Re-framing design and designers: Studying design processes through a Pragmatist lens

Abstract

This paper explores the aspect of empathizing in design thinking and moments of collective creativity in designer practices. Although both design thinking perspectives and designer practices emphasize the need for exploring and framing prob-lems through the eyes of the user, this has different meanings in design thinking and in design practices. Pragmatist understandings of identity as a social, situated and dy-namic aspect of meaning making can provide a fruitful way of understanding how moments of collective creativity is fostered by the ability to take the attitude of the specific or Generalized Other in a given situation. Findings from product development work in a porcelain company gives insight in how social identities contribute to exploring possibilities and limits to what it is possible to do in developing new solutions. The paper contributes to both widening the understanding of pragmatist approaches to understanding the aspect of social identities in moments of collective creativity in design work.