Design: A Social Process of Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing

This paper reviews current research approaches to design and argues that social and cultural aspects within the domain of engineering design need greater attention. This is particularly relevant as design is increasingly becoming a team based activity and technological solutions are used as a means of uniting distributed experts. Collaborative technologies have revolutionised the industry in terms of accessibility to both information and people on a global scale.However, in the distributed model of communication, integral aspects of effective communication and sharing: such as rapport building, cohesive teamwork, trust, knowledge sharing and informal communication, are far less achievable.The anonymity individuals experience and the deprivation of social information in distributed collaboration hinders their ability to, and isolates them from, expressing ideas, interpreting communications and assessing situations.Engineering design is a social process. The social interactions between designers in their workplace are an integral part of the design process. Current research has contributed greatly towards understanding design in terms of individual expertise and modelling the process of design. However the interactions between designers from a social perspective have not being given adequate attention. This paper aims to highlight some of these issues, proposing that future development of collaborative technologies must support the human and social natures of the collaborative design process.