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This paper presents a detailed analysis of the uses of sticky notes in a range of design-oriented activities, from three different projects. The paper makes two principal contributions. First, it introduces a socio-material analytic for the study of design materials, and exemplifies this analysis with respect to video data of designers' uses of sticky notes. Second, it illustrates how the material properties of sticky notes come to have interactional consequences in the performance of particular social actions. Four general thematic considerations emerge from this socio-material analysis of sticky notes: (1) a reappreciation of the embodiment of space, ownership and actions-with-notes; (2) the interactional history of notes; (3) the social and conceptual inertia of gestalt contextures; and (4) the unity of the social, material and conceptual in embodied design activity. • Material properties of sticky notes are used in the performance of social actions. • A socio-material analytic perspective is introduced and exemplified. • The social and material aspects of sticky notes are mutually constitutive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of 'publics' has emerged as a frame for rethinking the relationships between design practices and the communities affected by design. This paper explores two facets of the intersection of design and publics. First, we examine the notion of designing for public interests with an understanding of publics as multiple, conflicting and varied. Second, with reference to the Australian context, we reflect on different ways design communities can identify and support the formation of publics as a pivotal next step to more effectively serve its own interests and values, including the urgent enactment of social change. Our discussion identifies four sets of tensions that we offer as provocations for constructive and ongoing engagement by the design community at large to inform the process of designing for our own publics. • Reviews interdisciplinary scholarship on publics and public interests. • Maps Australia's design industry associations to identify publics' challenges and opportunities. • Identifies arising tensions across distinctions such as fragmentation or pluralism of interests. • Asks design researchers critical questions about advocacy and unionisation. • Invites discussion about how design communities can foment their own publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]