Community Informatics Design in Action: Towards Operational Ways of Thinking in Order to Start a Design Process (Block 3)

Abstract

As we have previously seen, the field of science models (FOSM) provides the theoretical and practical foundations of a collective operational imagination process called community informatics design. It is nothing less than an exploratory voyage through several thinking and action modes relying on transdisciplinarity. We will now see that these thinking modes are a very concrete way of operationalizing the community informatics design thinking by seven thinking modes (Burnette 2009; Ranjan 2007) likely to help the uninitiated or social and communication science students start a design process. These seven thinking modes constitute an operational model that can intervene at different stages of the FOSM, a life cycle or a design project. Each thinking mode is articulated in several natural or specialized languages and takes into account a different aspect of the FOSM (foundations, theories, methodology or the several applications). Each contains characteristics that allow to provide specific information and knowledge appropriate to each of the instances, procedures or actions related to the FOSM. Concretely, it means that each thinking mode allows to operationalize the different users’/designers’ intentions, their behaviours, the norms, the architectures, the role distribution, the resources, the management modes, etc. These thinking modes conciliate material thinking modes (hard) and software (soft). Let us examine how these thinking modes allow to explore “imaginary territories” of an innovation culture suggested by the FOSM.