ABSTRACT
It is accepted that “essential aspects of Design are better understood in its own terms”. With this in mind, we attempt to understand the challenges of novice designers when they enter interdisciplinary collaborative design projects and try to tackle complex and ill-defined problems. We present a way of inquiry to collect data from novice designers themselves and their collaborators. By using the Designerly Activity Theory model, we examine how novices mobilize and apply their theoretical and practical design knowledge in the real practices of collaborative design. In this perspective, it becomes possible to assess the alignment of design education in relation to the aptitude of working with others and towards professional dynamics of collaboration. Identifying the gap will allow us to create training strategies and tools that would improve novice designers’ integration into teams.
