Culture coding - a method for diversifying artefact associations in design ideation

ABSTRACT

It can be claimed that technological systems are, in some ways, reflections of the designers’ way of thinking. These designs affect the behavior of the users and contribute to the reproduction of future designs, thus strengthening the existing human-technology relations. To address these issues critically, there is a need to challenge design ideation processes for generating a larger variety of design proposals that can contribute to varied users and user behavior. For this purpose, we propose a new method- Culture Coding, that can complement design ideation processes where generating, developing, and elaborating ideas is crucial. In this qualitative study, we explore the value of the proposed method in design by using design activities and a research-through-design approach. The experimental setup consists of two Design Cases where study participants contributed by taking part in two co-design workshops. The findings of the study indicate that Culture Coding may help to guide attention to new perspectives and challenge assumptions of the design context.

KEYWORDS:

• Design methodology
• idea generation
• design practice

Acknowledgments

Regarding the concept of Culture Coding, we are grateful to Pekko Koskinen who coined the term and for the Blurrifier code which we used in part of this study. Thanks to Ari-Pekka Lappi and Agnieszka Pokrywka for their inspiration and collaboration on versions of Culture Coding created between 2014-2018. We recognize their individual developments that have continued with Culture Coding. Special thanks to Agnieszka Pokrywka for collaborative efforts in the workshops in this study and co-creating part of the Codes. We also acknowledge publications that use or refer to notions of Culture Codes and/or Culture Coding (Clotaire, 2006),(Coyle, 2018), however we do not relate to these concepts and formulations in our body of work, rather we develop our frame for Culture Coding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. We acknowledge publications that use or refer to notions of Culture Codes and/or Culture Coding (Clotaire, 2006; Coyle, 2018), however we do not relate to these concepts and formulations in our body of work, rather we develop our frame for Culture Coding.

2. A link to this questionnaire form is provided in the Appendix section