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Narrative as a Jumping-off Point: from the Initial Idea to the Present Development Stage

The aim of the first meeting with designers is to review the design process from its origins to the present stage of development. By asking designers to provide a narrative about the project, they are invited to give a meaning structure, whether shared by all of them or not, to the project from its genesis to the current situation, specifying the various unforeseen developments for stakeholders. Thus the initial idea is seen to be woven into individual and organizational processes. From the outset, the project has had a place in society that influences its unfolding.

As the narrative unfolds, efforts are made to obtain as much information as possible on the emergence of the original idea and the role played in the project by technical challenges. Is it a technical challenge that is driving the process? Did a specific need trigger the process? If so, how and in what context?

Next, it’s time to gather information that is as accurate as possible on various dimensions, namely: the device, the uses and the social implementation.

The technical analysis inventories the device’s technical features, including its component parts, its efficiency (which subsumes its reliability), its innovativeness, its competitiveness, and, if appropriate, its anticipated uses.

Since a device’s component parts may, by virtue of a degree of toxicity, have safety and environmental impacts, it is important to know whether these social impacts have so far been taken into account. As well, some materials may raise questions related to cultural representations, in particular when materials appear to breach the barrier between the material and the human. Scarcity of resources may also arouse social concerns. It is thus important to know whether these issues have been taken into consideration.

When the questions are focused on uses, several dimensions come under consideration. It should not be forgotten that the objective is solely to understand how the designers have developed their project and how far they have come in the process. So the aim is to understand what they have developed around the device’s user-friendliness, performance, and usefulness. What have they done to take users’ perspective into account? What approach has been used? What methodology? The same questions apply to usefulness. How has it been defined? How has it been examined? What final overview has been reached about anticipated benefits to the user?

It’s important to grasp not just the uses but the practices that will be targeted under existing market conditions. As well, the reasons for these choices must be understood. How is the product’s marketing being envisaged? What are the market conditions? What are the anticipated and possible volumes of sales? Are there regulatory or other constraints on the product’s manufacture?

The product’s social implementation could alter various social practices at the individual, professional, and organizational levels. To what extent are the designers briefed about these dimensions? And if they have been briefed, have they taken the dimensions into account with respect to marketing?

Every new product is subject to a set of regulatory/prescriptive constraints. What knowledge do the players have of these legal constraints and the possible ways they could call a halt to the product’s implementation?