DCC10 Workshop: Design Communication
10 July 2010, 9-12.30pm

Submission open until May 14th, 2010
Short position papers of max. 4 pages


Call for papers

Virtually everything people experience today has been made by designers and everything that is designed is constantly evolving. Designers create products, services and experiences that people will need and want to have in the future. Whilst and perhaps by anticipating and creating the future, their very own work environment is changing.

Changes in the work environment manifest themselves in the breadth and depth of requirements designers are responding to, in the way designers are working, in the tools they are using and in the skills they and people they are working with are possessing. Designers also need to consider speedy changes in scientific discoveries, legal constraints, consumer's culturally informed expectations of a designed object, attitudes in society in general and momentarily, for example, towards environmental and social sustainability in specific. This may be somewhat daunting as well as exciting. Designers and engineers need to understand these issues. They need to generate a co-ordinated view amongst often widely dispersed teams of how to respond to these mostly very tacit requirements. At the same time perennial issue like time and cost and widely distributed supply chains add pressure on the designer.

How can research into design communication capture these very changes and help designers in their everyday tasks?

This workshop provides an opportunity to discuss the challenges in understanding and supporting communication in design, while at the same time reflecting on the nature of research into design communication. We want to identify the intellectual traditions that have informed communication research to date and those that could offer a real potential in identifying how existing and future research can complement and built on each other.

In specific, the workshop discussion could encompass the following topics:

    * Interface communication (between a product and a designer, between designers, between design teams, between companies, between designers and society as a whole)
    * Using artefacts, such as drawings and prototypes as media in the design process
    * The nature of informal and formal communication in the design process
    * Understanding and supporting information requirements of a design engineer
    * Understanding and supporting communication of remote and co-located teams



Workshop aim:
It is our goal in this workshop to contribute to an understanding of the practice of design communication and of the different focus areas of research into design communication within the design community.

The workshop chairs are co-editing an AIEDAM special issue on Studying and Supporting Design Communication.
We hope this workshop forms the start of what in 2013 is envisaged to culminate in a coherent and inspiring special issue.

Workshop format:
Emphasis will be on exchange of promising ideas, rather than showcasing finished work. Accordingly, presentations by participants on the basis of their submissions are intended to be short with contributors making statements, proposing ideas and research questions and perhaps tentative results, leaving ample room for discussion.
The workshop will conclude with a thought-exercise of various combinations of the words design and communication by the chairs. This is intended to encourage participants to position their research as well as perhaps stimulate questioning that very attempt given the ever-changing nature of the work environment of a design engineer.

Submission information:
Papers up to 4 pages, using the DCC template, will be accepted for presentation based on the reviews of the program committee.
Accepted submissions will be collated as workshop proceedings.

The papers should include
a) your current focus area and research questions within design communication and
b) a statement describing your disciplinary angle(s) and nature of research (e.g. empirical, conceptual, theoretical, or speculative).

Please submit your paper to the workshop chair as a PDF file. The paper format is available as PDF and RTF files.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero/conferences/dcc10/

Papers and inquiries should be emailed to the workshop chair at the following email address: [log in to unmask]




Anja Maier
Associate Professor
Work, Technology and Organisation and Product Development
Technical University of Denmark
Department of Management Engineering
Produktionstorvet
Building 425, 1. floor, office 110
2800  Kgs. Lyngby
+45 4525 6045
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www.man.dtu.dk<http://www.man.dtu.dk/>