Tracing situated effects of innovative design methods: inexperienced designers' practices

In recent years the design research community has been active in developing new methods for user involvement and collaboration in the design process. The new methods, often called innovative design methods, correspond more to designer's genuine ways of thinking and working than do traditional user-centered ones. The entire purpose of innovative method is to allow for designer's creativity in the design of method and reflective learning, instead of relying on predefined rules of method. For this reason, codification and scientific evaluation are often regarded very challenging, if meaningful at all. This leads us to raise a question; what could be relevant ways of framing and communicating innovative design methods to better capture their nature and value?

As one attempt to explore this question, our study takes a close look at inexperienced designers' practices with innovative methods, such as probes or co-design workshops. We chose students as research subjects because their situated actions -- and the challenges they face in understanding and applying these methods -- reveal just kind of knowledge about the innovative methods that needs to be communicated. To do this, we analyzed students' learning diaries written during the design course. When the students reported uncertainties and disappointments due to 'ill-defined' nature of such methods, we were able to trace the reasons for disappointments. We also found that the innovative design methods in fact supported the students for empathic learning and design inspiration from the making process of the methods.