Designing Conflict Resolution Investigating Connections Between Visual Communication Methods and Interpersonal Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is evolving as an academic field of study, with many new developing theories and practices. Interpersonal conflict comes from interactions between people with real or perceived opposing goals, resources, or viewpoints. From there, people naturally react somewhere on a spectrum of the five conflict styles: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating, or avoiding, depending on their level of concern for their needs vs their concern for others' needs. Misunderstanding or miscommunication of these needs and concerns creates significant barriers to conflict resolution. In doing so, individuals may not understand or address the roots of their conflict. For successful conflict resolution, those involved must clearly identify and communicate their issues, reach an understanding, and collaboratively develop solutions to address the sources of that specific conflict. This process relies on communication and collaborative problem-solving. Visual communication design is a valuable resource for problem-solving, sharing information, and providing perspective.

There are significant components of conflict resolution based on communication and awareness of an individual's needs and concerns. Miscommunication is a significant barrier in conflict resolution when individuals believe they understand the other without having all the information or understanding concerns and needs from the other's perspectives. Design can play a crucial role in displaying clear communication while creating a user journey to guide through the numerous layers that factor into conflict. Design can create a visual impact to influence new understanding and awareness on both conscious and unconscious levels. This is done by creating new perspectives or motivations through organization and visual messaging to best impact a desired goal. Utilizing interaction design as a tool for communication, can design resolve issues with miscommunication or misinformation as it pertains to navigating interpersonal conflict? Design can bring in a straightforward user journey that displays a hierarchy of needs and clearly presents information to help resolve the complicated pathway of conflict resolution. This investigation looks at the intersections between visual communication and interpersonal conflict resolution to see how they can support a mediation process.