Facilitating Teamwork in the Design Process: Repertory Grid as an Approach to Exploratory Inquiry

By approaching the Repertory Grid as an exploratory design game and drawing on insight in diagrammatic reasoning we argue that this approach is useful in supporting team work in the design process. In this paper we draw on two courses inviting textile design students to contribute to the development of the Repertory Grid - originated in psychology as a one-to-one interview technique - into a tool for articulation and dialogue. Especially the concept of eliciting bipolar constructs using the triadic difference - asking how two elements are alike but different from a third one - proves to support in-depth investigations, open-ended discussions and the formulation of collective proposals and agreements in the design process.