Dramaturgical framework for the study of designers’ experiences during cloud transformation

Abstract

Conducted during the ongoing cloud transformation, this study describes and explains design professionals' experiential paradigm caused by the introduction of new functions to their digital tools and changes to business models by tool manufacturers. Existing design research focuses on design professionals' immediate interactions with digital tools as users without acknowledging their social embeddedness or how technological changes affect the design profession. The need to study designers as a meso-level social group in a complex relationship with digital tool manufacturers is now evident as designers' professional roles and identities are redefined. Looking for a theoretical foundation that reflects the patterns emerging during the analysis of questionnaire responses and semi-structured interviews, I came across Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Based on this work, I constructed the Dramaturgical Framework to study designers' experiences during cloud transformation. It comprises a primary frame, operatives, fabrications, active agents, keying, and new frames. I also borrowed various theoretical concepts to explain the themes emerging from the study of this experiential paradigm. During the analysis, these concepts were linked to designers, tool manufacturers, and their respective interactions mediated by various cloud-based tools. This is analogous to how props drive the dramatic plot, aiding in constructing professional roles. By applying the now-transformed digital tools, designers construe a new meaning for their practice and transform their professional identities in the ongoing process of deprofessionalization. Applying the dramaturgical framework helped describe how the processes accompanying the move of digital tools to the cloud altered the design practice. Explained are the multifaceted relationships between designers and tool manufacturers and the resulting changes to the design profession. Future ethnographic studies of meso-level social groups can use the presented dramaturgical framework to synthesize data while framing paradigm shifts.