"Probing into the different identities of design in practice"
Capstone project done as part of "MDes in Human Centered Design" program at Srishti Institute Bangalore in 2020.
Project Abstract
"Everyone, within and beyond a professional practice has an "identity of design". But they are not necessarily aware of it. An identity of design is the power to create certain courses of action in a particular context leading to a design. Responsible action on opportunities to design requires recognition of the privilege to design. This capstone project explored how different practices are actively or passively hosting, nurturing or policing different manifestations of design through the perspectives of various stakeholders. In this project, as an outcome, maps and tools were created and explored to reveal how identities of design and design practitioners can manifest in more ways than few. "
Project intent and position
Project context
In the hype of becoming design-led, is our community succumbing to the biases about the practice that the industry is selling back to us?
Research Questions in the project
How might I learn what it means to design, beyond the definitions that are taught in academia?
What are the different identities of design in practice that individuals- designers or not often take up?
How does design manifest in practice beyond the “design-led” approaches that are becoming increasingly popular?
Key takeaway from project
We are not just designers, but we hold several identities of design that manifest in different contexts of design and each of these identities has a certain set of privileges that come with them. So, when a privilege is exercised while a certain identity manifests, it leads to the creation of opportunities. Naturally, but also importantly, responsible action on these opportunities requires recognition of the privilege that comes with your identity of the design.
Responsible action on opportunities for design requires recognition of the privilege that comes with an identity of design in a given context.
My definition of design at end of this project
Design is a set of plans made based on the available level of consciousness of privileges of a said collective. There are different collectives of stakeholders as per a context of design and they have their own contextually varying design identities.
Final Outputs
Overallinsightsabout design identities in practice were synthesized into micro-outputs of mapsand tools for facilitating socially responsible design practice:
1. Stakeholder map: Researcher as a node
This is the stakeholder map I created for my design research.
2. Stakeholder map: context vs.level of benefit
On the y-axis, we have a degree of relevance to context and on the x-axis is indicated the level of involvement of the stakeholders wrt to the context. You can map the different relationships between the stakeholders with respect to the level of benefit a project provides on this map.
3. The map of practice in a profession
In order to define what is a practice in the sense of this thesis, I created a map of what an exercise of the profession (practice) means.
4. Contextual design identity Map
This is a design identity map as a tool which I created with reference to the mass shift of a large part of the workforce to a remote working situation, to place designers and non-designers relative to their place of work. This kind of “nature of work” vs “space of work” identity mapping could be done and could provide practitioners with an insight into the mental models of working in different contexts of practice.
5. The Design identity mega map
This is a map of all observed identities in practice. All stakeholders of a system have an identity of design, i.e. a role to play in the design of the system that they as stakeholder collectives are a part of.
6. “Character’s user journey”- A tool to help identify differentidentities of design in a story
Designers often use the user journey map as a tool which take you through the major touch-points at different parts of the user’s journey with a product or a service. Following that, a service blueprint is made to give more layers of perspective in terms of the touch-points and operations involved. However, many stakeholders who are in fact affected by the products and systems we design are often not recognised.
The following is a tool modelled after the hero’s journey to help identify new design identities having new storylines branvhing out of the main character's storyline.
7. Game to walk through and experience different identities of design
To demonstrate the insights gained from the research about the identities of design in practice, I created a prototype for a game called “Mr Multi-face goes to Pluriverse” using an open sourced game making software called Twine.
In the game, a player gets to navigate the main character’s life and encounter instances where he reveals his different identities.
A prototype of the same can be found here.