Multiple Information Failure: A Case of Different Investments in Form and Content in Graphic Design

Abstract

This paper considers a sequence of failures in the design of information. It focuses on the Safe and Sustainable Indoor Cleaning study (SASI Clean), a 2007 government-funded study into cleaning practices in Australian childcare centers. Empowerment through participation was integral to the study, childcare workers being seen as collaborators in the investigation, not mere research subjects or informants. They worked with scientists and designers to investigate the nature of childcare as a specific context for cleaning and information delivery and to identify creative responses to its challenges. In respect of design, however, other project dynamics clashed with the frame-changing nature of participatory design. Ultimately, key project stakeholders preferred a failed model of communication, focused on the information to be transmitted over design prototypes oriented to the perspectives and situation of childcare workers, revealing skepticism to claims to knowledge to be both a compelling reason for the use of participatory design and a basic obstacle to the valuing of its results. To explore the complex human and organizational issues associated with the project, the paper uses a case study approach.