Exploring the contested borderland between data and meaning:

Abstract

At our research centre we have employed a hermeneutic phenomenological approach within a broad spectrum of projects to help us to better understand everyday human experience for the people for whom we wish to design. We have experimented with and explored creative ways to 'enter into' the lives of individuals and groups within diverse industry sectors. Finding new ways to capture lived experiences; understanding hidden 'meaning structures' within them and communicating these insights experientially are the goals driving this work. In this paper we share some examples of how we achieved these goals by infusing design thinking with hermeneutic phenomenology across four stages of our projects - Exploring; Sharing; Understanding and Showing How. These stages are kept rigorous by constantly referring back to philosophical first principles to inspire new techniques and 'ways into' the life-worlds of real people. We hope that designers and engineers will find these examples helpful in their attempts to find new perspectives on old problems and to challenge old perspectives on new problems.