness of relevant scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge into a final unique design, the ultimate particular. The ultimate particular is that which “appears” in the world” (p.32). CoP consider reification as a “process to giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into “thingness”, and this helps to focus the negotiation of meaning. Nelson & Stolterman believe the importance of design as a process of the ideal becoming real, and how design inquiry is essential to designers.
The second element both authors discussed is meaning making and creating a community. Nelson & Stolterman’s chapter on service emphasises the importance of design being about service on behalf of the other. Designers should “make meaning” for clients by listening and finding out their desires. They must develop their own meaning making and trusting relationships with their clients. “It is important, at this juncture, to make a distinction between “finding meaning” -that is, adaptive expertise-in things that happen, and making meaning” -design expertise-by causing things to happen. The former is reactive and adaptive, while the latter is proactive and intentional. To be in service is to be proactive. In this case, the designer must help bring to the surface a clearer articulation of a client’s desiderata as a positive proactive impulse.” (p. 43)
We were thinking about how to facilitate the making of self-awareness, as described by Nelson & Stolterman. We can imagine an online site with fillable self-assessment forms and a place for self-journaling. This would probably be part of a digital learning portfolio incorporated into the class assessment and evaluation, maybe even with an online checklist that feeds information directly into an excel file for the teacher. These artifacts would partially serve as scaffolding for learners to articulate evidence of their learning process and goals. Part of their “grade” might be essay assignments or individual blogs and one-on-one meetings with the instructor at mid-term and culminating sessions to discuss and show evidence of the steps they have taken in the learning process. Alternatively, this could be done as video-recorded focus groups or even multi-media group productions. If we want learners to participate in self-directed research and to bring in and share the information they find, then we should also expect them to be able to justify the work they have done, both in terms of how it transforms their individual knowing and feeling, but also how it is important to creating real change.
Therefore, to be service centered designers, the service relationship is “distinct, complex, and systemic relationship with a particular focus on responsibility, accountability, and intention” (p. 42). To help designers achieve this, they should consider embracing the 3 major dimensions of Wenger’s (1998) description of community: 1) mutual engagement, 2) a joint enterprise, and 3) shared repertoire. These three elements and their sub-characteristics directly relate to the importance of meaning making and a service design focus which negotiated enterprise, mutual accountability, doing things together, discourse, artifacts and relationships are all important elements, creating a balanced relationship. As a result, design should come to it’s meaning as service that won’t separate the designers from their customers but truly become the community of design.
Brandon says
So is that to say a designer should be part of the community for which they design? This tricky task of creating with, not for someone, means knowing their needs, in some ways, better than they do. Does that knowledge come from an understanding of the community values, practices, etc, or does it come from an understanding of the nature of design?
Audrey Romano says
I may not be able to articulate this well… but there’s a lot of pressure and focus here on “designers must be service-centered and become a community”. As if this is not an obvious thing for anyone to do and is what holds us all back from realizing some great potential as a civilization. Designers likely have jobs with companies or corporations that do not allow them to immerse in communities of their users or colleagues, as the Cluetrain 95 Theses notes. There’s a competitiveness built into the fabric of American culture to succeed/survive and be individually noticed. It’s just not set up for designers to evolve into some kind of workforce of saviors of civilization. Even in higher ed, many of the instructional designers I know report that faculty can be hostile and don’t see them as having any place in the process of teaching students. I don’t see it as a designer’s problem, but a cultural problem.
Zach Lonsinger says
I noticed throughout your blog post that you referred specifically to “designers”. What if we changed our language and thinking and thought of ourselves as designers. What if we considered that everyone is a designer in their own realm of expertise and we stopped grouping “designers” as a separate group of people. Now we focus on design and the question of how can we, as a designer of __________, serve others. So a professor is a designer of education serving students, while students are designers of “insert something here” serving the professor. Then the design way and what the authors are saying becomes more relevant to us.
Adam says
“Part of their “grade” might be essay assignments or individual blogs and one-on-one meetings with the instructor at mid-term and culminating sessions to discuss and show evidence of the steps they have taken in the learning process. ”
Oh man, the idea of my grade for a class is at least partially dependent on a one on one meeting with the professor scares the hell out of me. What if I have a bad meeting or the instructor and I don’t communicate well? I would just have to trust the instructor’s integrity to give me a fair score in spite of our poor communication. That’s a pretty big gamble.
Priscilla Taylor says
Zach, I had a similar thought. If the process of design is the connection of thought and action, then anyone can be a designer in their chosen field. Then, the act of design becomes a service to one’s community. I wonder if the identity of designer is a difficult one for some to claim. There tends to be an image of what a designer; from what they look like to what job they have, even their choice of hobbies. From an education standpoint, I wonder how teaching would change if teachers and faculty saw themselves as designers. What decisions would they make in planning learning experiences? How would it change their relationship with their students? How would it change their approach to technology?
Katie Bateman says
Your ideas on “grading” are interesting. We have a teacher on our research project who is doing something similar. His middle school students have to grade themselves and give evidence to support that grade- no tests. They certainly are going to have to be very self aware. I am really excited to see how this all turns out.
Dean says
Service is a relationship between equals. If all parties involved truly view each other as equals, only then can it be a service relationship, right? Helping infers inequality. Design is democracy. Design is give and take. Design is relationship. Mutual respect between client and designer. The Ideal!
Michael Sean Banales says
I think Brandon brings up an interesting point. I cannot remember which specifically, but one of previous readings argued for designers being a separate community of practice ( I want to say it was Wenger when examining claims adjusters and the groups who designed the forms they filled out). Should designers be a part of the community of practice to better understand the needs of the group they are designing for?
I feel that we will not be able to limit designers to participants in a community or a separate community entirely. Like Design Way states, different levels of client/designer interactions exist. I feel like depending on which relationship we are examining, there are different levels of involvement they will have with the community of practice.