Design Things and Design Thinking:
Contemporary Participatory
Design Challenges
Erling Bjögvinsson, Pel e Ehn,
Per-Anders Hil gren
Introduction
Design thinking has become a central issue in contemporary
design discourse and rhetoric, and for good reason. With the
design thinking practice of world leading design and innovation
firm IDEO, and with the application of these principles to success-
ful design education at prestigious d.school, the Institute of Design
at Stanford University, and not least with the publication of Change
by Design, in which IDEO chief executive Tim Brown elaborates on
the firm’s ideas about design thinking,1 the design community is
chal enged to think beyond both the omnipotent designer and the
obsession with products, objects, and things. Instead, what is sug-
gested is: (1) that designers should be more involved in the big
picture of social y innovative design, beyond the economic bottom
line; (2) that design is a col aborative effort where the design pro-
cess is spread among diverse participating stakeholders and com-
petences; and (3) that ideas have to be envisioned, “prototyped,”
and explored in a hands-on way, tried out early in the design
process in ways characterized by human-centeredness, empathy,
1 Tim Brown, Change by Design: How
and optimism.
Design Thinking Transforms

To us this perspective sounds like good old Participatory
Organizations and Inspires Innovation
Design, although we have to admit it has a better articulated and
(New York: HarperCollins Press, 2009).
more appealing rhetoric. As active researchers in the field of Par-
2 See, e.g., Erling Björgvinsson, Socio-
ticipatory Design for many decades, we ful y embrace this design
Material Mediations: Learning, Knowing,
and Self-Produced Media Within
thinking orientation. However, we also hold that, given design
Healthcare, PhD Dissertation Series
thinking’s many similarities to Participatory Design today, some of
2007-03 (Karlskrona: Blekinge Institute of
the latter’s challenges also might be relevant to contemporary
Technology, 2007); Pelle Ehn, Work-
design thinking. In this paper we put forth both some practical-
Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts:
political and some theoretical-conceptual chal enges and dilem-
Arbetslivscentrum (Hillsdale, NJ:
mas in engaging in design for change. We do so using the
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988); and
Per-Anders Hillgren, Ready-Made-Media-
background of our own idiosyncratic encounters with the field and
Actions: Lokal Produktion och Användning
our view on how Participatory Design as a design practice and the-
av Audiovisuella Medier inom Hälso- och
oretical field has emerged and evolved since the early 1970s.2
Sjukvården (Ready-Made-Media-Actions:
Local Production and Use of Audiovisual
Media within Healthcare) (Karlskrona:
Blekinge Institute of Technology, 2006).
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
101
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

In this paper, we argue that a fundamental chal enge for
designers and the design community is to move from designing
“things” (objects) to designing Things (socio-material assemblies).
We also argue that this movement involves not only the chal enges
of engaging stakeholders as designers in the design process, as in
“traditional” Participatory Design (i.e., envisioning “use before
actual use,” for example, through prototyping), but also the chal-
lenges of designing beyond the specific project and toward future
stakeholders as designers (i.e., supporting ways to “design after
design” in a specific project). We see this movement as one from
“projecting” to one of “infrastructuring” design activities. As fur-
ther reflections on these challenges, we discuss our ongoing
“infrastructuring” engagement in Malmö Living Labs as one in
which we design “Things” for social innovation. We conclude by
returning to design thinking and exploring the further chal enges
to infrastructuring and to open “design Things.”
Designing: From “things” to Things
As background, we suggest the need to revisit, and partly reverse,
the etymological history of “things,” as well as the political history
and the value base of Participatory Design. The etymology of the
English word “thing” reveals a journey from the meaning of a
social and political assembly, taking place at a certain time and at a
certain place, to a meaning of an object, an entity of matter. Origi-
nally, “Things” go back to the governing assemblies in ancient
Nordic and Germanic societies. These pre-Christian Things were
assemblies, rituals, and places where disputes were resolved and
political decisions made. The prerequisite for understanding this
journey from things as material object and back to Things as socio-
material assemblies is that if we live in total agreement, we do not
need to gather to resolve disputes—because none exist. Instead,
the need for a common place where conflicts can be negotiated is
motivated by a diversity of perspectives, concerns, and interests.

Our starting point in this paper is participation in Things—
these kinds of socio-material assemblies that Bruno Latour so
strikingly has characterized as collectives of humans and non-
3 Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on
humans.3 We argue that this shift of meaning in the word “thing”
the Reality of Science Studies
is of interest when reflecting on how we as designers work, live,
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
and act in a public space of design—a space that permits a hetero-
Press, 1999).
geneity of perspectives among actors who engage in attempts to
4 This frame or structure is also used for
align their conflicting objects of design. How can we gather and
the book Design Things by Thomas
col aborate in and around design Things—Things that are modify-
Binder, Pelle Ehn, Giorgio de Michelis,
Per Linde, Giulio Jacucci, and Ina Wagner
ing the space of interactions and performance and that may be
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), in
explored as socio-material frames for controversies, opening
which we explore socio-material founda-
up new ways of thinking and behaving, being ready for unex-
tions for contemporary design from a
pected use.4
pragmatic perspective. Ideas in this
paper are dealt with in much more detail
in the book.
102
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

Participatory Design, seen as design of Things, has its roots
in the movements toward democratization of work places in the
Scandinavian countries. In the 1970s participation and joint deci-
sion-making became important factors in relation to workplaces
and the introduction of new technology. Early Participatory Design
projects addressed new production tools, changes in production
planning, management control, work organization, and division of
labor from users’ shop floor perspective.5

Participatory Design started from the simple standpoint
that those affected by a design should have a say in the design pro-
cess. This perspective reflects the then-controversial political con-
viction that controversy rather than consensus should be expected
around an emerging object of design. In this situation, Participa-
tory Design sided with resource-weak stakeholders (typical y local
trade unions) and developed project strategies for their effective
and legitimate participation in design. A less controversial comple-
mentary motive for Participatory Design was the potential to
ensure that existing skil s could be made a resource in the design
process. Hence, one might say that two types of values strategi-
cal y guided Participatory Design. One is the social and rational
idea of democracy as a value that leads to considerations of condi-
tions that enable proper and legitimate user participation—what
we refer to here as “staging” and ”infrastructuring” design Things.
The other value might be described as the idea affirming the
importance of making participants’ tacit knowledge come into play
in the design process—not just their formal and explicit competen-
cies, but those practical and diverse skil s that are fundamental to
the making of things as objects or artifacts.6

Hence, Participatory Design, as it emerged in the 1970s,
might theoretical y and practical y be seen as a “modern” example
of Things (or rather “thinging,” as Heidegger would call it). Latour
has cal ed for a thing philosophy or object-oriented politics.7 His
explicit references to object-oriented programming are interesting,
not least because a key actor in the early formation of Participatory
Design in Scandinavia, Kristen Nygaard, also was one of the
inventors of object-oriented programming. For our purposes, how-
ever, we focus on participation in design Things and on strategies
for “infrastructuring” them. Included in this focus is the design of
5 Ehn,
Work-Oriented Design of
objects as “matters of concerns.” So design Things are in focus when
Computer Artifacts.
inquiring into the “agency” not only of designers and users, but
6 Ibid.
also of non-human “actants,” such as objects, artifacts, and design
7 Bruno Latour, “From Realpolitik to
devices. How do they get things done their way? How are design
Dingpolitik or How to Make Things
Public” in Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel,
and use related? How do design projects and design processes
eds., “Making Things Public:
align human and non-human resources to move the object of
Atmospheres of Democracy” in
design forward? How might designers participate in these Things
Catalogue of the Exhibition at ZKM –
and position themselves in the “collectives of humans and
Center for Art and Media – Karlsruhe,
non-humans?”
20/03-30/10 2005 (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2005), 4-31.
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
103

---

As the paper evolves, two “thinging” approaches emerge.
In the first, Participatory Design is characterized as an approach
to involve users in the design and, as suggested by Redström,
to encounter in the design process use-before-use.8 In such a
“traditional” approach, Participatory Design is seen as a way to
meet the challenges of anticipating or envisioning use before
actual use, as it takes place in people’s lifeworlds. A complemen-
tary position suggests deferring some design and participation
until after the design project, opening up the possibility of use as
design, or design-after-design.9 This approach means design as
“infrastructuring,” addressing the chal enge of design as ongoing
and as anticipation or envisioning of potential design that takes
place in use after design in a specific project.
Thinging: From “Projecting” to “Infrastructuring”
The project is the socio-material Thing that is the major form of
alignment of design activities. A project is the common form for
aligning resources (people and technology) in all larger design
endeavors. Projects are Things that have objectives, time lines,
deliverables, and more. In practice, resources that must be aligned
in a design project might include project briefs, prototypes,
sketches, ethnographies and other field material, buildings,
devices, project reports, “users,” engineers, architects, designers,
researchers, and other stakeholders.

Projects often are designed to go through a number of con-
secutive stages of gradual refinement. They typical y have names
like “analysis,” “design,” “construction” and “implementation.”
However, the shortcomings of such an approach are wel -known
and many: the top-down perspective hindering adaptation to
changing conditions, the hierarchical structure adverting “legiti-
mate” participation, the rigidity of specifications. Hence, the cal
for user involvement and Participatory Design approaches.

Rather than thinking of a project as a design Thing consist-
ing of the four phases of analysis, design, construction, and imple-
mentation, a Thing approach would see this as a collective of
humans and non-humans and might rather look to the performa-
tive “staging” of it. Inspired by Pedersen, we could then consider
these questions:10 How do we construct the initial object of design for a
project? How do we align the participants around a shared, though prob-
lematic or even controversial, object of concern? How do we set the stage
for a design Thing? As work proceeds, how can the involved practices
be made reportable (e.g., fieldwork, ethnographies, direct participa-
tion)? How can the object of design be made manipulatable, enrol ing
8 Johan Redström, “Re:definitions of Use,”
the participating non-human actors represented in forms that can
Design Studies 29, no. 4 (2008): 410-23.
be experienced (e.g., sketches, models, prototypes, and games)?
9 Ibid.
How are the objects of design and matters of concern made into public
10 Jens Pedersen, “Protocols of Research
and Design” (PhD thesis, Copenhagen IT
University, 2007).
104
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

Things and opened to controversies among participants, both in the
project and outside it (e.g., negotiations, workshops, exhibitions,
public debate)?

However, as Klaus Krippendorff has pointed out, projects
are only part, or a specific form, of alignments in the life cycle of a
device, and every object of design eventual y has to become part of
already existing ecologies of devices, in people’s already ongoing
lifeworlds.11 Hence, both the beginning and end of a designed
device is open and hardly ever constrained to the limits of the
project. This openness is principal y interesting because it empha-
sizes the importance of understanding how design in a project is
related to user/stakeholder appropriation, be it as adoption or
redesign, and how users make it part of their lifeworld and evolv-
ing ecologies of devices. Hence, strategies and tactics of design for
use must also be open for appropriation in use, after a specific
project is finished, and consider this appropriation as a potential,
specific kind of design.
Participatory Design Things and Use Before Use
Early attempts to conceptualize Participatory Design were made
by referring to Wittgenstein and the language-game philosophy.12
Design was seen as meaningful participation in intertwined lan-
guage-games of design and use (professional designers and profes-
sional users); whereas, performative design artifacts, such as
mock-ups, prototypes, and design games, could act as boundary
objects binding the different language-games together.13

With this conceptualization followed the specific design
chal enge of setting the stage for another specific design language-
game—one that has a family resemblance with (professional) lan-
guage-games of different stakeholders, especially users
(lay-designers) and (professional) designers. Thus, in the language
11 See Klaus Krippendorf, The Semantic
Turn: A New Foundation for Design (Boca
of this paper, this staging meant literal y assembling socio-mate-
Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Group, 2006).
rial design Things, with potential y controversial design objects and
12 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
matters of concern. The focus thus shifted to socio-material Things as
Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
assemblies rather than being on things as objects.
1953).

This shift led to recommendations and practices for a
13 See Ehn, Work-Oriented Design of
Computer Artifacts; see also Susan L.
design process based on the (work) practices of legitimate but
Star, “The Structure of Ill-Structured
resource-weak stakeholders (i.e., actual or potential “end-users”).
Solutions: Boundary Objects and
Work ethnographies and other ways to focus on the users’ under-
Heterogeneous Distributed Problem
standing became central. So did engaging in participative design
Solving,” in Distributed Artificial
activities, such as participative future workshops.14 But the most
Intelligence 2, Les Gasser and Michael
significant shift was the replacement of systems descriptions with
Huhns, eds. (San Francisco: Morgan
Kaufman, 1989), 37-54.
engaging hands-on design devices, like mock-ups and prototypes
14 Robert Junk and Norbert R. Müllert,
and design games that helped maintain a family resemblance with
Zukunftswerkstätten: Wege zur
the users’ everyday practice and that supported creative, skil ful
Wiederbelebung der Demokratie (Future
participation and performance in the design process. A decisive
workshops: How to Create Desirable
Futures) (Hamburg: Hoffmann und
Campe, 1981).
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
105

---

shift in design approach occurred when user participation as
design-by-doing and design-by-playing became ways to envision
use-before-use.15 The shift came on the heels of a breakdown in
communication between designers and users (lay designers) in
using more traditional design methods. These methods did not
make sense to all participants.

There are striking similarities here between how we started
to use design-by-doing and design-by-playing design artifacts in
participatory projects in the early 1980s (e.g., supporting graphic
workers and their unions in shaping new technology and work
organization in newspaper production) and the focus on prototyp-
ing and role-playing as creative tools in contemporary design
thinking.16

Note that this view on design Things as intertwined lan-
guage-games, with its focus on the relation between designers and
users, was developed in the societal context for, and discourse
around, democratization of the workplace in Scandinavia in the
1970s. In practice, design Things did not stand alone. They were
linked to other Things—especial y to a formal “negotiation model”
for design projects focusing on skills and work organization,
intended to strengthen the voice of workers and their local trade
unions in negotiations with management and in controversies
around the design and introduction of new technologies at the
workplace.17

What, then, is the role of non-human “participants,” such as
design devices in the form of prototypes, mock-ups, design games,
models, and sketches in design Things? In project work, a strong
focus is placed on “representations” of the object of design. Tradi-
tional y, these representations are thought of as gradual y more
refined descriptions of the designed object-to-be. The suggestion
here instead is to focus on these devices as material “presenters” of
15 See Pelle Ehn and Morten Kyng,
the evolving object of design supporting communication or partic-
“Cardboard Computers,” in Design at
ipation in the design process. This evolving object of design is
Work: Cooperative Design of Computer
potential y binding different stakeholders together, and it clearly
Systems, Joan Greenbaum and Morten
also has a performative dimension. The “presenters” of the object
Kyng, eds. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
of design, of course, have to be elected and enrol ed by the other
Erlbaum Associates, 1991),169-96, and
Pelle Ehn and Dan Sjögren, “From System
participants, but once engaged, they are active participants in a
Description to Script for Action in Design
design Thing as a col ective of humans and non-humans.
at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer

We might also view these “presenters” as boundary objects
Systems,” in Design at Work:
in participatory design Things.18 They stabilize the design Thing
Cooperative Design of Computer
and al ow some transference and commonality across the bound-
Systems, 241-68.
16 Ehn,
Work-Oriented Design of
aries of language-games, but they also acknowledge that different
Computer Artifacts.
stakeholders might at the same time hold very different views.
17 Pelle Ehn and Åke Sandberg,
Hence, in any design process, when establishing heterogeneous
Företagstyrning och Löntagarmakt
design Things with multiple stakeholders, considering how such
(Management Control and Labor Power)
(Falköping: Prisma, 1978).
18 Star, “The Structure of Ill-Structured
Solutions,” 37-54.
106
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

boundary objects can be identified and enrol ed would be impor-
tant, as would being aware of the diverse meanings that these
“presenters” might carry in relation to the different stakeholders.

With this view of Participatory Design as participative,
entangled design Things that align language-games with heteroge-
neous matters of concern, and of design objects or devices both as
“presenters” for the evolving object of design and as boundary
objects for binding these heterogeneous language-games together,
we now look to the chal enges of this participative approach.
Infrastructuring Things and Design after Design
One limitation of participatory design Things as we’ve conceptual-
ized them is the focus on projects supporting identifiable users.
Basical y, the design process described is laid out to support such
users’ interests, and the products or services designed are to be
supportive of these interests as well. Critics have accurately
pointed out that there are stakeholders other than immediate users
and that people appropriate designs in unforeseen ways. Envi-
sioned use is hardly the same as actual use, no matter how much
participation has occurred in the design process.

Do the idea of Participatory Design and the strategies of
envisioning “use before use” have to be given up altogether then?
What can designers do, and how are these design actions related to
unforeseen users’ appropriation of the object of design into their
lifeworlds? How can users in their everyday activities understood
as a kind of design activity, be inspired by and “enact” the traces,
obstacles, objects, and potential y public Things left by the profes-
sional designers? These design Things are different from those
played and performed by designers in a project, but nevertheless,
they are design Things (in use). We are not suggesting, of course,
that all appropriation in use can or should be understood as design
Things. However, we do recommend opening up design
approaches in a design project to explicitly support this kind of
appropriation in use after the specific design project.

In such an approach, both professional designers and poten-
tial users are seen as designers, much as in “traditional,” project-
bound Participatory Design; but rather than participating in
design Things as synchronous entangled language-games, they are
participating in design Things separated in time and space. Rather
than focusing on involving users in the design process, focus shifts
toward seeing every use situation as a potential design situation,
as suggested for example by Fischer and Sharff.19 So there is design
during a project, but there is also design in use. There is design (in
19 Gerhard Fischer and Eric Scharff, “Meta-
use) after design (in the design project).
Design—Design for Designers,” in
Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on
Designing Interactive Systems (DIS
2000), D. Boyarski and W. Kellogg, eds.
(New York: ACM, 2000), 396-405.
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
107

---

Hence, in design Things carried out in a project, (profes-
sional) designers have to acknowledge that design Things poten-
tially will go on in use, and they eventually might also have
entirely new stakeholders. Hence, in design Things, the crucial
perspective at project time is to open up for new design Things in
later use. This shift in focus moves from design Things that aim at
useful products and services, to design Things that support good
environments for future design Things at use time. Shifting from
traditional design for use Things to ongoing design for design
Things, we seem confronted not only with design Things that
engage multiple stakeholders and presenters, but also a chain of
one design Thing after another. So the move is toward design
Things (at project time) designing potential boundary-objects
(infrastructure) that can be supportive of future design Things (at
use time). However, the relations between these design Things,
rather than being clear-cut, form a web of interwoven language-
games over time.

Star and Ruhleder have cal ed such mediation infrastructur-
20 See Susan L. Star and Karen Ruhleder,
ing, identifying it as more of a “when” than a “what.”20 An infra-
“Steps Toward an Ecology of
structure (e.g., railroad tracks, cables, or the Internet) reaches
Infrastructure: De¬sign and Access for
Large Information Spaces,” Information
beyond the single event (temporal) and the site event (spatial); it
System Research 7, no. 1 (1996): 111-34;
does not need to be reinvented every time; and it is embedded into
see also Susan L. Star and Geoffrey C.
other socio-material structures. However, the infrastructure also is
Bowker, “How to Infrastructure,” in The
accessible only by participation in specific practices. Hence, infra-
Handbook of New Media, Leah A.
structure, or rather infrastructuring, means aligning socio-material
Lievrouw and Sonia M. Livingstone, eds.
(London: Sage Publications, 2002),
public Things; it is relational and becomes infrastructure in the
151-62.
relationships between design Things at project time and (multiple,
21 See Helen Karasti, Karen S. Baker and
potential y controversial) design Things in use. This infrastructure
Florence Millerand, “Infrastructure Time:
is shaped over extended timeframes, not only by professional
Long-term Matters in Collaborative
designers, but also by users as mediators and designers who
Development” Computer Supported
“infrastructure” in ways never envisioned at project time. Infra-
Cooperative Work, 19 (Berlin:
SpringerLink, 2010), 377-405; Michael
structuring entangles and intertwines activities at project time
Twidale and Ingbert Floyd,
(e.g., selection, design, development, deployment, and enactment)
“Infrastructures from the Bottom-Up and
with everyday professional activities at use time (e.g., mediation,
the Top-Down: Can They Meet in the
interpretation, and articulation), as well as with further design in
Middle?” in Proceedings of the Tenth
use (e.g., adaptation, appropriation, tailoring, re-design, and
Anniversary Conference on Participatory
Design (2008) (Bloomington: Indiana
maintenance).21
University Press, 2008), 238–24; and

An infrastructuring strategy, according to architect Stan
Volkmar Pipek and Volker Wulf,
Al en, must pay attention to how existing infrastructures condition
“Infrastructuring: Toward an Integrated
use, but in doing so, it also must deliberately design indeterminacy
Perspective on the Design and Use of
and incompleteness into the infrastructure, leaving unoccupied
Information Technology,” Journal of the
slots and space free for unanticipated events and performances yet
Association for Information Systems 10,
no. 5 (2009): 447-73.
to be.22 Such strategies for opening up controversial Things serve as
22 Stan Allen, Diana Agrest, and Saul
a kind of “event architecture,” where the focus is on designing
Ostrow, Practice: Architecture,
“architecture-events” rather than “architecture-objects,” asserted
Technology and Representation (London:
Tschumi.23 Here, the infrastructure supports multiple and hetero-
Routledge, 2000).
geneous, often controversial, design Things in use (rather than
23 Bernard Tschumi, Event Cities (Praxis)
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).
homogenous and unitary ones).
108
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

With an infrastructuring design approach at project time,
then, perhaps one should try to develop the very object of design
as public Things that potential y, by the appropriation and enact-
ment by its users, can lead to new objects that in turn can make
their way into the users’ lifeworlds and already existing ecologies
of objects. But this vision cannot be approached as design from
nowhere. As we have mentioned, Participatory Design once grew
out of a concern about how design could support resource-weak
groups when information technology was introduced to the work-
place. The designer in this case was clearly positioned in the midst
of controversies regarding how the design was implemented in
use. Continuing Participatory Design into design as infrastructur-
ing, design-for-design, and design-in-use, the same guiding
values—once advocated to counter a hierarchical and formalistic
design process characterized by dominance—may prove useful.
Dominance, hierarchy, and formalisms are certainly ways in which
many social, technical, and spatial infrastructures can be charac-
terized. Hence, the rational idea of democracy and legitimate par-
ticipation might, in design as infrastructuring, lead to a focus on
support for the emergence of design Things as “agonistic public
spaces.” As Mouffe argues, the goal of democratic politics is to
empower a multiplicity of voices in the struggle for hegemony and
to find “constitutions” that help transform antagonism into ago-
nism, moving from conflict between enemies to constructive con-
troversies among “adversaries”—those who have opposing matters
of concern but who also accept other views as “legitimate.”24 These
activities are full of passion, imagination, and engagement. As
such, they are more like creative design activities than rational
decision-making processes. We must then also pay special atten-
tion, as Star points out, to those “marginalized by standardized
networks” or infrastructures.25 These “creative design activities”
cannot be performed in any universal sense as “design from
24 Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox
nowhere,” but, as Haraway puts it, only as “politics and epistemol-
(London: Verso, 2000).
ogies of location, positioning, and situating,” where partiality
25 Susan Star, “Power, Technology and the
rather than universality is the condition that al ows users to be
Phenomenology of Conventions: On Being
heard and to be understood in making “rational knowledge
Allergic to Onions,” in A Sociology of
Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology
claims.”26 This is what Suchman has cal ed the ”local accountabil-
and Domination, John Law, ed. (London:
ity” of researchers and designers.27
Routledge, 1991).

In this perspective, design becomes a question, not so much
26 Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges:
about the new or about innovative products, but, according to
The Science Question in Feminism and
Barry, more about everyday practice in particular sites and loca-
the Privilege of Partial Perspective,”
tions.28 This is a practice committed to the work of envisioning
Feminist Studies 14, no. 2 (1988): 589.
27 Lucy Suchman, “Located Accountabilities
emerging landscapes of design through which social and material
in Technology Production,” Scandinavian
transformations take place, landscapes shaped by the opening up
Journal of Information Systems 14, no. 2
of questions and possibilities.
(2002): 91-105.

As we understand it, these challenges also relate to the
28 Andrew Barry, Political Machines:
design-thinking vision of designers engaging in design thinking
Governing a Technological Society
(London: Athlone, 2001).
and the bigger picture design, for example, to IDEO projects on
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
109

---

design for social impact. In a European tradition, these chal enges
have been addressed as design for social innovation. Social inno-
vations can be products or services just like any innovation,
but they can also be a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a
social movement, or an intervention—or some combination of
these innovative possibilities. The key aspect is their capacity to
simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relations.
The Young Foundation in the United Kingdom has been a major
player in developing the social innovation perspective in theory
and practice.29 Italian designer and researcher Ezio Manzini and
the international group of people around him have been primary
drivers in spreading such design practices.30 Here, new ideas
emerge from a variety of actors directly involved in the problem to
be addressed: end users, grass roots designers, technicians and
entrepreneurs, local institutions, and civil society organizations.
From this perspective, design is no longer just a tool for the devel-
opment of functional, innovative consumer products but is
increasingly seen as a process for radical change—for developing
services, systems, and environments that support more sustainable
lifestyles and consumption habits. A foundational concept for
Manzini and his col eagues is “col aborative services:” The role of
the designer is initial y to support the development of new con-
cepts and later to make them attainable so they can result in
“social” enterprises.31

Approaches to social innovation are in line with the ideas of
Participatory Design and design as infrastructuring, and with the
corresponding guiding values put forth in this paper. Social inno-
29 See Robin Murray, Julie Caulier-Grice,
vation offers chal enging ways for designers to deal with both Par-
and Geoff Mulgan, The Open Book of
ticipatory Design and infrastructuring design Things.
Social Innovation (London: The Young

In the next section, we elaborate on the chal enges of infra-
Foundation, 2010).
structuring design Things, based on our own experiences.
30 See François Jégou and Ezio Manzini,
Collaborative Services: Social Innovation
and Design for Sustainability (Milan: Poli
Exploring Infrastructuring Design Things in Practice
Design, 2008).
Our experiences related to social innovation infrastructuring of
31 Ibid.
design Things have come through the Malmö Living Labs project,
32 Malmö Living Labs is a program within
which started in 2007 as a smal -scale laboratory to explore how
Medea, a co-production and collaborative
media initiative at Malmö University,
subcultures could be enhanced with new media.32 The project may
Sweden (www.medea.se). Malmö Living
be characterized as providing venues for open-ended, prototypical
Labs is sponsored by Vinnova, the
practices, or arenas for communication and negotiations.33 In prac-
Swedish Knowledge Foundation, and
tice, this environment has required that we build trust and long-
by the European Union Regional
term relationships with the various lab partners, and as a result,
Development Fund.
we have avoided having clearly predefined projects and project
33 See Björgvinsson, Socio-Material
Mediations; Hillgren, Ready-Made-
constel ations. Instead, our aim has been to create working rela-
Media-Actions; Malmö New Media
tions that al ow for various constel ations to develop and for differ-
Living Lab, www.malmolivinglab.se
ent possibilities to be explored. Our role in such an open-ended
(accessed February 23, 2012) and Erling
design situation has been to conduct continuous match-making
Björgvinsson, “Open-Ended Participatory
processes, where partners co-develop future possibilities and try
Design as Prototypical Practice,”
CoDesign 4, no. 2 (June 2008): 85-99.
110
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

Figure 1
Early Workshop with RGRA.
them out in real settings. Given that grassroots organizations and
cultural producers are typically more resource-weak than the
design, media, and IT companies, we pay special attention to fore-
grounding concerns and issues these partners face and to how
they match up with matters the company partners face.

The starting point for our infrastructuring process was the
arts and performance center, INKONST, which hosts a variety of
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and stakeholders that
run activities and events related to film, performance, theatre,
concerts, and music clubs. Although we have set up experiments
with several of these stakeholders, for the purposes of this paper,
we concentrate on RGRA, a grassroots hip-hop community (aka
The Face and Voice of the Street), whose members are first- and
second-generation immigrants living in the suburbs of Malmö (see
Figure 1). In hindsight, we can see how RGRA has been involved in
a number of design Things: Now we see that what started out as
broad, open-ended explorations has resulted in various constel a-
tions of projects in which RGRA youngsters and design research-
ers have collaborated with media companies, mobile phone
software developers, mobile game developers, public transport
companies, Swedish public television and radio, and city of Malmö
departments. Several constel ations have grown out of everyday
issues: exploring how RGRA could engage in street journalism
through mobile video broadcasting, dealing with dilemmas
such as how professional media and grassroots media can col abo-
rate, and looking at how to mediate a talent competition aimed
at letting people in different parts of the city and enjoying and
participating in different musical traditions meet and interact.
Another strand of matters of concerns has centered on how
RGRA might have a more visible and legitimate presence in the
urban environment.
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
111

---

A First Network of Working Relations Emerging into a Thing
During the open-ended infrastructuring process, several Things
have emerged from the bottom up as one Thing led to another.
Thus far, two of them have grown into more traditional research
projects with more clearly defined project goals. The first con-
cerned how RGRA could create new channels to distribute music
produced by its members. The Thing’s starting point was an early
workshop between the Labs’ designers and RGRA, where ideas
emerged that RGRA could set up Bluetooth poles at strategic places
Figure 2
or that Bluetooth senders could be put on buses, transforming
Passenger Listening to a RGRA Song
the bus company into a media provider. (Many youngsters in
Downloaded to her Mobile Phone on the Bus.
Malmö spend up to two hours a day on a bus commuting back and
forth to school.)

The interaction design company Do-Fi, which specializes in
developing Bluetooth services, saw potential in the idea and
agreed to participate in setting up a first round of experiments, as
did two of our research col eagues at the university with special
competence in place-centric computing. Skånetrafiken, a company
in charge of the public transport in the region, and Veolia, which is
contracted to operate many of Malmö’s bus routes, also agreed to
participate and to give access to the buses. The experiments indi-
cated that the buses could become a new space for RGRA to dis-
tribute the music of its members and thus become more visible (see
Figure 2). The bus company saw new commuter services geared
toward teenagers, which could potential y diminish vandalism.
Do-Fi saw the potential of developing a new product and new ser-
vices in col aboration with the company, Epsilon Embedded Sys-
tems. The researchers saw the potential of developing a new
research project focusing on place-specific media. The group con-
sisting of all of these stakeholders was granted research funding to
develop a portable, low-cost media hub.

In one sense, the Bluetooth bus undertaking can be seen as
just another experiment—but that view does not tell the whole
story. This undertaking was also a Thing. The experiment revealed
not only the possibility of aligning different matters of concern,
but also controversies and conflicting matters of concerns. One
controversy concerned the constel ation of partners. RGRA mem-
bers had split emotions and varying opinions about whether they
should col aborate with Veolia because the international branch of
the company at that time was engaged in building transportation
infrastructure in East Jerusalem, on what is perceived by many
Arabs to be Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. At the same time,
they saw that they could gain financially by participating and
could benefit from having access to the network of actors. RGRA
decided to participate on the condition that RGRA’s and Veolia’s
logos would not appear next to each other in any press material.
RGRA, foremost, was col aborating with the researchers and the
interaction design company and only indirectly was working
112
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

Figure 3
Youngsters Exploring a Neighborhood with
the UrbLove Mobile Game.
with Veolia. The bus experiment also generated debates around
immaterial property rights: Who could apply for patents, and who
should gain financial y if a new form for Bluetooth push technol-
ogy was developed? It also raised questions about what type of
(media) space the interior of the bus could be. Could it be trans-
formed into a more public and inclusive space, or is it to remain
an exclusive space leased out only to commercial actors, as is the
case today?
Expanding the Network of Working Relations into a New Thing
RGRA members’ experience of being to a large degree invisible in
the urban environment paral els their feeling that their neighbor-
hoods are largely unknown by people living in other parts of the
city. (A common view is that their neighborhoods are dangerous.)
One approach suggested by the group’s members to handle this
lack of connection or visibility is to construct “tourist” routes in
their suburbs and guide people through the areas. To investigate
this issue, a new Thing emerged, this time assembling RGRA,
Do-Fi and researchers with the company Ozma Game Design, and
the city of Malmö. The strategy was to see how the mobile game
platform UrbLove, developed by Ozma, could be used to create
new experiences of RGRA neighborhoods. Using the platform,
young people can explore urban environments by solving ”text”-
quizzes related to specific places. Combining Ozma’s gaming plat-
form with Do-Fi’s Bluetooth technology seemed fruitful because
players would be given the capability to download media files at
specific spots. An initial experiment in which youngsters from
RGRA helped to develop a game path in their neighborhood was
conducted. They selected places, made questions, and provided
local y produced music files available for Bluetooth download, the
lyrics of which related to the game (see Figure 3).
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
113

---

A trial game played by other youngsters showed (1) that
they found gaming to be an interesting approach to learning about
unknown urban environments, (2) that the game created a sponta-
neous interaction between the players and the locals, and (3) that
developing a game engine with which the youngsters could easily
make their own game paths was needed. The most important issue
addressed in this Thing concerned which areas of the city are
worth exposing in a positive light. The actors in this Thing applied
for and received research money to explore how an open game
engine could be developed and used to bridge urban barriers. This
example il ustrates how design Things also develops into specific
projects (that then later may become part of new design Things).

In general, our experiences emphasize the chal enging yet
constructive ways in which unifying participation and infrastruc-
turing can extend beyond the traditional design project and into
new kinds of design Things. When reflecting on the shift from our
previous experience of “projecting” to “infrastructuring,” we see
our strategy has changed in several ways to allow for working
with infrastructuring for ongoing Thinging, or design-after-
design. First, we have worked on creating ongoing working rela-
tionships or new forms of infrastructuring practice(s) so that
heterogeneous partners can bring forth the issues or possibilities
they want to explore and see if their vision or issue makes sense
and matches with other partners’ concerns. This approach has
meant creating loose agreements and work practices on how to
approach the unknown. This aspect of our work has been central
because we live in a fluid society where access to a rich network of
actors and resources is central—particular for providing the con-
nections that those who are resource-weak tend to lack. It also has
meant focusing on how specific issues and possibilities can be han-
dled by creating ongoing infrastructuring processes, without pre-
determined sets of partners, that require reoccurring Things rather
than a final solution. Our goal is to ensure that (1) these processes
set precedents in ways that al ow those participating to set up their
own infrastructuring processes and Things, and (2) the objects
designed al ow for design-after-design and have at least elements
of Thinging. In RGRA’s case, the aim has been to create conditions
that allow ongoing design of Things and infrastructuring to
happen. At this time, RGRA members do not construct any objects
on their own, although the aim is that they wil . However, in both
of the cases described, we have seen Things go beyond a specific
project into more sustainable and long-term learning and working
relationships. The relationship between the company Do-Fi and
RGRA has, for example, gradual y emerged into a self-sustaining
col aboration. During the past two years, they have col aborated on
several experiments within the framework of Malmö Living Labs.
114
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---

Their complementary competencies have been mutually recog-
nized as valuable resources. They now are planning to form a com-
pany together.

Such Living Lab experiences bring to light the chal enges
that proponents of Design Thinking need to address. Although we
agree with the basic tenets of Design Thinking, we argue that, to
become a sustainable endeavor, it needs to go beyond projecting
and be seen as ongoing infrastructuring for Thinging. Our experi-
ences also show that those of us who take up the challenge of
design-for-design need to consider how it can be done beyond
making products that can be configured at use-time—in other
words, how we as designers can develop practices that are always
already ready for ongoing changes. This chal enge is one we also
bring with us as we seek to take our Living Labs infrastructuring
design Things experience one step further.
Things That Matter?
During the past years, we have been able to scale up our Living
Labs design Things engagement. To maintain our close working
relationships and the trust built among our partners, we have
decided to grow three small col aborating labs, rather than one
large lab. The city of Malmö is characterized by multi-ethnicity,
cultural production, youth culture, and new media industry. These
aspects also lead to the rationale behind the content orientation
and cultural and geographic position for the three col aborating
living labs innovation milieus: “The Stage,” “The Neighborhood,”
and “The Factory.” Although they differ in orientation and geo-
graphic location, these three living labs are all founded on some
shared ideas and values. They are all based on user-driven design
and innovation activities, growing out of social movements. They
also are planned as open innovation social and technical plat-
forms, integrated with the broader innovation systems in the city
and region. From this position, they invite col aboration between
people, companies, public agencies, cultural organizations, and
NGOs, thus opening the borders and aligning potential y conflict-
ing matters of concerns between users driving innovation, busi-
ness incubators, new business models, research and education.
Final y, although not driven by it, these environments all explore
the potential of new media for co-creation and social innovation.
As such, they support the collaboration between amateurs and
professionals in col aborative cross-media productions. They use
social media in co-creation projects leading to new services and
products, and when applicable, they use new media co-creation
strategies, such as open source, open content, do-it-yourself, etc.

Emerging design Things include a multiethnic group of
women with a broad range of language skil s organizing a col ab-
orative service through which they provide meals for a large group
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012
115

---

of arriving refugee orphans, urban planning initiatives by
citizens using new tools and participative processes, and the
implementation of a creative commons business model that sup-
ports independent movie makers in financing and distributing
their productions.

This infrastructuring of design Things might seem a long
way from designers’ participating in projects with typographers
and machinists who are struggling to democratize the workplace
in the 1970s. However, in our view the basic design approach and
values represent a continuation of that movement, and the pro-
gression results in ways to seriously engage in controversial design
Things—ways that seem to converge with, but also chal enge, con-
temporary design thinking.

In the early development of Participatory Design, propo-
nents envisioned a new role for the designer in setting the stage for
col aborative design Things at project time. In this paper, we have
further elaborated on the designer’s role in supporting future
appropriation—as a kind of design at use time, as ongoing infra-
structuring design Things.

We opened the paper with reference to Bruno Latour’s view
on things as socio-material assemblies and col ectives of humans
and non-humans and his quest for a thing philosophy. As a final
note, we bookend this paper with the position of pragmatist
philosopher John Dewey on controversial Things and the public -
that in fact the public is characterized by heterogeneity and con-
flict.34 Designing for, by, and with stakeholders may be chal enging
enough where common social objectives are already established,
institutionalized, or at least seen as reasonably within reach. These
social communities are supported by relatively stable infrastruc-
tures. The real y demanding chal enge is to design where no such
consensus seems to be within view, where no social community
exists. Such political communities are characterized by heteroge-
neity and difference with no shared object of design. They are in
34 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems
need of platforms or infrastructures, “agonistic” public spaces—
(New York: Henry Holt and Company,
not necessarily to solve conflict, but to constructively deal with
1927); Noortje Marres, “Issues Spark a
disagreements. In such heterogeneous design Things public con-
Public into Being,” in Making Things
troversial matters can unfold as actors engage in alignments of
Public: Atmospheres of Democracy,
their conflicting objects of design. Design thinking that wants to
Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, eds.
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005),
make a difference cannot ignore the challenge of passionate
208-17.
engagement in controversial design Things.
116
DesignIssues: Volume 28, Number 3 Summer 2012

---