Demystifying Tacit Knowledge in Graphic Design: Characteristics, Instances, Approaches, and Guidelines

Despite the growing demand for professional graphic design knowledge, thetacit nature of design inhibits knowledge sharing. However, there is a limitedunderstanding on the characteristics and instances of tacit knowledge ingraphic design. In this work, we build a comprehensive set of tacit knowledgecharacteristics through a literature review. Through interviews with 10professional graphic designers, we collected 123 tacit knowledge instances andlabeled their characteristics. By qualitatively coding the instances, weidentified the prominent elements, actions, and purposes of tacit knowledge. Toidentify which instances have been addressed the least, we conducted asystematic literature review of prior system support to graphic design. Byunderstanding the reasons for the lack of support on these instances based ontheir characteristics, we propose design guidelines for capturing and applyingtacit knowledge in design tools. This work takes a step towards understandingtacit knowledge, and how this knowledge can be communicated.