Designerly talk as informal discourse embodying critical character and design judgment within a community of practice¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 6 claims (6 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Designerly talk is a construct describing informal communications among design students and practitioners that express design thinking externally. The authors define it as "describing communications that embody a critical character, express design judgment in a tacit or explicit way, and occur within a real community of practice around design." It was identified through analysis of extended comment threads in student-managed Facebook groups, where students project themselves as part of the larger practice community.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Communications must occur within a real community of practice around design, not elicited through think-out-loud protocols or interviews

Constraints¶

• Studied specifically in student-created Facebook groups adjacent to a formal HCI design Master's curriculum

Target Learners¶

• Master's students in interaction design
• design alumni and practitioners

Target Learning Objectives¶

• design judgment
• professional identity
• critical engagement with design practice

Claims¶

• Four types of designerly talk manifest in student-managed social network spaces: tool selection, professional identity, skill-sharing coordination, and ethical design discussion [+W]
• Student-created Facebook groups support self-directed design learning and sharing of expertise outside the formal curriculum [+W]
• Social network site participation enables design learning that breaks the confines of space and time, including pre-enrollment learning and asynchronous ethical discussion [+W]
• Student-generated Facebook groups constitute a hidden curriculum that supports learning outside the formal design studio [+W]
• Students transition between student and proto-professional roles in informal SNS discourse, bridging learning and design practice [+W]
• Longer Facebook threads with more interlocutors show distinct structural characteristics compared to the broader corpus [+W]

Related Theories¶

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Gray, C. M., & Howard, C. D. (2014). Designerly talk in non-pedagogical social spaces. Journal of Learning Design, 7(1), 40-58. https://doi.org/10.5204/jld.v7i1.153