Research On Communication Methods In Collaborative Design

Since the 1950 s,post-industrial society,the relationship between designer,user,maker and other stakeholders became closer.Meanwhile,the design objects changed from products to many other objects including products,service,interaction,experience,society,etc.With these changes in design relationship and design objects,design practice,education,and research are facing new challenges.Today,what kind of fundamental methods and tools are we using? What kind of role and capacity are essential for the designer?All these questions became the motivation of this research.With this motivation,this research focused on methods and tools in Co-design.There is a lack of investigation in Co-design apart from the Computersupported cooperation work in China.Although more research in Co-design from foreign countries can be found,the research just focus on the communication between designer and non-designer,and there is a lack of systematic research on communication among different stakeholders in co-design.Thus,systematically,this paper studies the methods and tools of Co-design through the perspective of communication.As a result,this article constructed the co-design communication methods to solve the difficulties in communication in Co-design.Also,this paper found out what are the role and capacity of designers in Codesign.The main task of this paper is to find out the reasons that design methods and tools can solve the difficulties in communication in Co-design.Before this task,the concepts of Co-design,Co-innovation,and Participatory Design are differentiated.After the core task,the designer's responsibility in co-design is discussed.Before the primary mission of this article,through the study of Co-design and Co-innovation,the difference between these two concepts became clear.With the change from closed innovation to open innovation and the boundary of enterprise breaks down,Co-innovation was born.While with the modification from the linear innovation model to network innovation model and the boundary of design gives out,Co-design emerged.Thus,it is possible that Co-innovation and Co-design not coexist in one enterprise.However,Co-design can be the driven power of Co-innovation.Within the same part,the concepts of Co-design and participatory design became apparent,as well.The emergence of Co-design with more considerations from the commercial perspective.While Participatory Design with more accounts of democracy.Although both of them encourage the non-designer to participate in the fuzz-front-end of design,co-design encourage non-designer to give design concepts which are not the facts in Participatory Design.Through the continuous study within three phases between practice and theory,the reasons that design methods and tools can solve the difficulties in Co-design became apparent.With the ambiguity and accessibility,the methods and tools can stimulate thinking and externalize it and the way of communication change from information translation to future-oriented meaning co-construction.Thus,the difficulties of communication caused by the insurmountable boundaries of individuals can be broken.As a result,this paper proposed two ways of communication methods in co-design: one idea in one time and multiple ideas in one time.After the primary task of this paper,the influence with designer became apparent.First,Apart from the major role,designers should take the responsibility of improving cooperation in Co-design.At the same time,the designer should have the capacity how to facilitate the sensibility of non-designer.Second,as the communication methods and tools in Co-design can change the way of communication from information translation to meaning co-construction,it is possible to avoid the control by commercial,technology or other particular area and to better take the ownership of design in design practice.Third,as practice-led research emphasizes the value of practitioner,it is possible to avoid the mess of designer's role in design research with the influence from anthropology,management,sociology or other disciplines and to take the ownership of design in design research effectively.The value of this study can be found from following perspectives.First,establishing a basis for the development of Co-design practice and research in China and providing some methods for Co-innovation.Second,delivering several resources for the design of design education.Third,offering several cases for the development of practice-led research in design research in China.