Missing miscommunications in interdisciplinary design practice
Year: 2013
Editor: John Lawlor, Ger Reilly, Robert Simpson, Michael Ring, Ahmed Kovacevic, Mark McGrath, William Ion, David Tormey, Erik Bohemia, Chris McMahon, Brian Parkinson
Author: Torrisi, Vanna Savina; Hall, Ashley
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Section: Multidisciplinarity
Page(s): 581-586
ISBN: 978-1-904670-42-1
Abstract
Interdisciplinarity is a key ingredient in amplifying the breadth of design explorations and the ability to merge different perspectives is essential for the future of design innovation. Several studies on collaborative work emphasise and support this point of view, however creative collaboration can trigger conflicts mainly due to interpretative differences between individuals with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. A common conception in design and interdisciplinary practice assumes that communications should be clear and effort should be made to reduce ambiguity in order to enhance creativity and efficiency. However, a number of case studies from interdisciplinary collaborations have indicated that the reverse may be true, that in fact miscommunications are a key ingredient of creativity and serendipitous exploitation of different meanings can engender new innovative solutions. Issues that arise in the course of interdisciplinary work can become a bridge or a barrier depending on team context and the ability to identify and investigate the nature of these issues can broaden the opportunity for translation. âIâll take 9â is a masters teaching module that was selected for analysis to test the identification of miscommunications and the maximising of creative potentials. The findings shed light on interdisciplinarity and question the assumption that clarity and the avoidance of ambiguity in communication is a desired practice. Missing miscommunications emerges as a powerful insight into design creativity across disciplines and signifies the opportunity of using diverse interdisciplinary teams to creatively explore cultural, material, disciplinary and cognitive differences to exploit the chaos in design systems.
Keywords: Interdisciplinary design, industrial design, miscommunication, design thinking, innovation