Abstract
The “co-experiences” are booming. The trend of complex interdisciplinary projects makes co-creation a more and more common way of working, but also changes the conditions for co-creation. How these co-creation processes are structured and conceived is a longstanding debate in the field of design with a main focus on the chosen methods or the underlying mind-set. However, co-creation could also be approached from a practiceoriented perspective, a view already hinted for in the existing literature. To motivate a practice-oriented perspective on co-creation and to spot the added value of it, critical-incidents of an on-going R&D-project are described and discussed against the conceptual framework of practice theory. The analysis results in an understanding of cocreation as a texture of local and dynamic practices, which evolve independently from methods, but depend on shared interpretative schemes and constant negotiations. A practice-oriented perspective opens up a useful view for the analysis of the new cocreation processes and its problems. The results provide practitioners with good starting points for the understanding and support of co-creation beyond defined methods, roles and sessions.
Keywords
Practice; co-creation; participatory design; methods; mind-set
Citation
Ruhl, E., Richter, C., Lembke, J., and Allert, H. (2014) Beyond methods: Co-creation from a practice-oriented perspective, in Lim, Y., Niedderer, K., Redström, J., Stolterman, E. and Valtonen, A. (eds.), Design's Big Debates - DRS International Conference 2014, 16-19 June, Umeå, Sweden. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2014/researchpapers/66
Beyond methods: Co-creation from a practice-oriented perspective
The “co-experiences” are booming. The trend of complex interdisciplinary projects makes co-creation a more and more common way of working, but also changes the conditions for co-creation. How these co-creation processes are structured and conceived is a longstanding debate in the field of design with a main focus on the chosen methods or the underlying mind-set. However, co-creation could also be approached from a practiceoriented perspective, a view already hinted for in the existing literature. To motivate a practice-oriented perspective on co-creation and to spot the added value of it, critical-incidents of an on-going R&D-project are described and discussed against the conceptual framework of practice theory. The analysis results in an understanding of cocreation as a texture of local and dynamic practices, which evolve independently from methods, but depend on shared interpretative schemes and constant negotiations. A practice-oriented perspective opens up a useful view for the analysis of the new cocreation processes and its problems. The results provide practitioners with good starting points for the understanding and support of co-creation beyond defined methods, roles and sessions.