ABSTRACT
In contrast to work that focuses on breakdowns and failures, the work presented here pursues an interest in ne-grained inspection of how collaboration ows to successfully and productively move a design forward. In a recent study of a conversation between a designer and his clients (McDonnell, 2009), we focused on the talk-in-interaction to identify ways in which design decisions and their justications are supported by the subtle orientation of the speaker to (appeal to) his/her audience (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1971). Working with the performative aspects of language, and from the view that design conversation brings design into being, we are interested in the skills for progressing the design-for negotiating what to do (next)—that are performed through talk. Access to a shared data set intended to support the study of professional so ware design (Petre et al., 2010) presented an opportunity to further these interests by inspecting the conversation between two experienced so ware designers working on a design brief together.
