SUSTAINING VALUE NETWORKS IN DESIGN AND RESEARCH

This week is about communication of ideas and concepts in creative teams - of designers or researchers - I emphasize the commonalities here. In both cases my perspective is that of value network, and my point is that each and every encounter must give value to all parties: users and designers, designers and developers, actors and researchers, researchers and publishers. All these asymmetrical yet mutually dependent relationships undergo at least three phases of value-attribution: the initial trust-building, the idea development where the question what is the problem, and the conceptual phase where solutions are tried out, accepted or rejected. To sustain value networks participants must experience both autonomy and community within their zone of competence. For this to happen, sufficient information, choices and the possibility of expressing mixed feelings are crucial conditions (Ryan & Deci). Simple, but not always easy to provide.