How Practices Come Together: Situating Design by Attending to Relational Practices

Abstract

When acting in complex sociocultural contexts, designers often encounter other people engaged in differing practices. Non-design practices and design practices co-evolve in reciprocity. However, this article argues that design culture encourages designers to rely uncritically on performing established design activities as a way to demonstrate their professionalism. Designers may encounter difficulties in concretely perceiving and describing how their everyday practices are entangled with people and things. This may lead design professionals to adopt a detached position that can prompt self-doubt about whether they contribute positively to others’ lives. This article explores how designers can become attentive to the situated nature of their design practice. Drawing on recent theories of practice, this article argues that design professionals should attend to the relational practices of others who work near an acting designer. Design practice and other practices are relational. These relational practices mutually constitute the conditions of existence, maintenance, and transformation for each other. Using autoethnography and analysis, the article examines the positive potential of four ways of attending to relational practices. These four ways are tracking, recounting, repositioning, and responding. While they are not exhaustive, these four categories can enable designers to develop a more nuanced understanding of their working context and appropriate situated strategies for design action.