How Tangible Mock-Ups Support Design Collaboration

This paper is a contribution to a more conscious use of tangible mock-ups in collaborative design processes. It describes a design team’s use of mock-ups in a series of workshops involving potential customers and users. Focus is primarily on the use of three-dimensional design mock-ups and how differences in these affected the dialogue. Reflective conversations were established by using tangible mock-ups as “things-to-think with.” They served as boundary objects that spanned the gap between the different competencies and interests of participants in design. The design mock-ups evoked different things for different participants, whereas the challenge for the design team was to find boundaries upon which everybody could agree. The level of details represented in a mock-up affected the communication so that a mock-up with few details evoked different issues, whereas a very detailed mock-up evoked a smaller variation of issues resulting in a more focused communication.

[1]  Judy Pearsall,et al.  The Concise Oxford Dictionary , 1999 .

[2]  Mogens Myrup Andreasen,et al.  Integrated Product Development , 1987 .

[3]  Karen Holtzblatt,et al.  Contextual design , 1997, INTR.

[4]  Jacob Buur,et al.  Design models in mechatronic product development , 1989 .

[5]  D. Schoen,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action , 1985 .

[6]  Eva Brandt,et al.  Evoking the future: Drama and props in user centered design , 2000 .

[7]  Pelle Ehn,et al.  Work-oriented design of computer artifacts , 1989 .

[8]  Jacob Buur,et al.  The design collaboratorium: a place for usability design , 2002, TCHI.

[9]  Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen,et al.  Crossing the Border , 1991, The Springer Series on Artificial Intelligence and Society.

[10]  Sri Hastuti Kurniawan,et al.  Review of Interaction design , 2003 .

[11]  Seymour Papert,et al.  Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas , 1981 .

[12]  John M. Carroll,et al.  Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions , 2000 .

[13]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. , 1987 .

[14]  Morten Kyng,et al.  Cardboard Computers: Mocking-it-up or Hands-on the Future , 1992 .

[15]  W. Buxton.  Human-Computer Interaction , 1988, Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

[16]  Thomas Binder.  Setting the stage for improvised video scenarios , 1999, CHI EA '99.

[17]  Eva Brandt,et al.  Action research in user-centred product development , 2004, AI & SOCIETY.

[18]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  The Structure of Ill-Structured Solutions: Boundary Objects and Heterogeneous Distributed Problem Solving , 1989, Distributed Artificial Intelligence.

[19]  Eva Brandt.  Event driven product development – collaboration and learning , 2001 .

[20]  Austin Henderson,et al.  Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction , 2002, UBIQ.

[21]  Dennis F. Kibler,et al.  Toward a theory of cultural transparency: elements of a social discourse of the visible and the invisible , 1990 .

[22]  Louis L. Bucciarelli,et al.  Designing Engineers , 1994 .

[23]  Thomas Binder,et al.  Designing for work place learning , 1995, AI & Society.

[24]  Yvonne Rogers,et al.  Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction , 2002 .

[25]  R. J. Bogumil,et al.  The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action , 1985, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[26]  Kathryn Henderson,et al.  Flexible Sketches and Inflexible Data Bases: Visual Communication, Conscription Devices, and Boundary Objects in Design Engineering , 1991 .