TY - JOUR
AU - Henderson, Kathryn
AB - Engineering sketches and drawings are the building blocks of technological design andproduction. These visual representations act as the means for organizing the design toproduction process, hence serving as a "social glue" both between individuals andbetween groups. The author discusses two main capacities such visual representationsserve in facilitating distributed cognition in team design work As conscription devices,they enlist and organize group participation. As boundary objects, they facilitate thereading of alternative meanings by various groups involved in the design process. Theintroduction of computer-aided design into this visual culture of engineering restructuresrelationships between workers in ways that can hamper the flexibility necessary for thesecrucial capacities to take place. The data are drawn from a study of the daily practicesof engineers engaged in redesigning a turbine engine package. The method is participantobservation.
TI - Flexible Sketches and Inflexible Data Bases: Visual Communication, Conscription Devices, and Boundary Objects in Design Engineering
JF - Science, Technology, & Human Values
DO - 10.1177/016224399101600402
DA - 1991-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/flexible-sketches-and-inflexible-data-bases-visual-communication-oA8JF5cGwE
SP - 448
EP - 473
VL - 16
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -