Dr. Yu is Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at Southeast University in Nanjing, China. Her research interests include user expereince, intercultural communication, and digital rhetoric.
All Sessions by Yunye Yu
Day 2
May 31, 2019- 16:55
Persuasion and persistence: how technical communication functions in client-designer communication
16:55 – 17:40The focus of the study is the professional communication happening between designers and clients during the course of conducting a design project. A design project is never an easy task in terms of communication because 1) it usually involves in multiple stakeholders, therefore, each party holds its own value, interest, perspective, expectation, and level of knowledge and expertise which can cause potential conflicts; and 2)it is also likely to take multiple development stages, with each stage has different objectives and work that cannot be achieved without consensus or compromise among clients and designers. How do designers communicate their plan, approach, rationales, and concerns to the clients? How do designers respond to clients’ demands? Can designers uphold their value while adjusting to clients’ business needs?In this study, the researcher seeks to provide insights with three cases. The first designer is practicing service design in Finland, the second one is an interior designer who works for a Vietnamese furniture company, and the third one is a UX designer based in China. Each of the participating designers work with a specific group of clients of distinctive demands, and the communication varies profoundly in local contexts. The analysis and discussion will include three aspects: the communication challenges designers encounter, the role of technical communication in designer-clients relationship, and designers’ awareness and use of technical communication.
It needs to be noted that this is a study at its preliminary stage. The long-term goals include providing support to working professionals with regards to workplace communication and exploring the possibility of applying technical communication education in university departments like Design and Engineering. The researcher intends to share primary data including narratives and interview responses with the hope of sparking feedback and critique from the audience.
AcademicsWhereRoom 2
