Digital Tools to Help Interdisciplinary Design Teams Collaborate
In this day and age, interdisciplinary collaboration, i.e. experts from different fields and disciplines collaborating together to reach a common goal, is a necessity and not a luxury. This especially true for design teams and tech teams. This article looks at some of the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration and the strategies that exist to overcome those challenges. It then looks at how digital tools can help teams enact those strategies and spotlights specific examples of commercial tools that teams can use.
Let’s Talk about Interdisciplinary Collaboration
The praises of interdisciplinary work are endless and it has been found to increase:
- Innovation, (Klein, 1990; Rosenberg & Kumar, 2011),
- Company profits (Kuziemsky et al., 2009; Akinnawonu, 2017),
- Team creativity (Repko, 2012; Sanders & Strappers, 2012), and
- Customer satisfaction (Norman, 2002; Akinnawonu, 2017).
By utilising the knowledge, skills, tools, and frameworks of different and often dissimilar disciplines, interdisciplinary teams are better equipped to solve problems and answer questions that span across disciplines, where a mono-disciplinary expert would not have the knowledge needed to address it on their own.
This form of collaboration is not without its challenges, however. Interdisciplinary teams can struggle when it comes to agreeing what methodologies to use, how to evaluate their work, which responsibilities fall to whom, and what the goals or objectives of the collaboration should be (Lyall et al., 2011). It can also be difficult to reach a common language or a shared understanding of the problem and solution spaces they’re working in (Winowiecki et al., 2011). This is not to mention the potential for miscommunications and disciplinary biases to also make collaborations more difficult (Stephenson et al., 2010).
Thankfully, solid strategies to overcome many of these challenges have already been created. Deciding on a shared set of terminology and a unified knowledge repository or a location for approved ideas and documents is crucial; almost like the engagement party prior to the upcoming disciplines’ wedding (Crease, 2010). Additionally, setting expectations early on in some sort of ‘kick-off’ meeting regarding the timelines for different phases/activities and regarding individual stakeholders’ goals and how those align with collective team goals, so that all members can begin to work in harmony (Stephenson et al., 2010; Matthews et al., 2011). The collective reflection on higher-level goals and the breaking down of those goals into lower-level tasks can significantly aid group work on creative tasks. Finally, clarifying team roles and where they overlap is also critical for understanding exactly where, when how, and between who collaboration will take place (Antonic, 2021).
There’s a Field for That
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a relatively young field working at the intersection of collaborative activities between groups of people and technological interventions to support that collaboration. Since its inception around 1984, the field’s focus has shifted from early technologies such as e-mail and blogs, to social media, to more immersive platforms and innovative concepts such as the meta-verse. The core of CSCW has always been the facilitation of group work through the use of technology (Grudin and Poltrock, 2014) in order to give more power and capability to its users . CSCW technologies mainly target three collaborative behaviours, namely: communication, sharing information, and coordination.
Communication Tools. Communication tools remain at the heart and soul of CSCW, massively due to the irreplaceable nature of communication in group settings. While these tools initially focused on singular methods of communication such as voice, video, and text, more recent platforms combine multiple modes of communication, as well as concurrently offering other features, such as information-sharing or coordination (e.g. through a shared calendar with conversation participants).
Information-Sharing Tools. Information-sharing tools perhaps have the widest range of diversity. While databases themselves are typically not studied within the CSCW space since they have developed into a field of their own, systems that utilise databases as a back-end can be considered as information-sharing CSCW tools. A popular example is Wikipedia, which gave rise to a variety of topics for exploration, such as information and contributor reliability, visualising edit histories, how to provide an incentive for contributions, and so on.
Coordination Tools. Coordination tools help team members to coordinate their activities in a shared space. These include group calendars and workflow management systems. These tools are either stand-alone, or they can be integrated into communication or information-sharing platforms. The recent trend has been to have a single system offering all three functions, in order to reduce confusion and streamline activities.
Bringing it All Together — Useful Tools
There is a clear mapping between the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration, and the ability of different CSCW tools to act as facilitating elements. Communication tools have been shown to address several of the identified challenges within interdisciplinary collaboration, information-sharing tools can allow for the creation of a common knowledge base, and coordination tools can aid with role clarity and can offer helpful support for the team’s functions. Currently, there are multiple tools available on the market to support both co-located and remote team collaborations. While many of these tools include combinations of communication, information-sharing, and coordination features, and may also support more than one trans-disciplinary collaboration need, each tool tends to have a main, over-arching purpose or feature, while others take the backstage.
Offering a Shared View of Design or a Common, Discipline-Independent Language: Communication Tools. One commercial tool that explicitly supports interdisciplinary teams and ensures cross-disciplinary hand-offs, however, is Zeplin. The platform integrates with popular design software such as Sketch and Adobe XD, allowing designers to export their ideas and designs into Zeplin in a familiar open-canvas format. Zeplin then displays those designs in different views suitable for developers (by showing code snippets, re-usable elements, exact specifications, and attributes of components), as well as project managers and non-technical stakeholders (by showing a higher-level flow with the ability to leave comments and notes). The platform saves all these representations to a shared workspace, acting as a shared knowledge repository, and can integrate with communication tools such as Microsoft Teams and Slack for leaving comments and providing updates when changes are made. The software truly focuses on trans-disciplinary collaboration by offering shared views of the designs made, and allowing for seamless communication between people viewing the different representations.
Creating Shared Knowledge or Providing a Shared Knowledge Repository: Information-Sharing Tools. The exception to this generalisation is Confluence. Confluence is the ideal shared knowledge repository that aims to break down knowledge silos, no matter the size of the team. Similar in nature to the concept of Wikis, Confluence’s strength is in its extreme flexibility to allow the creation of a repository that suits the need of the team. Using markdown to create pages, or choosing from hundreds of templates, the platform can be used to create pages of notes, share references and knowledge, plan processes and events, or collaborate on dynamically-updating widgets such as road maps or Kanban boards. It can also be used to add a directory or contents page to allow information to be found easily, and it enables the addition of any media or file, and for the organisation of pages into team spaces or hubs, making it the ultimate repository for all forms of information and knowledge. It is worth mentioning that although Confluence is excellent for sharing knowledge, there are no built-in features for translating such knowledge across disciplines; this is an effort that must be done by the team themselves through the content created and shared.
Building the Right Team Environment and Culture: Coordination Tools.
One commercial tool that goes above and beyond to build a collaborative environment for teams is Gather. More of a communication tool than a coordination tool, Gather goes beyond virtual metaphoric team spaces and allows users to create custom 2D environments with furniture and props where participants can join in as avatars and initiate video, audio, or text-based conversations through their proximity to other avatars. More like a meta-verse than a communication tool, the platform allows for the creation of an entire office space, conference hall, classroom, and so on. It also encourages more natural conversations which people can enter and leave by moving their avatar around the room, similar to real life. The vast space offered by the environments and the game-like appearance encourages breaking out into groups, as well as finding space to work individually, creating the perfect environment for collaboration. The platform also offers features such as shared whiteboards, making it perfect for design activities such as brainstorming sessions. The unique platform could also be excellent for priming/sensitising sessions by placing the team in the environment where a technology would be deployed or where their target users would normally be.
To wrap up, interdisciplinary collaboration has become a necessity for solving complex problems and achieving common goals. Collaborating across different disciplines and fields can result in increased innovation, creativity, customer satisfaction, and company profits. However, interdisciplinary teams can also face challenges such as agreeing on methodologies, evaluating work, and understanding each other’s perspectives. To overcome these challenges, establishing a shared set of terminology, setting expectations, clarifying team roles, and agreeing on collective team goals are super important. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a field that supports group work through the use of technology, and it has evolved to focus on communication, information sharing, and coordination. By using commercial tools such as Zeplin, Confluence, and Gather, interdisciplinary teams can greatly enhance their communication and collaboration strategies.
Where I Fit In
My PhD project looks at leveraging tools and techniques from design fields to make the collaborative design of AI systems accessible and inclusive. I’m working towards creating a participatory process, and a toolkit to support it, to systematically involve people throughout the AI life-cycle — with a focus on value-sensitivity.
You can check out the official page for my project on the Imperial College London website. You can also check out this other article I wrote explaining the details of my PhD project.
I’ve set up this Medium account to publish interesting findings as I work on my PhD project to hopefully spread news and information about AI systems in a way that makes it understandable to anyone and everyone. If you’ve liked this article then please consider following along as I post new things, and please like and share!
References
Akinnawonu, M. (2017), ‘Why having a diverse team will make your products better’. URL: https://open.nytimes.com/why-having-a-diverse-team-will-make-your-products-better/
Crease, R. (2010), Physical Sciences, Oxford University Press, pp. 79–102.
Grudin, J. and Poltrock, S. (2014), ‘Computer supported cooperative work’.
URL: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/computer-supported-cooperative-work
Klein, J. (1990), Interdisciplinarity: History, theory, and practice., Wayne State University Press.
Kuziemsky, C., Borycki, E., Purkis, M., Black, F., Boyle, M., Cloutier-Fisher, D., Fox, L., MacKenzie, P., Syme, A., Tschanz, C., Wainwright, W. and Wong, H. (2009), ‘An interdisciplinary team communication framework and its application to healthcare e-teams systems design’, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 9(43).
Lyall, C., Bruce, A., Tait, J. and Meagher, L. (2011), Interdisciplinary Research Journeys: Practical Strategies for Capturing Creativity, Bloomsbury Academic.
Matthews, T., Whittaker, S., Moran, T. and Yuen, S. (2011), Collaboration personas: A new approach to designing workplace collaboration tools, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Norman, D. (2002), The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York.
Repko, A. (2012), Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory, Sage Publications.
Rosenberg, D. and Kumar, J. (2011), ‘Leading global ux teams’, Interactions 18(6), 36–39.
Sanders, E. and Strappers, P. (2012), Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design, BIS Publishers.
Stephenson, J., Lawson, R., Carrington, G., Barton, B., Thorsnes, N. and Mirosa, M. (2010), ‘The practice of interdisciplinarity’, The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 5, 271–282.
Winowiecki, L., Smukler, S., Shirley, K., Remans, R., Peltier, G., Lothes, E., King, E., Comita, L., Baptista, S. and Alkema, L. (2011), ‘Tools for enhancing interdisciplinary communication’, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 7(1), 74–80.
