Situated and Distributed Design

Much attention within the design community has focused on understanding and supporting situated or distributed design. However, in the practice of design, including techniques such as participatory design, the relationship between situated and distributed design should not be considered an or relationship, but rather an and relationship. Furthermore, extending upon the notion of distributed we argue for two levels of distributed design 1) distributed in a collocated setting with other stakeholders; and, 2) stakeholders distributed across different geographical locations. In this paper we present an understanding of design, a review and critique of current design environments and a design environment we have developed– Public Social Private Design (PSPD). Author