Evolving Praxis in Design Management: The transdisciplinary trajectory

Design has transitioned from its traditional object-focus to an orientation toward human-centered design. With this shift, the complexity of design processes, products, deliverables, and artifacts has advanced to acknowledge and honor their impact on human activities and systems across the planet. As design practice has evolved, designers have searched beyond their field for tools, theoretical frameworks, and approaches developed by practitioners from other disciplines that allow for a deeper understanding of the environments and networks in which human and non-human actors engage. Many designers, including design managers, have adopted anthropology's long-standing tradition of balancing systems-level, holistic research with place-based and deeply contextual inquiry. Over time numerous. sub-fields within design have emerged to address changing conditions, such as the increasingly strategic role of design within organizations. Design Management (DM) “encompasses the ongoing processes, business decisions, and strategies that enable innovation and create effectively-designed products, services, communications, environments, and brands that enhance our quality of life and provide organizational success” (Design Management Institute, 2022). Over time DM has embraced transdisciplinarity. It is a prime example and leader in this trend.

This paper examines the confluence of theory and methods across the disciplines, specifically Design and Anthropology. Both fields are continuously adapting to accelerating and unpredictable conditions in systems that span industry sectors, economies, socio-cultural groups, and physical and virtual geographies. It is not surprising there is an increasing confluence and, at the same time, tension and defensiveness in an effort to remain “pure”. However, individuals from both fields have found ways of mixing, integrating, experimenting, and evolving theory and new forms of practice. We will draw on specific, an original transdisciplinary project from practice that will elucidate this tension as well as emerging opportunities. We will argue the weaving of the two fields offers an opportunity to more intentionally put this knowledge into practice and uphold the shared ethical imperative to “do some good” while creating environments that sustain good work. The confluence of design and anthropology perspectives and methodologies and the emphasis on praxis, the practical application of theory in practice, enables practitioners to keep the social and ecological value of design at the center of their work. It is our hope and intention that this paper will inspire designers, educators, practitioners, and theorists to continue creative experimental collaboration in their own evolving practice.