Aug 16, 2010
reframing
I made a connection with Jon Kolko’s ideas on ‘reframing’ taken from Schon’s ideas on framing. Used in Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking: The Drivers of Design Synthesis: Overview: Making Sense of Chaos’ in relation to design, I linked reframing with a practitioner making a shift in their practice. Framing a problem as part of moving that practice into new territory. Following Kolko’s discussion on the design process, he refers to Schon’s idea of framing in relation to scoping a design problem. Framing a problem he argues is set up pragmatically and intuitvely from what is known. Reframing in contrast alters the frame by introducing a different or unusual point-of-view:
Thus, reframing is a method of shifting semantic perspective in order to see things in a new way. The new frame “re-embeds” a product, system, or service in a new (and not necessarily logical) context, allowing the designer to explore associations and hidden links to and from the center of focus.