Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the person who discovered vitamin C, once said that 'discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.' The art of framing is to look at a certain problematic situation and develop multiple frames through which to see the situation at hand. Each of these frames requires different research questions and will have different solutions.

Two hands framing the view

Case Study: Food exhibition.

Let’s imagine we need to develop a temporary exhibition on food, a topic everyone is very familiar with. How can you create an exhibition that attracts large numbers of visitors? We can frame it as ‘the future of food’, ‘food technology and how it changes what we eat’, ‘our food experience’, ‘the challenge to feed the world’, ‘food and culture’; ‘(un-)healthy food?’, ‘on the origins of food’ or ‘producing, distributing en preparing food.’ Each of these frames will not only result into an entirely different exhibition but also requires specific and different research approaches. For example, if you frame it as 'the future of food', you need to explore what happens in the labs of R&D’s today, whereas for ‘food experience’ you need to explore how the experience arises in our minds and how we can let visitors have a similar experience.
Now, what is a frame? In this short movie, you can see an explanation. It is highlighted that it shapes both our perceptions of the world as it is, as well as the design activities we do.

Framing in Design Thinking - Guido Stompff (YouTube)

 There are two take-aways in relation to frames.

First, it is impossible to be sure which frame is ‘best’ in advance. Of course, we all favor some frames, but it is exactly because we develop something- like an exhibition for others- that we should be very careful with framing and making choices too early on. The way to proceed is to explore multiple frames.
Second, only by becoming aware of our own frames that shape our perceptions, interpretations and ideation, we can actively develop alternative frames. Once you ‘see’ the lens that you use to interpret the world, you can decide to put it down and pick another. There are several ways to vary with frames, of which we will discuss three in the following pages.