Enhancing participation in interdisciplinary student teams through the use of tangible representations

Abstract

Designers are to an increasingly extent working as facilitators and members of co-creative interdisciplinary teams. Interdisciplinary collaboration is needed when working with complex problems, and more knowledge on how to best facilitate co-creative design processes are needed. This study is looking into participation in decision making, and how the use of tangible representations may influence the team members opportunities to participate.

This paper is exploring the experiences of using an adapted affinity mapping exercise for facilitating decision-making in interdisciplinary student groups. They are all working on developing new concepts for future health care services through methods from service design and design thinking. After using the adapted affinity mapping exercise, the teams are interviewed about their experiences of the process, and their understanding of how the use of tangible representations are influencing their participation and decision-making process.

Based on the reflections and feedback from the students, some conclusions are drawn.