This thesis is organised into seven major chapters, as illustrated in Figure 1.1 below. In the first chapter I start off with an introduction to the area of interest, which includes a definition of what I consider to be the problematic area, with some complementary statements by other researchers in the same field. Chapter 2 has three parts: in the first part (A) I introduce my theoretical lens, the ANT, explore what this theory entails and highlight its rich resources, which I used to draw up a theoretical framework that I used to guide the methodological and analytical approaches I employed in the study. In part B I follow the traces of how design has been conceptualised over the years as I try to reassemble a new conception of design from an ANT perspective. In the third section of the literature review, part C, I try to assemble from literature an ANT conception of Web 2.0 and explore how the emerging social networking
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technology has been used to enhance the teaching and learning of collaborative design in design-related areas of study like engineering and architecture, for example. I analyse and contextualise the literature on the collaborative design process in order to distill some ANT basis upon which I based my methodological approach to studying Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design.
In Chapter 3, I provide a detailed account of how I used the various ANT resources to assemble a research methodology to follow the actors during the Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design. I elaborate on the ANT-inspired framework, highlighting the main methodological insights I gleaned from relevant resources from the ANT toolkit. This equipped me with an empirical approach for exploring and understanding the enactment of Web 2.0 technologies
METHODOLOGY (Chapter 3) Following the Actors
MAPPING THE WEB 2.0 FACILITATED DESIGN PROCESS Assembling the Design Network
Identification of the Actors (Chapter 4)
Mapping the Emerging Design
Process (Chapter 5)
Mapping the role of Web 2.0 technology
(Chapter 6)
UNDERSTANDING COLLABORATIVE DESIGN AS AN EMERGENT EFFECT
(Chapter 7) Theoretical Framework
ANT
Moments of Translation
Design Process Web 2.0 and Design Research
LITERATURE REVIEW (Chapter 2) SETTING THE STAGE (Chapter 1)
Mapping the Topology of the Study
Figure 2: An overview of the organisation of the thesis
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during collaborative design practices. These insights also set out the necessity of approaching the analysis of the practices of designers and their synthesis of heterogeneous resources, requiring some form of ethnographic methodological assemblage. I used an ANT approach of following the actors, picking up the traces they left during the collaborative design process. In sum, this chapter establishes a means for approaching Web 2.0 technology-facilitated collaborative design as an actor network.
Chapter 4 is the first of three chapters where I present the findings of the study. In this chapter my analysis focuses on the traces that were left by the actors during the collaborative design process, and the assemblage of heterogeneous elements of the design process to establish how Web 2.0 technologies were used as mediators or intermediates during it. The major objective was to identify both the conspicuous and inconspicuous actors, both human and non-human, as well as assembling the various networks that they created at each of the three nodes of the collaborative design process, namely the design studio, the university local area network (LAN) and the Web 2.0 design space.
In Chapter 5 I carry out a cross-nodal analysis of the data to illuminate the translations that took place among the actors, in order to map out how the collaborative design process was constituted. I trace the multiple forms of associations that were formed by the heterogeneous actors across the three nodes, since it is through these associations that the collaborative design process was constituted. I also present findings which relate to the nature of controversies that the actors encountered and the way they used Web 2.0 to deal with these.
In Chapter 6 I present the findings that map the mediation role played by the Web 2.0 technology used during the collaborative design process. There is a predominance of vocabulary for understanding the role of artefacts in society that is offered by ANT. Latour (2005, p.34 ), one of the proponents of ANT, maintains that the social sciences’ exclusive focus on humans should be abandoned in favour of what he calls the “principle of symmetry”, which entails that humans and non-human entities should be studied symmetrically. Latour (2005) argues that no a priori distinctions should be made between the human and non-human elements if we are to understand what is actually happening in society. Latour (2005) thus argues that not only humans but also non-humans, or conjunctions of humans and non-humans, should be understood as actors.
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Finally, Chapter 7 is about the theorisation of the findings. In this chapter I use ANT resources to illuminate the findings of the study in an endeavour to illustrate the contribution of the study to the knowledge of collaborative design from three standpoints, namely theoretical, contextual and methodological perspectives. From an ANT perspective, I demonstrate the Web 2.0- facilitated design process as an emergent process, constituted by a myriad of associations among both human and non-human actors. I also demonstrate that Web 2.0 technologies do not comprise simple intermediaries that are only used to transmit design ideas, but are full actors that mediate and shape the way collaborative design is constituted and carried out in practice. Through their agency they influence how the collaborative design process emerges from the actions enacted by the actors involved in the design network.