Abstract

Narratives facilitate the communication of individual and collective experiences, perceptions, and interpretations of reality, enabling the depiction of authentic personhood as well as societal identity. Designers inherently embed and embody narratives through their work, positioning design as an agent of narrative. As a practice of inclusion, it is critical to advance the archetypal role of user-centered design from passively upholding dominant narratives, to becoming responsible for proactively uncovering, interrogating, and scaling a diversity and plurality of end-user narratives throughout the design process, with input from a range of project stakeholders. Design is framed as an agent of narratives through a conceptual framework consisting of three strategic narrative stages: (1) acknowledgement and capture, (2) negotiation and speculation, and (3) embedding and scaling. This research focuses on the second and third stage of this framework, exploring how to embed and scale narratives within and beyond a design process, focusing on the context of inclusive MedTech design. The case study of designing an upper limb arm-assist exoskeleton is used to interrogate the potential roles and applications of narratives at various levels and phases of a design process. A qualitative study and a mapping exercise are conducted with a multidisciplinary group of project stakeholders to capture their thoughts and expectations on how end-user narratives could and should be embedded within and scaled beyond the project-specific design process. The values of incorporating end-user narratives into an inclusive design process are discussed, and practical considerations and recommendations are provided for designers seeking to embed narratives within their work.