Editorial

It is well known that special issues, being comprised of papers on a common theme, tend to be highly valued by the relevant research communities, e.g., they tend to be highly referenced. With reception in mind, it is tempting to think that this strategy should be applied to every issue. Against this, however, is the consideration that the author wishes to see work published sooner rather than later and that in fairness to this wish publication order should reflect order of acceptance (the special issue aside). Notwithstanding the fact that this issue comprises only two papers from researchers in the same department and institution, and that the papers themselves share common aspects, this issue does adhere to this principle: serendipitously, the papers before you reflect order of acceptance.

In Fictional inquiry – design collaboration in a shared narrative space, Dindler and Iversen present a collaborative participatory design technique, which, they argue, allows designers to address specific issues when inquiring into existing use practices, or exploring the future, which, by circumventing existing sociocultural conventions, initiates organizational change. Located within the field of participatory design, the proposed technique is discussed in relation to notions of staging, evoking and enacting, which respectively concern understanding the existing situation, imagining a future situation and acting it out: the technique being seen as most appropriate to the staging and evoking action phases. Dindler and Iversen then describe the application of the fictional inquiry approach in three cases studies, concluding that fictional inquiry contributes to staging methods through the production of design material arising from co-located dialogue between users and designers, and to evoking methods by shifting imaginative projection from the existing problematic situation to a fictional future, without loosing sight of the present entirely. Finally, they note that although organizational change is arguably a pervasive theme in most design activity (since design shapes not only artefacts but the practices that they mediate) there are few techniques that systematically address this issue. Organisation change was initiated through Fictional Inquiry, suggesting that it and techniques like it point toward design processes in which that the issue of organizational change is seen as integral.

In, Emergence of Ideas: The interplay between sources of inspiration and emerging design concepts, drawing on two observations of design reported by Schön, i.e., the role of materials in design thinking and the disruption of habituated practices, Halskov and Dalsgård locate inspiration cards within methods concerned with small constructed inspirational artefacts and those concerned with the expression of creative ideas through making. The work reported in the paper, ‘… is based in the study and analysis of the specific role played by sources of inspiration – both those with a physical form and those in the form of ad hoc improvisations – in creative design sessions.’ They claim that the work presented contributes to knowledge in two ways: first by offering an understanding of the artefact-mediated emergence of ideas and, second, the micro-analytic method employed to arrive at this understanding. Based on a case analysis of an Inspiration Card Workshop they identify the following phenomena structuring and creating momentum in the development of new design concepts, ‘… 1) the manifest properties of Inspiration Cards and Concept Posters as physical props for encouraging and supporting design moves, 2) the semantic dimensions of the cards and posters as catalysts for discussion, derivation and ideation, and 3) ad hoc external sources of inspiration as means of supplementing and developing design concepts.’

Halskov and Dalsgård's Emergence of ideas: The interplay between sources of inspiration and emerging design concepts shares a number of features with Dindler and Iversen's Fictional inquiry – design collaboration in a shared narrative space. In the first place, they are both long papers, but for different reasons. Emergence of Ideas' length is primarily the consequence of the qualitative method of analysis employed. Such methods do not lend themselves to simple statement of expectation, measurement, findings, etc; invariably, summarised qualitative research reports are unconvincing, thus diminishing confidence in the understanding reported. In contrast, Dindler and Iversen's paper is long because of the need to adequately describe the application of the advocated method; summarised descriptions of method are invariably inadequate for reuse by other practitioners in the field. Notwithstanding the general rule of four papers per issue of around 7000 words, CoDesign has made a practice of publishing papers to the length demanded by their content.

Given their shared origin, another not too surprising connection between the authors' research methods is their shared roots in Scandinavian Participatory Design approach, in turn informed by phenomenology, as was Donald A. Schön's attitude to design. Such approaches can be contrasted with the positivist, technical rationalist thinking of Herbert A. Simon, which spawned another design research tradition directed toward a science of the artificial: a design research tradition characterised by a quantitative, detached, laboratory style approach to design knowledge acquisition and application, which contrasts with the qualitative, engaged and situated approach of the Participatory Design and Reflective Practice. Although initially firmly separated by their paradigmatic differences, these fields are coming together, each recognising the opportunities offered by cross fertilisation. This increasing dialogue was very evident in the recent International Conference DTRS7: Design Meeting Protocols, the seventh in a conference series focussed on design thinking. 1 The shared interest of both traditions in CoDesign provides a point of contact and CoDesign, the journal, will continue to encourage, and place alongside one another, research informed by both traditions.

However, it is when Halskov and Dalsgård's reflect on the particularities of the workshop reported in their paper that the significant connection between the two papers emerges. Halskov and Dalsgård, note that the balance of the workshop shifted towards innovation, i.e., from tradition to transcendence, echoing strongly Dindler and Iversen's observation that Fictional Inquiry, ‘… moves focus away from efforts to fix existing problems, to creating desirable futures …’, although in the case of the Inspiration Card Workshop this is perhaps more an emergent than intentional property of the technique: more a matter of context and collaborators than method. Herbert Simon's Sciences of the Artificial and its subsequent exploration by a generation of design researchers drew heavily on theories of problems solving. Whilst this has proved a productive approach, the problem with problems is that they present themselves which such force that they are difficult to ignore; they impel us to act toward them. But the problem with acting on problems, particularly those arising from our self-constructed artificial worlds, is that our actions may be directed toward adjusting what is in reality a poorly conceived world: one that is not problematic because needs, desires and contexts have changed but because needs, desires and contexts have not been properly addressed, and may never be so by tinkering around with the problematic construction in which we find ourselves situated. In such circumstances, we might do better to think about constructing markedly new worlds, ones intended to satisfy changeable physical, social and cultural environments. This is perhaps what Dindler and Iversen mean when they note that, ‘The trouble with practicing design as the art of solving immediately identifiable problems is that the designers risk coming up with great solutions for erroneous problems.’ Recognising that in practice most of us find it very difficult to imagine our desired future, encumbered as we are by our habits, design students across the globe are encouraged to break with traditions and to take responsibility for projecting all of our futures. If utopian in outlook, design is by tradition somewhat autocratic in application. In contrast, participatory, cooperative and collaborative design approaches are democratic in outlook, seeking to engage all stakeholders in the imaginative projection of the future worlds within which they will be situated. However, it may be the case, as implied by Dindler and Iversen, that CoDesign needs more researchers to focus on developing projective techniques, and not simply those directed to the production of artefacts but to the instantiation of design as a means of initiating physical, social and cultural change.

Notes

¹DTRS7: Design Meeting Protocols, 19 – 21 September 2007, London. At http://design.open.ac.uk/dtrs7/index.htm you will find information on the conference and a brief history of the previous six conferences in this series. As Special Issue of papers selected from the conference is anticipated in 2008.