Identifying problem frames in design conversation

Abstract

Design thinking concepts such as framing, storytelling, and co-evolution, have been widely identified as part of design activity though generally have been evidenced from manual coding of design conversations and close reading of transcripts. The increase in easy-to-use computational linguistic methodologies provides an opportunity not only to validate these concepts, but compare them to other kinds of activity in large datasets. However, the process of systematically identifying such concepts in design conversation is not straightforward. In this paper we explore methods of linguistic analysis for revealing problem frames within design process transcripts. We find that frames can be identified through n-grams with high mutual information scores, used at low frequencies, along with subsequent lexical entrainment. Furthermore, we show how frames are organised in primary and secondary structures. Our results represent a step forward in computationally determining frames in datasets featuring design, or design-like activity.