Design as sensemaking - an autoethnography on the early phases of product development

Ilkka Kettunen

Design as sensemaking

An autoethnography on the early phases of product development

Jussi Timonen

• How do designers make sense of the design process?

• How do designers create opportunities for other stakeholders to participate in the creative process?

Design process

individual - centered

collaborative

reflectiverational

design hero bricoleur

participatory, situated,…dominant tehcno-rational

7 properties of sensemaking (Weick 1995, 17)

1. Grounded in identity construction2. Retrospective3. Enactive of sensible environments4. Social5. Ongoing6. Focused on and by extracted cues7. Driven by plausability rather than accurancy

Analytic autoetnograpy (Anderson 2006)

Researcher is:

1. a full member in the research group.2. visible as such a member in published texts.3. committed to developing theoretical

understandings of boarder social phenomena.

Context

• EDUFIX ltd. (pseudonym)• Furniture manufacturing (fictious)• 300 empoyees, 400 M€ sales, 70% exported• R&D venture: intelligent learning environment• Informants: designers, managers, researchers,

engineers…

Data

• Diary• Videos of design group + management board

meetings• 1600 sketchs, …

Story

• Autoetnography narrative, 60 pages.• Duration 10 months• Designing 16 product concepts• Starting from the first meeting with the

management board• Ending up handing over the concepts for detail

design• Plot: enthusiasm, frustration, success…

Analysis / Interpretation

1st order analysis: the story – what happened?

2nd order analysis: presenting the story in a theoretical perspective – what does all this mean?

Design sensemaking practices

So what?

• Identity construction: identities define the product.

• Plausablity: engage positive illusion.

• Idea of enactmenet (Schön 1983): there is no ”clean slate”.

Ilkka Kettunen

www.aatepaja.fi