Joint remembering in collaborative design: a multimodal approach in the case of a video design studio

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of joint remembering in collaborative design. Joint remembering sequences are identified on the basis of questions that act as triggers to specific interactive sequences. The sequences are situated in the ongoing collaborative design process, and empirical evidence is provided that illustrates how the interweaving of verbal, bodily, social and material resources supports joint remembering. Three examples of joint remembering sequences in co-design are analysed from a corpus of interactions (45+ hours of audio and video recording), collected during an observational study of a team of four 3D designers working on a TV commercial. This study suggests that questions acting as reminders foster the formation of multimodal remembering sequences (MRSs) that connect multiple timescales over the duration of co-design projects. In the corpus under study, MRSs enable designers to plan future actions and make decisions on the fly.

Keywords:

• Joint remembering
• co-design
• multimodal remembering sequence
• timescales

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank designers PL, PM, D1 and D2 for their participation in our study, as well as the owners of the video design studio in Barcelona. We thank two anonymous reviewers for invaluable feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The final version of the commercial can be found at: URL: http://www.holasoyagus.com/Kellogg-s-Manifesto.

2. This is the adaptation of Jefferson’s transcription system (Jefferson 2004) that was used for the transcriptions of the extracts analysed:

(2 sec.); Examples of time pauses.

A: word [word; Square brackets aligned across adjacent lines denote the start of overlapping talk.

B: [word.

wor-; A dash shows a sharp cut-off.

wo:rd; Colons show that the speaker has stretched the preceding sound.

A: word=

B: = ; Word The equals sign shows that there is no discernible pause between two speakers’ turns or if put between sounds within a single turn show they run together.