Meaningful Moments at Work: Frames Evoked by In-House and Consultancy Designers

Abstract

Design is increasingly recognised as a competitive advantage for companies, but we know relatively little of the activities and perceptions of designers in different organisational contexts. Based on 69 semi-structured interviews with 34 in-house and 35 consultancy designers, this study investigates the type and framing of 291 reported meaningful moments. We found different dominant experience frames in the two organisational contexts with different connections to motivation. On the other hand, most meaningful moments in both organisations were related to the social context and implications rather than the design activities themselves. The results highlight professional design being an inherently social and contextual activity, urging more research to take an organisationally situated perspective to design.

The Hexadecimal Factory - Product and Service Design Work in the Digital Economy

“…Anecdotally the kind of 'buzz' felt in agile pods can be infectious and when work sequencing, vision and resourcing are congruent the progressive aspects of agile are evident and in some ways at odds with more formal and hierarchical ways of working. Björklund & der Marel [3] echoes this positive aspect of agile as helping foster competency, relatedness and meaning.…”