Talking Textiles

- Ph.D. Dissertation Puts the Textile Design Process Into Words

Emotional value. Anne Louise Bang is a trained textile designer. With her Ph.D. dissertation she offers future designers a set of tools for putting concepts and emotional values into words in a design process.Photo: Kolding School of Design

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Anne Louise Bang successfully defended her Industrial Ph.D. dissertation on 12 May 2011 at the Kolding School of Design, Denmark. Among other elements, her project involved the development of a game to help the many different participants in a design process develop a shared language and a shared understanding of textiles and their properties.

By Arne Vollertsen, Kolding School of Design

What do we mean, exactly, when we say that a material is soft or coarse or hard? Softness, coarseness and hardness are relative terms. Their meaning differs from person to person and from context to context. That makes it difficult to develop a shared vocabulary for people who are working together in a design process.

Textile designer Anne Louise Bang has developed a set of tools for discussing experiences related to textiles. She defended her Ph.D. dissertation, Emotional Values of Applied Textiles, on 12 May 2011 at the Kolding School of Design, Denmark.
“Designers are already good at communicating the properties they operate with and at conveying them to others, for example the tactile qualities of a fabric,” says Anne Louise Bang, who did an Industrial Ph.D. project for the textile company Gabriel.
“But in recent years, changes in the industry mean that there are now more active participants involved in the design process. That places greater demands on the quality of their mutual communication.”

Involving the Users

According to Anne Louise Bang, the growing emphasis on user involvement in some textile companies is one of the developments that necessitate a more deliberate approach to talking about textiles. The growing globalisation, where production and clients are scattered all over the planet, is an additional factor. These factors certainly apply to Gabriel, a firm in northern Jutland with produc­tion in multiple locations around the world. Gabriel also puts a priority on user involvement; for example, the company always develops its new designs in cooperation with a specific client.

Ground rules. In The Stakeholder Game, groups of users and designers use dialogue to develop a shared understanding of textile experiences. Here, a group presents a pyramid to illustrate four concepts for future designs. Photo: Anne Louise Bang

The Stakeholder Game

As part of her Ph.D. project, Anne Louise Bang developed The Stakeholder Game, where users and designers use a game approach to put textiles into words.

The game emerged from a basic study of the design process in relation to textile design.
“In my dissertation I address the topic of textiles in use, and therefore I have divided the design process into three ‘perspectives’. I call this structured approach to the textile design process the Tripod Approach,” says Anne Louise Bang.

The Tripod Approach applies three perspectives in relation to textiles. The first perspective deals with details, i.e. the structure, composition and properties of the fabric, such as the pattern, the colour, the texture and the durability. The second perspective is the object, i.e. the object that the textile is made for, such as an office chair. The third perspective is the context, i.e. the particular setting that the textile enters into, such as an office environment.

Shared Understanding of Emotional Value

Emotional value is another key term in Anne Louise Bang’s dissertation. Here she draws inspiration from the research field Design and Emotion, in particular Patrick Jordan’s framework The Four Pleasures, which specifies four different types of experiences: sensual, mental, social and ideological. With this framework as her point of departure, Anne Louise Bang defines her own categories of pleasure that are specifically related to the design of applied textiles: my body, myself, my workplace and the world.
“During my studies of emotional value I also came across the method Repertory Grid. This method was originally developed by psychologists in an attempt to ensure a more appreciative dialogue between patient and therapist. I use this method to describe textile experiences, often based on the notion of tactile sensuousness,” she says.

Touch and feel. Anne Louise Bang uses the term tactile perception, sensing by touch. She teaches design students to describe the emotional values of textiles through tactile perception. Foto: Anne Louise Bang

The Repertory Grid method includes the use of so-called triads; this concept lets a group of people develop a shared understanding, for example of the concepts soft, coarse and hard. After choosing three materials, each participant attempts to explain what two of the materials have in common and what sets them apart from the third. According to Anne Louise Bang, this is a good way of kick-starting a conversation about materials. A systematic use of the triad concept can enable end-users and other stakeholders in a design process to develop a comprehensive and precise terminology and thus a shared basis for cooperation.

A Safe and Secure Context

These theoretical concerns and methods came together in the development of the Stakeholder Game, which, like other design games and design probes, brings the stakeholders together in the context of a game.

To Anne Louise Bang, the advantage of using the game approach is that it provides a safe context for the participants. The game context defines a clear set of ground rules and also eliminates some of the imbalances that participants may perceive in relation to professional designers.

The Stakeholder Game is focused on office furniture. Each of the three players is given a set of ‘chips’ with fabric samples and drawings of office chairs and office environments. The players are then asked to address the concept of emotional value within the four categories of pleasure: my body, myself, my workplace and the world.

Each player picks one chip per value and motivates their choice to the other players. Next, the chips are combined in groups of three, and the triad process begins, as the players discuss what the similarities are between two of the chips, and how they differ from the third.

Based on this dialogue, the end game involves developing concepts for future designs.
“The game ends with the group explaining their choice to other groups that are similarly involved in the process,” Anne Louise Bang explains.
“The Stakeholder Game makes it possible to go from the individual participant’s personal experience to more general concepts for future designs.”

In her Industrial Ph.D. project, Anne Louise Bang developed the Stakeholder Game for use in design groups in companies, in this case specifically Gabriel. But she also sees potentials for the game in an actual sales process in relation to determining the customer’s specific needs and wishes. Anne Louise Bang also plans to use the game in the courses she teaches at the Kolding School of Design.