Transmodality and temporality in design interactions

► I explore the concept of “multimodality” in face-to-face communication. ► I develop the related concept of transmodality as an alternative formulation. ► Transmodality is analyzed in the context of designing a single object. ► I argue that transmodality can overcome some drawbacks of multimodality. In this paper I explore the “multimodal communication” framework by developing the concept of transmodality. I examine how features of language and embodied action in product design interactions over time consequentially influence the shape of subsequent communicative actions in particular ways, which in turn cumulatively affect the emergence of a design. I show how talk and embodied action themselves constitute through their very properties a central mechanism by which ideas are transformed into designed, real-world objects. Using data collected during an ethnographic study of a design studio in Sweden, I focus on how particular features of a designed object are rendered “transduced” calques of corresponding features of the design interactions that themselves traverse modalities (from, for instance, verbal descriptors like “soft” to particular gesture forms) and ontologies (from debatable topics to fixed material features of an object). Over the course of several interactions in the studio, spanning a number of days, particular gesture forms are repeatedly and consistently linked to particular concepts, which in turn are translated into hand sketches and computer drawings, which are then used to create a prototype ready for show. As I demonstrate, the process of creation is constituted by a generative contrapuntal elaboration between the emerging interactions and the emerging design.