An analysis of problem framing in multiple settings

Abstract

Concerns have been expressed that digital tools disrupt the design process. Schön identifies the importance of problem framing in both design practice and design education. In this paper we use teamwork protocol analysis to examine the problem framing activities of architecture students to identify differences in framing activities in three different design settings, namely online co-located, online remote and paper-based co-located. In order to encode these design activities, we first developed Schön’s model of “reflective conversation with the situation” into “framing”, “moving”, and “reflecting”. The “framing -moving — reflecting” model is adopted as first coding scheme to examine framing..