Representational artefacts in social problem solving: A study from occupational rehabilitation

Abstract

This paper highlights the role of design and designers in the creation of visual artefacts as boundary objects to be used in social problem solving. Many problems in human service systems can only be solved by purposive action amongst the stakeholders of the system but each stakeholder has only a partial view of the system. Boundary objects that present a multi-stakeholder perspective can facilitate problem solving by creating representations of the system that are meaningful to all stakeholders. In this study we used sensemaking (often a textual practice) and visualisation to create a high complexity representational artefact to enable shared understandings of an occupational rehabilitation system.