Playing the language-games of design and use-on skill and participation

Abstract

This paper deals with computers and cooperative work. Focus in not on applications for cooperative work, but on the cooperative process of designing such and other computer applications. Focus is on the role of skill and participation in design as a creative and communicative process. The paper suggests a need to go beyond the Cartesian philosophical assumptions of rationalistic reasoning as epistemology and dualism as ontology, so strongly embedded in traditional design methods. There are many philosophical candidates for such a reinterpretation. In this paper I have chosen to elaborate on language-games and the ordinary language philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Hence, focus is on the shift in design from language as description towards language as action. Some consequences of such a shift is illustrated with reflections on examples from UTOPIA (a research and development project for skill enhancing computer based tools for graphic workers), and with design ideas on an application simulator from a new research programme on Cooperative Design and Communication.