How Shortening or Lengthening Design Processes Configure Decision Making
Jeanette Falk, Christopher Frauenberger, Gopinaath Kannabiran
Abstract
There have been repeated calls for developing time-sensitive discourses in HCI and design research, and for re-examining engagement with power. In response, we explore the relationship between time and decision making in design processes in order to better understand how this configures power structures. We analyse two design cases: a short-term hackathon and a long-term design process. We argue that the different temporalities of design activities configure decision making — and thereby power — and that both short- and long-term design processes differ in the ways of engaging people in designing technology: Decisions on values and concepts are prioritised in long-term design processes, decisions about implementing the vision are prioritised in short-term design processes, decisions requiring negotiations with the outside world are structurally limited in short-term design processes, non-decisions in short term design processes are pragmatic and habitual in long-term design processes.