Frame creation resolves complex problems in nine steps

Dorst suggests that “the five problem-focused design practices … (Coevolution, Developing problem situations, Creating frames, Exploring themes, and Fostering a discourse) can provide a new angle for approaching … open, complex, dynamic, and networked problems…”[1] The process of frame creation involves nine steps:

  1. Archaeology – Investigate who has already tried what to solve the problem.
  2. Paradox – Understand the core paradox of the problem.
  3. Context – Learn practices and scenarios that may suggest a solution.
  4. Field – Consider all stakeholders of the problem and solution.
  5. Themes – Seek to understand the root factors of stakeholders.
  6. Frames – Identify common themes as the basis for frames.
  7. Futures – “Think forward” to identify solutions.
  8. Transformation – Develop a plan for transformation.
  9. Integration – Integrate solutions into the stakeholder context.

In the frame creation process, the oscillation between analysis and creation that is central to creative design practice is intimately combined with a movement of zooming in and out (from detail to abstraction and back again) and a shift in focus from an understanding of the core problem situation to widening the context, then to refocusing on the problem within a broadened field. Central to these movements is the fifth step, where a kind of design-phenomenological analysis leads to the basic themes from which new frames can be created.[2]

#innovation-creativity #design #complexity

See also:

  1. Frame Innovation – Dorst (2015), ch. 4, § “Frame creation.” ↩︎

  2. Ibid., ch. 4, § “Case studies.” ↩︎