A naturalistic exploration of information design practice in a corporate setting

The rational, planful, systematic development of information products is the hallmark of the instructional design field that considerably accounts for its appeal to business and industry. There have been repeated calls by the profession for studies of instructional design practice in the work setting to better ascertain both the utility of prescriptive models of practice and their fidelity to how design work is actually done.;This study represents one such effort. Using naturalistic methods that included an emergent design and open-ended interviews, the study explored information design practice at a large Fortune 500 corporation. To ensure that poor business conditions did not unduly account for results, a validation of findings was conducted one and a half years following original data collection under an improved business climate.;Findings identified a range of dynamic, interrelated factors in the work environment that often mitigated against use of a conventional, linear-sequential approach in favor of one more iterative-cyclical to the demands of a business setting. Four design situations were identified that seemed to capture essential differences in the complexity and demands posed by the environment to the design practitioner. Experienced designers valued by the organization were found to be non theoretical, oriented to three levels of design considerations, highly improvisational, pragmatic and responsive in their approach to practice.;Recommendations were made to the corporation that included alternative strategies for collaborating with clients, staffing projects, and hiring and rewarding employees. A recommendation was made to the field to bridge the gap separating idealistic prescriptions for practice from the conditions confronting practitioners. In this respect, continued development of a constructivist approach and better dialogue with design practitioners were advocated.;Weaknesses of the study were identified within the context of a business setting and suggestions for improving research of this kind were offered. These included use of cross-functional design research teams, tighter controls on inter-rater reliability, and stronger efforts to assess the representativeness of findings across the organization.