Emerging Roles in Design Expansion: ‘The Third Group’ Involved in Design

College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, 200092

^* Corresponding author: a wei.liu@tongji.edu.cn

Abstract

Design, regarded as the key factor of innovation, has evidently developed diversified designeruser relationships in order to release productivity. However, to further leverage design capabilities, ‘the third group’ of people who are neither design experts nor users will collaborate with designers through their expertise and fill the skill gap between designers and users. This study therefore aims to explore how ‘the third group’ form integral roles in the design expansion terrain. To address the research question, this study adopts semi-structured interview as the research method, through which 17 informants experienced in design practices without design background are investigated. Subsequently, the results are classified into five roles ‘the third group’ can play in the design collaboration with detail clarifications, which include ‘vision practitioner’ ‘business model designer’, ‘organization facilitator’, ‘language manipulator’ and ‘scenario composer’. Finally, the conclusion is set to contribute to identification of the design expansion terrain and the adaptive roles, which could be beneficial for non-design professionals to gain a position in design collaboration and also for designers to broaden abilities to collaborate across disciplines.