Dialogue Through Design: Visual Communication Across The Cultural Divide

This thesis describes how a designer pursued dialogue and collaboration in the design process when a shared verbal language or assumed technologies were not present. From June 2008 to February 2009, a two-phase project explored the role of communication design in a rural community in Africa. It considered how principles of governance could be applied to create a more transparent dialogue during the design process and investigated the impact of a designer's presence and absence in this context. During the project, a field bag was designed to act as a writing surface for ten women in Rwanda to use while participating in creative activities during the rituals of daily life. The activities were developed to help a designer have a visual conversation when working with individuals who do not share the same language, in order to discover the needs, assets, beliefs and desires of an individual or group before offering a design solution. By introducing a design methodology into a development context, adaptive tools were created to increase the opportunity for appropriate and effective outcomes. By focusing greater attention on the unspoken needs of the underserved, the often overlooked potential of their ideas can be revealed and accessed for future innovations. From here, design positions itself as a discipline that embraces ambiguity in the midst of complexity when seeking to address significant problems in a sustainable fashion.