Frame Failures and Reframing Dialogues in the Public Sector Design Projects

Jung-Joo Lee

This paper studies the dynamic process of design students’ reframing dialogues with the government to obtain their acceptance on new frames. Data of this paper are gathered from two university-government collaboration projects where design students create new frames to complex societal problems, steered by the service design process. Our findings from the project journey mapping unveiled types of challenges design students encountered when introducing new frames to the government, which we call ‘frame failures’, and how they grappled with the challenges. In-depth interviews were also conducted with the government partners to understand organizational rationales of the possible frame failure modes. Consolidating the findings, we discuss design students’ situated work around frame failures, namely frame mitigation, frame simulation and frame familiarization, which can serve as sensitizing concepts for helping in interpreting designer’s framing practices and educating design students.