Non-designers in Interdisciplinary Design: Facilitating Communication and Ideation Using Boundary Objects

Abstract

AbstractProfessionals from different disciplinary contexts increasingly collaborate combing design approaches and scientific knowledge for innovative solutions to address complex problems. The processes, methods, and tools are important for interdisciplinary design, especially in situations where participants are from non-design backgrounds in the team. Based on the existing literature on the role of boundary objects for ideation and communication in interdisciplinary or collaborative teams. We construct a research framework for non-designers’ interdisciplinary design with boundary objects and introduce material and verbal boundary objects to facilitate the ideation and communication in the design process. This paper gets insight into a)the effect of boundary objects on the communication of non-designers interdisciplinary team; b) the significance of boundary objects for ideation; c) the performance and experience of non-designers in interdisciplinary design using boundary objects. The data was collected in an interdisciplinary collaborative design workshop in two sessions, in which, 40 non-designer participants in 8 teams were asked to ideate for a future transportation conceptual design project based on their expertise and collaboration. By analyzing the utilization of boundary objects, findings suggest that boundary objects support non-designers to ideate in the design process, however, discover the deficiency. According to the findings, an iteration of the theoretic framework and boundary objects will be carried out to support interdisciplinary collaborative design for non-designers further.KeywordsInterdisciplinary designNon-designersBoundary objects