Gadamer claims that understanding is not a reproductive procedure but a productive one. This aligns with his “fusion of horizons” and dialectics. In order to make sense of the world, one has to communicate with others and collide with others’ horizons. Only then can one have true understanding.

In many ways, this resembles Dewey’s idea of doing and undergoing – the idea of the audience of an art piece experiencing in his/her own way the art that was created by a designer from a different space and time.

In the current service design discourse, “co-creation” and “participation” are limited to interpersonal interactions. For example, we say that a bank customer who goes to an ATM to get money is co-creating the experience of that touchpoint with his bank. However, the idea that one can co-create with customers/users/audience long after the artifact or service was devised is a powerful way to think about co-creation. I reflect on this in light of the recent passing away of Steve Jobs – he left behind a culture of design in his organization and many will continue to use his signature creations despite his passing away.

How does one create a product and design it with the understanding that it may have “excess of meaning” (Gadamer) and exist beyond its intended purposes and functions in a specific moment of space and time?

How can we rethink “co-creation” in the way Gadamer describes hermeneutics and multiple interpretations? History is replete with examples of this – people recreating meaning in their own historical contexts.