Studying and supporting design communication

This Special Issue offers a window into the thriving research and practice field of design communication. It is of interest to researchers working on information processing, task coordination, and collaboration in design as applied to a number of domains, including engineering design, architecture and construction, industrial and product design, human-centered and interaction design, strategic design, and design and innovation management. When surveying the literature on design communication, boundaries are difficult to establish because the field is broad. However, by outlining the design process as a social process and connecting to Schön’s notion of design as a reflective conversation with the situation, we distinguish three complementary and intersecting ways of looking at the field that together form the backbone of this Special Issue: The first focuses on studying design communication as information processing, the second centers on connecting languages and representations, and the third emphasizes the aspect of creating understanding. Proposing these three ways contributes to the base of knowledge on how design communication enables designing and allows for progressing the design. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the field. We then continue by summarizing the contributions made in the articles and conclude with an outlook.