Abstract
The present study investigated professional designers’ practices in context, the role of their design tools and materials, the organization of their daily work and social connections related to their ongoing design projects. We examined the feasibility of using contextual event sampling as a method of studying professional design practices; this method involves repeated sampling of design events and actions in their social and cultural context. The data were collected electronically with Contextual Activity Sampling System (CASS), the rationale and usage of which are described in detail. The data analysis provided a view of the basic features of designers’ work; their activity, social interaction, and changes in location as well as the emotional dimensions of their experiences. Results indicated that designers’ work was multilayered, but they were not disturbed by the fluid and varying nature of the work and found satisfaction in it. We found the CASS- technology suitable for design research as it captures multimodal data and is applicable to variety of design interests and fields. Methodological implications regarding the contextual study of design practices and ideas of the tool development are discussed.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akin, Ö.: Psychology of architectural design. Pion Limited, London (1986)
Dorst, K.: Design research, a revolution - waiting - to happen. Design Studies 29(1), 4–11 (2008)
Goel, V.: Sketches of Thought. MIT Press, Cambridge (1995)
Hakkarainen, K., Palonen, T., Paavola, S., Lehtinen, E.: Communities of networked expertise. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2004)
Hektner, J., Schmidt, J., Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Experience sampling method: Measuring the quality of everyday life. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2007)
Jackson, S.A., Marsh, H.W.: Development and validation of scale to measure optimal experience: flow state scale. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 18(1), 17–35 (1996)
Mattelmäki, T.: Design Probes. University of Art and Design UIAH, Helsinki (2006)
Muukkonen, H., Inkinen, M., Kosonen, K., Hakkarainen, K., Karlgren, K., Lachmann, H., Vesikivi, P.: Research on knowledge practices with the Contextual Activity Sampling System. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Rhodes, Greece, vol. 1, pp. 385–394. International Society of the Learning Sciences (2009)
Nonaka, I., Konno, N., Toyama, R.: The concept of ”BA”: A conceptual framework for the continuous and self-transcending process of knowledge creation. In: Nonaka, I., Nishiguchi, T. (eds.) Knowledge Emergence, pp. 13–29. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001)
Reis, H.T., Gable, S.L.: Event sampling and Other Methods for Studying Everyday Experience. In: Reis, H.T., Judd, C.M. (eds.) Handbook of Research Methods In Social and Personality Psychology, pp. 190–222. Cambridge University Press, USA (2000)
Shiffman, S.: Real-time self-report of momentary states in the natural environment: Computerized ecological momentary assessment. In: Stone, A., Turkkan, J., Jobe, J., et al. (eds.) The Science of Self-report: Implications for Research and Practice, pp. 277–296. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah (2000)
Vartiainen, M., Hakonen, K., Koivisto, S., Mannonen, P., Nieminen, M.P., Ruohomäki, V., Vartola, A.: Distributed and mobile work: Places, people, & technology. Gaudeamus, Espoo (2007)
Vartiainen, M., Ruohomäki, V., Hakkarainen, K., Jalonen, S., Kosonen, K.: Studying hindrances and enablers in knowledge work with CASS-method. In: A paper presented at Activity 2008 (Activity Analyses for Developing Work) Conference, May 12-14. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Laamanen, TK., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., Hakkarainen, K. (2014). Tracing Design Work through Contextual Activity Sampling. In: Marcus, A. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theories, Methods, and Tools for Designing the User Experience. DUXU 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8517. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07668-3_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07668-3_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07667-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07668-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)