Design versioning — Perspectives on situated design

What does it mean to design with a developmental mindset? As the tools we use constrain and drive our activities, how can designers take into account and respect the diversity of people and situations? We believe that design should not only be about the production of efficient tools, but it should also be concerned by the meaning, the goals and the values of what we do with our tools. We propose a situated approach that aims to open collective dialogues “intra & inter sites” to guide both the design and the development of tools and the transformations of our activities, version after version.

Since 2013, we have iterated over different versions of a digital learning tool, do•doc, that promotes the sharing of learning experiences with documented digital narratives. Our design process led us to conduct action research with educators from different learning environments, both formal and informal (Elementary Schools, FabLabs, Universities, Innovation Labs,…). These “sites” incarnate very different perspectives on learning, although they share current challenges—especially regarding the development of new knowledge communities. So, the development of do.doc brought together a network of people with different learning practices. We will show how this iterative research process through design helped reveal and discuss the underlying goals and values of the learning activities within each situation but also fed a broader debate on learning and education.

We see a great potential in this situated design approach, as a way to foster collective reflective practices and reconfigurations of activities within the sites and inter-sites. This is an attempt to draw a third path where design is an investigation process that bridges situated human dynamics with the development of technical systems.