(with Klaus Krippendorff)
These documents explore the intellectual shift from technology-centered design to a human-centered “semantic turn” that prioritises how people construct meaning through artifacts. The author argues that meaning is not an intrinsic physical property but emerges through a dialogic interaction between a user’s conceptual world and an object’s affordances. This framework distinguishes between “tame” problems—which are predictable and linear—and “wicked” problems, which are complex, social, and lack singular solutions. Within this transition, content analysis and cybernetic systems are presented as vital tools for interpreting the linguistic and social contexts that define how objects are used. Ultimately, the sources advocate for a second-order understanding, where designers act as participants in a broader ecology of stakeholders and diverse cultural narratives.
Sources
• A Second-order Cybernetics of Otherness by Klaus Krippendorff, published in Systems Research, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 311–328 (1996)[1]. • The Dialogical Reality of Meaning by Klaus Krippendorff, published in The American Journal of Semiotics, 19 (1/4), pp. 17–34 (2003), available at http://repository.upenn.edu/asc\_papers/51, DOI: 10.5840/ajs2003191/41[2]. • On Systems Thinking by Klaus Krippendorff, published in Systems Thinking and Social Science, Proceedings of a Symposium at the Inter-universitaire Interfaculteit Bedrijfskunde, Delft, Netherlands, pp. 13–21 (1979)[3]. • The Reasoning of Designers by Horst W. J. Rittel, Arbeitspapier zum International Congress on Planning and Design Theory in Boston, published by the Instituts fuer Grundlagen der Planung, Universitaet Stuttgart (1988)[4][5]. • Chapter Nine: Roots in the Ulm School of Design? by Klaus Krippendorff, an excerpt from The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design[6][7]. • Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, published in Policy Sciences, 4, pp. 155–169 (1973)[8]. • On the Planning Crisis: Systems Analysis of the ‘First and Second Generations’ by Horst Rittel, published in Bedriftsøkonomen, nr. 8, pp. 390–396 (1972)[9][10]. • Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Second Edition) by Klaus Krippendorff, SAGE Publications (2004), ISBN: 0-7619-1544-3[11][12]. • Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (First Edition) by Klaus Krippendorff, SAGE Publications (1980), ISBN: 0-8039-1497-0[13][14]. • On Communicating: Otherness, Meaning, and Information by Klaus Krippendorff, edited by Fernando Bermejo, Routledge (2009), ISBN: 978-0-415-97859-0, DOI: 10.203/89480-4[15][16]. • The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design by Klaus Krippendorff, Taylor & Francis Group, CRC Press (2006), ISBN: 978-0-415-32220-1[17][18].