Spontaneous Design in Industrial Shopfloors

Ana Correia de Barros, Rúben Moutinho, Inês Magalhães, Catarina Correia

Although the work of operators in industrial shopfloors tends to be thought of as monotonous and devoid of creativity, ethnographies of work have documented examples where this is not always the case, finding cases of inventions by operators while at work. In design research, the study of spontaneous design, i.e., design made by non-designers, has looked into communities defined by geography, socioeconomic status, or abilities to inform design researchers and practitioners alike about users’ needs and aspirations, but has not explored the context of industrial shopfloors. However, studying spontaneous design in industrial shopfloors, namely what motivates them and how they are crafted, could be a way of informing the better design of shopfloor equipment to ultimately improve work conditions. We conducted an investigation in the shopfloors of 11 factories in Portugal across seven industry sectors, which rendered 205 examples of spontaneous design. Our analysis of these examples denotes that workers engage in spontaneous design to improve ergonomics, performance and product quality, having as underlying values the quests to save time, material and equipment. We argue that studying spontaneous design in industrial shopfloors can be a form of user research to inform better workplace design in the future.