Drawing from the analysis presented in the previous chapters (Chapters 4, 5 and 6), I propose a new perspective on the collaborative design process that is collaborative design as an emergent process. Unlike the previous design perspectives, Web 2.0-facilitated design process does not take place within a fixed structure. The findings of this study have demonstrated that Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design does not move along a linear line from a problem to its solution. The process involves a diffuse dialogical process that is more than that implied in the rational problem-solving approach. The process moves back and forth between different
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purviews as the design problem and solution co-evolve and are both continuously up for revision (Downey, 2005). The point is that a design problem is rarely completely stable in its definition once the design process takes off. As Lawson (1983, p. 86) puts it: “we should not expect a comprehensive and static formulation of design problems but rather they should be seen as in dynamic tension with design solutions”. Web 2.0 technology mediated the exploration of the design problem through different solutions as suggested by Marples (1961, p. 64), who points out that “The nature of the problem can only be found by examining it through proposed solutions”. As the students analysed the design ideas and contributions made by their colleagues on the Web 2.0 platform, the design situation would ‘talk back’, as Schön (1983) phrased it.
Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design is an emergent network created as a result of the alignment of designers’ interests through a process of problematisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation (Callon, 1986b). Various interpretations of the design problem are translated into technical solutions and procedures to be followed in search of a satisfying design solution. The process of achieving agreement (or a stable network) is dependent on the translations that take place among the actors involved in the process. Aanestad’s (2003, p. 7) explanation of Latour’s concept of translation is more apt for our understanding of collaborative design:
(...) ANT claims that the actors in the actor-network theory have different and possibly incompatible interests, and that stability (or order, agreement, success, goal achievement) is obtained when the network is aligned. The alignment of the networks occurs through a process where actors’ interests are translated (i.e. reformulated, modified, or changed) into more generally agreeable expressions, so that several actors may support the resulting translation
Translation, according to this definition, involves associating heterogeneous actors to form an actor network through assigning to each, “an identity, interests, a role to play, a course of action to follow, and projects to carry out” (Callon, 1986a, p. 24). This process is led by a translator who becomes the spokesperson of the actors. The spokesperson interprets or expresses other actors’ “desires, their secret thoughts, their interests, their mechanisms of operation” (Callon, 1986a, p. 25). The roles played by the actors “are not fixed and pre-established” (Callon et al., 1986, p. xvi). My analysis affirms that the collaborative design process is indeed a translation process. It is a process in which the actors’ divergent interests and interpretations of the design
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problem needed to be aligned to each other in order for them to reach consensus on the possible solution to the design problem.
For this study, the problematisation took place in the Web 2.0 design space. Student designers first needed to agree on the Web 2.0 technology to use. Their selection of the technology to use was mediated by the skills and ICT training that the students had received. The Web 2.0 platform selected became one of the OPPs which, once accepted by the student designers and supported by their IT skills and the Internet bandwidth among other things, they would not do without. Thus the Web 2.0 technology made itself indispensable, due to its ubiquity and ease of use.
The focal actor, who by default became the spokesperson of the group, worked to “interess”
and enrol other actors, such as fellow students, experts, mobile phones and mobile Internet connectivity, and in some cases users, into the collaborative design process. The students who were novice users of the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies were translated into competent users of the technology. This translation further increased the ties among the design actors and resulted in a stable network of actors with aligned interests. The second moment,
“interessement”, involves “one entity attracting a second by coming between that entity and a third” (Callon et al., 1986, p. xvii). To ‘interess’ other actors the spokesperson forged privileged relationships that formed a system of alliances between other student designers. The spokesperson managed to forge these associations by convincing other student designers to accept their definition of the exclusive identities and desires. This was mainly achieved through seduction or a simple solicitation, but when the student designers took longer to reach consensus on some controversy, the spokesperson used the power derived from the types of association among actors if necessary to exert ‘pure or simple force’ to interest them. This was done to “corner the entities to be enrolled” (Callon, 1986a, p. 209) in preparation for their enrolment into the design network.
For a Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design process to be successful, the actors in a network should accept the roles, a worldview, rules of acting and the path to follow as the network emerges. Enrolment entails student designers putting into action the roles defined for them by the spokesperson during the problematisation phase. At this point, to make the design translation a success the spokesperson needed the cooperation of the other student designers and non-human actors including uninterrupted Internet connectivity and computers which
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would enact the roles assigned to them. The circulation of intermediaries such as design sketches and working drawings helped ease the actors’ enactment of their roles. Furthermore, Web 2.0 technology enabled a series of “multilateral negotiations, trials of strength and tricks”
(Callon, 1986a, p. 211) to persuade other student designers to play their part in the collaborative design process.
Finally, through mobilisation the spokespersons worked to convince the other student designers to enact the agreed roles. At every moment the student designers were seduced or forced to follow the programme thus laid out for them. As such the actors and intermediaries experienced some displacement or some literal movement that was necessary to “solidify” the collaborative design actor-network and thus render the translation successful (Callon, 1986a, p. 28). Thus, a stable actor network is mobilised for the production of the prototype, whereupon new actor relations would be formed and a new design actor network would emerge.
Inscriptions, especially in textual form, were central in the translation process, because they carried meaning to other designers, thereby making action possible. Inscriptions are the results of placing one’s interests in material form. These define how humans and non-humans are interconnected in a heterogeneous network. They shape and constitute the actors’ interactions and therefore influence the actors’ performance. In this study multimedia inscriptions, including text and video, circulated via Web 2.0 technology presented designed ideas in such a way that their meaning and significance were irrefutable. Presented in this way, the inscriptions not only helped leverage credibility of student designers’ ideas but also stabilised networks (Law, 1992; Van-House, 2003).
Web 2.0 technology as an emergent process developed in two different directions, that is, towards convergence and towards divergence of its actors, as illustrated in Figure 15.
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Convergence and divergence imply that a collaborative design network can either move towards stabilising itself or towards disintegration, when it becomes easy to reverse the connections among the actors. The more that heterogeneous elements found in an actor network are aligned, the more stable and predictable it becomes. However, divergent ideas are not necessarily negative, but help the designers to consider both sides of the design problem. Once divergent interests are aligned, it becomes difficult to untie the connections created during the translation process. The design idea or design solution agreed upon becomes an OPP which once crossed reaches a point of irreversibility. The solution is inscribed into some working drawings which, according to ANT, become one of the intermediaries that are circulated in the collaborative design process. The working drawings have inscribed in them a particular action expected from the designers. Another observation (which is, however, beyond this study) is the assumption that once the translation process reaches the alignment of interests a more satisfying design solution is most likely to be achieved. However, evidence of this assumption is not given in this study because it did not involve analysis of the design solution.
Web 2.0 technologies provided a new dimension of design translation, which allowed designers to work iteratively, making them ready to go back and reframe the problem repeatedly as the design unfolds. Web 2.0 technologies facilitated the thorough discussion and negotiation among the actors which resulted in the agreed interpretation and possible solution acting as
Design problem
Heterogeneous actors
Multiple problem interpretations
Divergence
Convergence
Emergent Design Process
Translation Process (Alignment of Interests)
OPP Irreversibility Web 2.0 Design Space
Design Studio/ LAN
OPP
Figure 15: The emergent effect of Web 2.0 facilitated collaborative design process
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OPPs, which resulted in stable networks being formed. As consensus among actors about the possible solution to the design problem emerged, “the 'pluralism of artifacts' [design solution]
decreases" (Fallan, 2008b, p. 86). Stability in an actor network was achieved when there was some convergence of ideas among the actors. Any collaborative design network is essentially stable as long as there is convergence of thinking on the design problem and the possible solution. According to Callon (1991), convergence entails maintenance of some degree of accordance, which is engendered by a series of interpretations through the circulation of intermediaries as well as the maintenance of the frontiers of the resultant network. In this case, once a solution was agreed upon the student designers worked hard to come up with working drawings which would be used to create the design solution in the engineering workshop. The working drawings became the new OPP and the embedded relations remained stable as long as the actors remained the same.
The more convergent the ideas of the actors in a network, the more the network is aligned and coordinated. In such a network the actors are more willing to meet and move towards the same target. In a convergent collaborative design network, actors have the possibility of mobilising all the competences and necessary resources, which ensures them the collection of an individual force. However, convergence in a collaborative design network does not mean that all the elements act or become the same, it "simply means that any one actor's activity fits easily with those of the other actors, despite their heterogeneity" (Callon, 1992, p. 87). Where there are divergent ideas about the design problem, some degree of stability or temporary stability is needed for the collaborative design network to achieve its goals. This is achieved through the translation process, where the different actors’ interests are aligned. The resultant network is more successful because it will be difficult to undo the ties that were created by the long chains of translation among the actors. In any case, it is in the interest of all actors within the collaborative design process to stabilise the network in order to guarantee the achievement of their goals. As suggested by ANT, the stability of a collaborative design network depends on the "impossibility it creates of returning to a situation in which it was only one possible option among others" (Callon, 1992, p. 89). The collaborative design network thrived for stabilisation because it was in the best interests of the student designers.
However, the lithe and dynamic nature of the Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design process is demonstrated by my observation that the ‘black-boxed’ design process was reopened on several occasions, for example when a new actor is enrolled into the network or left the
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network. During the process of mutual shaping between the new actor and the existing network, which would have become an actor in its own right, massive adjustment on the part of either the network or the joining actor resulted in a completely new direction in the collaborative design process. This upholds Latour’s assertion that networks emerge and are shaped by aligning more and more actors. It should be noted that the continual growth of the networks may allow changes that are detrimental and lead to destabilisation of the network. The process of translating the interests of the new actor to conform to the established actor network or the spokesperson is initially difficult, because the new actor is added into a network that would have already established its OPP. One example of this is in situations when university Internet connectivity was lost. Although the student designers shifted with ease to mobile network Internet connectivity, the sizes of files that they could upload was limited and sometimes they failed to share their ideas in their most preferred format. For example, videos would not download due to the poor download speed provided by the mobile network providers in some places.
Viewing collaborative design as an emergent process is different from the positivist view of engineering design which presents the process as something that is accomplished through a stage-gate system, with major decisions being made on the information received at each of the stages. The common perception of design as process is that it consists of a series of distinct steps which are undertaken in a “predictable and identifiable logical order” (Lawson, 2006, p.
33) to achieve desired outcomes. If applied to Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design, such a view undermines the process of enrolling other actors, including both human and non-human actors (instruments, analysing, prototyping, interpreting the inscriptions) as well as the time and the effort spent observing how the actors are interacting with the design and the trials with the machines and the materials (Latour, 1987b).
The positivist view of design was first challenged in the 1970s by the pioneers of the design- methods movement themselves, when they recognised that the rational and scientific approach to designing overlooks the lively things about designing. For example, Jones (1977), cited in Cross (2006, p. 120) says: “In the 1970’s, I reacted against design methods. I disliked the machine language, the behaviourism, the continual attempt to fix the whole of life into a logical framework”. In Schön’s view, such a technical-rationality approach fails to resolve the dilemma of rigour versus relevance confronting professionals. Schön’s argument is that professional practice is complex, unpredictable and messy (Schön, 1983). By this Schön is
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suggesting that design is not a linear process in practice, but one that is confronted with uncertainty, uniqueness and conflict. For him, designers are reflective practitioners and designing is a reflective conversation with a given situation. Both his concepts of reflection in action and reflection on action are dynamic activities which allow designers to revise, modify and refine their expertise in an unstructured manner. In order to cope, professionals have to be able to do more than follow set procedures.
Taking this debate further, Rittel and Webber (1972) argue against the idealistic and reductionistic conception of design as an optimisation process. Instead, they perceive design and planning as a practice to tackle wicked situations. Since each wicked problem is essentially unique, tackling wicked problems implies that each design solution is a unique, one-shot operation which consequently leaves traces that cannot be undone. This means that a particular wicked problem inscribes in itself a necessity for particular action. Such problems can be neither completely rational nor completely solved by traditional methods. Therefore there cannot be one predetermined procedure to be followed in solving design problems. As has been demonstrated in this study, Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design is consequential; it is a result of the associations created among both the human and non-human actors involved in the process.
Furthermore, considering design as an emergent process and examining it from ANT’s post- humanist perspective (Latour, 2005; Orlikowski, 2007) extends Schon’s view of design as a reflective action. Schön (1983) has mainly considered an individual perspective of reflection, disregarding the possibility that reflection can happen among several people (Cressey, Boud,
& Docherty, 2006; Hoyrup, 2004), as it happens in Web 2.0 design working spaces where a group of designers can reflect on its practice. During the design process student designers commented on each other’s design ideas and design information. They also searched for and provided new information concerning design context or design elements. While it was evident that student designers were involved in individual reflection while writing down experiences and making personal comments on their own contributions, other students left comments and insights from reflection on experiences too. Furthermore, the Web 2.0 design space provided a working space that consists of design ideas, comments, new information, and meta-comments after reflections.
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