DEVISING THE PLOT:
COMMUNICATING DESIGN THINKING THROUGH STORYTELLING

The way design academics use language to communicate their creative practice in a research context is a problem. In current design research writing, the voice of the practitioner is lost because the relation between thinking and making is not adequately discussed and argued.

Design practitioners can succinctly communicate their thoughts and ideas through product design (be it a system, service or environment), however, design practitioners turned academic researchers cannot, as yet, succinctly and consistently articulate the creative thinking processes (i.e. conception & planning, inspiration generation, imaginative development and problem-finding processes) through writing in a research context (Durling, 2005; Rasmussen, 2005).  This is not to say that there are no exemplars of best practice of critical writing. There are a few, for example, Mike Press, Rachel Cooper, Nigel Cross, Steven Heller and Paul Heskett, whose writing can be viewed as an external ‘lens’ on the work of others. However, their writing predominantly attends to the product of thought rather than an individual’s process and experience, essentially focusing on design as a problem-solving activity, governed by external boundaries or imposed variables. In contrast, writings by practitioners needs to be directed towards problem-finding: the conception and planning of the artificial (Buchanan, 1995) and while there have been ‘calls’ by many design theorists in recent years for designers to resolve this communication issue (Krippendorf, 1998; Margolin, 1998; Buchanan, 2005; Biggs, 2005; Cooper, 2005), the challenge remains to be ‘taken-up’ and critically investigated.

This paper will share the initial results of a small qualitative study aiming to develop an approach to critical writing about design that draws upon individual thinking practices (i.e. tools, techniques and methods for nurturing individual creativity). Discussion will attend to the challenges facing the design researcher when communicating the rhetorical relation between personal, subjective experiences and objective communication of concepts, strategies and operational decisions in design thinking.

In the study, storytelling is used as the means of developing a style of writing that bridges academic writing and visual research; creative thinking and research language; individual creativity and collective communication. As such, the paper will ask if the method of storytelling is an effective, efficient and valuable method for communicating practice-led research to a diverse audience. Through content analysis and evaluation of stories and interviews, the paper will close by articulating a series of recommendations for developing a strategy for writing and communicating practice-led design research to diverse audiences.