Due to the need to present information in a fast and attractive way, organizations
are eager to use information visualisations. This study explores the collision
between the different experts involved in the production of these visualisations
using the model of trading zones supplemented with the learning mechanisms
found in the boundary crossing literature. Results show that that there is not one
single good solution to effective interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of
information visualisation. Rather, all four types of cooperation that we distinguish
– enforced, dominated, fractionated, and attuned – might work well, as long as
they are adapted to the situation and the participants accept the constraints of the
specific cooperation type they are engaged in. In any case the involved experts
and initiators have to understand and incorporate approaches that enhance the cocreative,
iterative nature of the production process. In surveying the different
forms of collaboration we detect two major forms of trading zones: the one that
encompasses the collaboration between an external client and a designer (external
trading zone) and the trading zones within an organization between content
producer and designer (internal trading zone). Both mechanisms of identifying
each other’s expertise and coordinating the different tasks in the production
process seem beneficial for the production process.
