The Use of Design Patterns in Overcoming Misunderstandings in Collaborative Interaction Design

In collaborative design there is a need to create a shared understanding of design ideas and proposals. Misunderstandings and communication breakdowns often get in the way and need to be resolved. Little empirical research has addressed the use of design patterns in collaborative design work. An empirical study was carried out on students’ collaboration while working on design tasks. Data were analysed using interaction analysis focusing on how the participants resolved misunderstandings and communication breakdowns, and the role of design patterns. Particular attention was paid to gaps in the collaboration; situations where designers had difficulties understanding each other and how to continue the design work. One type of gap concerned difficulties seeing or finding solutions to problems. However, many gaps concerned how to define or frame problems underlying design proposals. The results contradict the conception that design patterns are examples serving the role of inspiration for reuse of design ideas: simply showing a pattern solution was not enough to resolve gaps. The main observations were that patterns had an important role in overcoming difficulties in discussions regarding rationales and problem framing, and explicitly referring to design patterns by their names was decisive for the patterns to become useful.