Collective Design: Remixing and Visibility

Creative work can be performed by thousands of people who interact through collective design systems. The designers modify and combine each other’s work in a process called remixing. Remixing can catalyze innovation by allowing designers to build on each other’s ideas. For those designing collective design systems, decisions to be made about remixing are intertwined with decisions to be made about the visibility of work in the system - that is, the extent to which designers can see each other’s work. Visibility can be universally shared, or can be partitioned according to teams or interest groups. Even if all designs are made visible, some designs are more likely to be seen than others, depending on the methods of display. The interactions between remixing and other features of collective design systems are described, and suggestions are made towards improving these systems.