Cracking open co-creation: Categories, stories, and value tension in a collaborative design process Peter Lloyd, School of Architecture and Design, University of Brighton, Lewes Road, Brighton, BN2 4AT, UK Arlene Oak, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada In this paper we show how stories and categories help to frame and express values in a car accessory design process. We consider how a group of designers plan two co-creation workshops through categorising participants in ways that impact upon the subsequent process of design. We then describe how two stories emerge during the design process, additionally structuring design discussion through linking ‘past particulars’ e experiences and behaviours that the co- creation process reveals e with ‘imagined particulars’ e stories that place specific actors, objects and relations into an imagined context. We propose a key function of stories within this collaborative design process as holding value tension, allowing contrasting values to coexist together. Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: collaborative design, framing, communication, design process, storytelling T he recent resurgence of interest in the concept of framing as a way of both analysing and thinking about the design process has usefully focused our attention on structures that anchor the flow of discourse in design processes (Dong & Macdonald, 2017; Dorst, 2015; Jornet & Roth, 2017; Paton & Dorst, 2011; Umney, Lloyd, & Potter, 2014). Rather than looking in detail at specifically cognitive elements of understanding, as did the first Design Thinking Research Symposium (DTRS) common-data study (Cross, Dorst, & Christiaans, 1996), framing aligns more readily with social and constructivist ways of looking at design behavior, and comes closer to how design professionals conduct and describe their own activity. In effect, frames serve to structure practices of design, and also how objects, including people, are perceived within those practices (Ensink & Sauer, 2003; Umney & Lloyd, 2018). Related to the concept of framing is that of storytelling (Lloyd, 2000, McCloskey, 1990), since frames are at least partially expressed through the co-construction of verbal stories (Goffman, 1981). Storytelling and narratives are widely studied in relation to creative practice (Beckman & Barry, 2009; Oak, 2013) as well as “how people actually use stories in everyday, mundane Corresponding author: Peter Lloyd p.a.lloyd@brighton. ac.uk www.elsevier.com/locate/destud 0142-694X Design Studies -- (2018) --e-- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.02.003 1 Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Lloyd, P., & Oak, A., Cracking open co-creation: Categories, stories, and value tension in a collaborative design process, Design Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.02.003