Designing Collaboration: Comparing Cases Exploring Cultural Probes as Boundary-Negotiating Objects (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '13, 2013
This paper examines the use of cultural probes as a method for fostering collaboration within groups of diverse experts working on creative projects. Using two case examples, we show that probes-short, oblique, and at times whimsical sets of activity prompts-have boundary object properties that can jumpstart interdisciplinary and cross-functional exchange. The first case explores how social scientists and designers used a smartphone-based scavenger hunt activity to gather insights for a workshop on organizational innovation. The second case examines how artist/scientist pairs utilized probe-like prompts to develop short performances for an arts festival. Drawing together theoretical views on boundary objects and cultural probes, we suggest that designed experiences such as probes can create opportunities for both boundary work and the establishment of common ground, which is increasingly vital in the highly collaborative contexts that define work today.
Digital Humanities is an inherently collaborative field of research. The wide range of stakeholders, as well as the ever changing methodologies, hold the potential for innovation but also carry a constant threat of miscommunication. Design is a fixed partner in Digital Humanities and their practices are closely intertwined. However on a practical level, design is most commonly regarded as an implementation technique rather than an equal part of the theoretical framework. We propose to utilize design as a research tool by developing a set of Design Probes which are created to address the specific needs and challenges of collaborative research in Digital Humanities. We describe design and technical implementation methods, as well as the theoretical context and the possible outcome of this proposal.
Across the great divide: Boundaries and boundary objects in art and science
This paper explores collaboration between artists and scientists through participant observation. Four artist/ scientist pairs worked together to create ten-minute performances for a festival held in January, 2009 in Ithaca, New York. Each pair created their piece over the course of three two-hour meetings, the first of which employed a cultural probe to open a discourse between the artist and scientist and to facilitate collaboration. My role as a participant observer allowed me to closely observe collaborative processes in which pairs engaged in boundary work and made use of boundary objects. The boundary work helped the pairs establish authority and autonomy within their respective sub-fields, while at the same time provoking discussions that led to the creation of their projects. The pairs used three types of boundary objects: existing, created, and appropriated. These established a common language by which they could create and present their performances to an audience.
Between Chaos and Routine: Boundary Negotiating Artifacts in Collaboration
ECSCW 2005
Empirical studies of material artifacts in practice continue to be a rich source of theoretical concepts for CSCW. This paper explores the foundational concept of boundary objects and presents the results of a year-long ethnographic study of collaborative work. This research questions the assumption that artifacts exist necessarily within a web of standardized processes and that disorderly processes should be treated as "special cases". I suggest that artifacts can serve to establish and destabilize protocols themselves and that artifacts can be used to push boundaries rather than merely sailing across them.
Design as a Cultural Venue for Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Sense Making has become the strategic fuel for meaningful Change Making in organizations today. 1 When designers enter into and facilitate large interdisciplinary teams it changes the role of the designer from being characterised by aesthetic professionalism to thinking strategically and facilitating processes in a methodical and systematic manner. The user centred framing of designers, their imaginative capabilities and their expressive skills enable them to span complex boundaries within and across multidisciplinary teams. The aim of the present paper is to outline that designer's methods and visual skills can be the link between mental models and languages that occur in interdisciplinary teams. The designer's methods such as visualization and prototyping as well as their Sensemaking methods 2 can strengthen a team's chance to imagine future scenarios and their implications. It provides a common ground for discussing and reflecting on choices made. The article describes two different cases in which the visual methods of designers made Sensemaking possible in the organisation. The methods used are elements within the design process: visual sensemaking, user observations, interviews, sketching, idea generation, conceptualizing, prototyping, visual representation and evaluation.
Understanding the Role of Objects in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
Organization Science, 2012
I n this paper we make a case for the use of multiple theoretical perspectives-theory on boundary objects, epistemic objects, cultural historical activity theory, and objects as infrastructure-to understand the role of objects in crossdisciplinary collaboration. A pluralist approach highlights that objects perform at least three types of work in this context: they motivate collaboration, they allow participants to work across different types of boundaries, and they constitute the fundamental infrastructure of the activity. Building on the results of an empirical study, we illustrate the insights that each theoretical lens affords into practices of collaboration and develop a novel analytical framework that organizes objects according to the active work they perform. Our framework can help shed new light on the phenomenon, especially with regard to the shifting status of objects and sources of conflict (and change) in collaboration. After discussing these novel insights, we outline directions for future research stemming from a pluralist approach. We conclude by noting the managerial implications of our findings.
Scholarly and Research Communication, 2019
The goal of this article is to contribute to the literature on interdisciplinary collaboration by suggesting that efficient collaboration occurs when boundaries disappear (and not by trying to bridge them). It is using the constitutive approach to organization that I intend to comprehend this “dissolving of boundaries”, but also using Star and Griesemer notion of boundary-object as a framework. This conceptual articulation allows me to reveal the “making together” as the means for the disciplinary boundaries disappearance. This paper show how an architectural “project” becomes a site for communication enabling collaboration between specialists from various disciplines.
Joining Up: Evaluating technologically augmented interdisciplinary cross-cultural collaboration
"Over two intensive weeks during September 2011, students from The College of Fine Arts (COFA) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Donghua University (DHU) engaged in creating dynamic content together using a live database. RARE EARTH: Hacking the City aimed to forge an open-source space in Shanghai for experimental improvisation that accentuated use of interactive media and mobile technologies to facilitate cross-cultural design collaboration. The studioLAB encouraged students to use Shanghai as a laboratory for investigating, sharing, and amplifying ideas for the future of cities, immersive interactive environments, and cross-cultural co-creation. The project’s interdisciplinary focus attracted involvement from students and practitioners working in architecture, design, photography, sculpture, social innovation, art theory, curating, media arts, programming, and language translation. RARE EARTH was conceived around an Interactive Media Platform (IMP) integrated into the studio as a means to document and exhibit the diverse work being carried out. The participants uploaded and tagged their content to a live Flickr database that regularly updated the IMP. The database of image, sound and video content produced describes the creative processes, social and studio encounters, and the outputs of students and other actors involved in the project. RARE EARTH offered students opportunities to think ‘beyond possibilities’ (Wood, 2012) in exploring the significance and implications of culture amid the emergence of complex network technologies, Asia’s rapid urbanisation, and this century’s reconfigured geopolitical relationships. However, despite technological interconnectedness, collaboration between people from different cultures is subject to communication breakdowns because our realities are comprised of differing norms, symbols, and representations reinforced through education (Snow 1993, Sussman 2000). Additionally, opportunities for students from West and non-West to engage in dialogic, co-languaging processes that deconstruct cultural difference remain uncommon, and educators and practitioners face significant communication challenges that limit the complexification of creative solutions. Building on an existing body of research , this paper discusses the opportunities, constraints and outcomes of the studio. A model for Cross-Cultural Interdisciplinary Collaboration (CCIC) is proposed as pliant methodology advocating sensitivity to divergent institutional expectations, language difference, culturally based assumptions about learning, and the potential of interactive media platforms as intercultural communication and collaborative tools. This highlights the crucial role for open, technologically augmented laboratories in creating adaptive, interdisciplinary design pedagogy where students may be empowered to reflexively explore meaningful ways designers from different cultures might work together in a ‘joined up’ way to envisage our as yet unimagined collective futures. Key words: design education, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, collaboration, interactive media"
Discursive Studio Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Social Design, Learning, and Creativity
Journal of Digital Media and Interaction, 2019
In recent years, the emergence of new technologies and ways of communicating, creating, and sharing has spurred a new interest in social and collaborative forms of creativity that transcend traditional conceptions of "creativity as an individual effort." By posing social creativity as participatory design, this article presents a methodological approach called Discursive Studio Analysis (DSA), which can be used to make sense of situated discourses, artifacts, and practices found in design-driven social spaces. By considering the influence of concepts such as prosumers, participatory cultures, Discourses, multimodality, intertextuality, and affinity spaces, this interdisciplinary methodology aims at offering useful interpretive tools to researchers, designers, and practitioners in order to help them make sense of emerging creative and learning practices in informal social environments.