COLLABORATION IN DESIGN: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

5.0 Introduction

This chapter encompasses the theoretical frameworks applied in the study, which are informed by the conceptual analysis of collaborative design provided in Chapter 4. The rationale for the selection and application of these frameworks is as follows.

This study focuses on understanding how stakeholders, particularly civil society, participate in collaborative design projects, underpinned by the ways in which, historically, the South African public has been engaged. To better engage the public in the design of products, services and systems that affect them, one must appreciate and understand their reasons for and lack of participation and collaboration historically (see previous Chapters). This is necessary in the development of processes and structures for future stakeholder participation in activities of community-based participatory design projects. The use of Activity Theory as the analytical and theoretical framework employed in this study offers a way to characterise, analyse and design for the participatory unit (Barab, Evans & Baek, 2004:199).

This characterising, analysing and designing for participation facilitates the primary focus areas of this study, these are, exploring historical and present participatory practices, understanding the complexities of community-based participatory design projects, and exploring how collaborative design projects can facilitate expansive learning and the building of social capital. These all contribute to developing civic momentum in and beyond CbPD projects in a South African context.

Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as the primary theoretical framework, facilitates the acquisition of new ways of working collaboratively, and the development of concepts and tools to account for dialogue, multiple perspectives and networks of these intersecting systems (Engeström 2001:135,139), imperative in CbPD.

5.1 Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a Methodological and Analytical tool for Exploring Stakeholder Participation in Co-Design

CHAT’s attention to cultural history and tools makes it useful for exploring interaction among multiple participants in an activity (Silo, 2011:97). The activity this research focuses on is the activity of collaborative design.

In using CHAT to account for activity, one is concerned with more than simply ‘doing’ or

‘performing’ as a disembodied action, but rather on ‘doing in order to transform something’ with the focus on the contextualised activity of the system as a whole

(Barab, Evans & Baek, 2004:200). Barab (2002:533) states that “the ‘minimal meaningful context’ for understanding human actions is the activity system, which includes the actor (subject) or actors (subgroups) whose agency is chosen as the point of view in the analysis and the acted upon (object) as well as the dynamic relations among both.”

Kaptelinin (2014) acknowledges two key aspects that differentiate activity from other forms of interaction:

• Subjects of activities have needs, which should be met through an interaction with the world, and

• Activities and their subjects mutually determine one another, that is, activities are generative forces that transform both subjects and objects.

Activity Theory provides us a lens to critically reflect on and in design processes. It facilitates the identification of components of an activity system, in this case a participatory design system. Design research can make use of the AT framework in facilitating explorations into situations, contexts and motivations, not only related to human-artefact relationships, (Sato, 2009:34) but also their place in their located socio-technical and economic environments.

Activity is an ‘interdisciplinary’ concept by nature, and analogous to what Heidegger and later Gadamer termed, the ‘hermeneutic circle’ (Blunden, 2010:170). This refers to a relationship between the whole and its parts and how each can only be understood in relation the other. Concerning the relationship between individual actions and collective activity. Gadamer viewed understanding as linguistically mediated. He believed that it is through conversations with others in which reality is explored and an agreement is reached, that a new understanding is developed.The centrality of conversation to the hermeneutic circle was taken further by Donald Schön (1983), who characterises design as a hermeneutic circle that is developed by means of “a conversation with the situation”. In AT this ‘conversation with the situation’ results in individuals acting toward an object, these actions being mediated by physical, cultural and mental tools (Clark, 2012:2).

Kaptelinin (2014) and Kaptelinin & Nardi (1997; 2006) build on Leont’ev’s (1978) and later Wertsch’s (1981) definitions of the five basic principles of AT. These are:

• Object-orientedness

• Hierarchical structure of Activity

• Mediation

• Internalisation and externalisation, and

• Development

The principle of object-orientedness states that all human activities are directed toward their objects and are differentiated from one another by their respective objects.

Therefore, “objects motivate and direct activities, around them activities are coordinated, and in them activities are crystallised when the activities are complete”

Kaptelinin (2014). In CbPD there are often a number of participants from various contexts. These participants’ individual actions toward the object can differ but should align to best crystallise the object. In quad-helix projects there are, at least, government representatives, researchers, designers and citizens from the activity context. Each participant might perform a different actions depending on their role and experience, but these are all focussed on achieving the co-defined object of activity.

This principle implies that to be able to understand both the individual and collective activities of humans, it is necessary to investigate and analyse object properties of all those involved.

Activities are composed of three hierarchical layers, namely operations, actions and activities (Leont’ev, 1981) (Figure 5.1). Blunden (2010:206) summarises this hierarchy as follows: operations are not consciously motivated, but rather flow from will to action;

actions are oriented to individual’s goals and collectively realise the activity; and activities, which have a social motive and are independent of individual will (Table 5.1).

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Figure 5.1: Hierarchical Levels of Human Action in Activity (Leont’ev, 1981)

Table 5.1: Leont’ev’s three level model as adapted by Engeström et al (1990)

Unit Directing Factor Subject

Activity Object / Motive Collective

Action Goal Individual / Group

Operation Conditions Non conscious

Kaptelinin (2014) combines the above two diagrams into a model that represents not only hierarchy, but also how multiple smaller components of activity systems contribute to single larger components, that is multiple operations facilitate actions, of which multiple versions contribute to an activity (Figure 5.2).

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Figure 5.2: Nested hierarchy of activity (Kaptelinin, 2014)

Kaptelinin (2014) goes on to note that when considering human activity as a three layer system, there is the opportunity for a combined analysis of motivational, goal-directed and operational aspects of human acting in the world, which brings together what Bødker (1991) refers to as issues of Why, What and How, all within a consistent conceptual framework. Kaptelinin (2014) goes on to state that realising this possibility in a concrete study may prove problematic as revealing the ultimate motives of an individual or the complex structure of automatic operations may prove difficult if not impossible. Hence, this study is predominantly concerned with collective activity, however, adopts an “actions first” approach, beginning analysis at this central layer and identifying how these actions contribute to the activity of design.

Action, within an activity system, is mediated by tools, signs and techniques. These tools both shape the way human beings interact with reality, and are themselves usually shaped by previous activities and thus carry a particular culture. These meditational tools or artefacts are therefore not the object of our activity, but appear already as socio-cultural entities (Kofod-Peterson & Cassens, 2006:620). That is not to say that the object of an activity cannot be the design of new tools, for use as mediators in future activities. In drawing from the works of Vygotsky (1978), Bernstein (1990), Hassan (2002) and Daniels (2010) I propose three levels of mediation in collaborative design practices (Table 5.2). Vygotsky (1978) in his work on tool definition separated meditational artefacts into two distinct categories, ‘tools’ and ‘signs’.

Contextualised in design practice, a tool, such as a pencil, mediates object-oriented material activity, whereas signs function as means of social or interpersonal interaction.

Design though, presents an interesting blending of tools and signs, where the pen,

used as a tool, results in a sketch, which acts as a sign, or means of interaction between design and client; hence the grouping of these in Table 5.2. Embodied mediation refers here to the way in which individuals use these tools or signs based in their previous experience, linked closely to socio-cultural meditation, which accounts for the building of individuals experiences and includes social, cultural and historical structures (Daniels, 2010:112).

Table 5.2: Levels of mediation

If we take collective lo-fi prototyping for example as an activity within CbPD, we often see different participants using different materials in different ways based in their experiences and perceptions of the materials present. Kaptelinin (2014) notes that the use of tools is a form of accumulation and transmission of social, cultural knowledge.

Therefore, discussing tool preference amongst participants in CbPD can provide insight into embodied and socio-cultural aspects of use, which supports situated learning.

Activity theory differentiates between internal and external activities and posits that one cannot be understood without analysing both as they are intrinsically linked. This principle encompasses the fact that human activities are distributed, and dynamically redistributed, along the internal/external dimension (Kaptelinin, 2014). Internalisation relates to understanding, and the mental simulation of external interactions without physically performing the activity. Externalisation is the transforming of internal activities into external ones, necessary when an internal activity needs to be ‘repaired’

or when a collaborating group need to coordinate their activities (Kaptelinin, Kuutti &

Bannon, 1995:192). In collaborative design activities, coordination is key as subjects should act on the same object or at least related objects. Within this space, internalisation can encompass the absorption of new knowledge by participants while externalisation can be seen in the sketching of an idea or modelling of a concept.

Within design, the internalisation/externalisation process happens constantly, especially during the concept-defining phase. Similar to internal/external dimensions are individual/social ones. Here we see socially distributed activities containing more than one actor being appropriated by one person within the activity. For example, collaborative prototyping involves dialogue and group design decisions, the results of which eventually get taken up by a single designer to render in CAD. Cole and Engeström (1993) and Kaptelinin (2014) also note that individual activities can become